Contamination, Disinfection, and Cross-Colonization: Are Hospital Surfaces Reservoirs for Nosocomial Infection?
By Robert A. Weinstein, Bala Hota. Clinical Infectious Diseases, 2004
699 citations recorded by the source corpus.
Abstract Despite documentation that the inanimate hospital environment (e.g., surfaces and medical equipment) becomes contaminated with nosocomial pathogens, the data that suggest that contaminated fomites lead to nosocomial infections do so indirectly. Pathogens for which there is more-compelling evidence of survival in environmental reservoirs include Clostridium difficile, vancomycin-resistant enterococci, and methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, and pathogens for which there is evidence of probable survival in environmental reservoirs include norovirus, influenza virus, severe acute respiratory syndrome—associated coronavirus, and Candida species. Strategies to reduce the rates of nosocomial infection with these pathogens should conform to established guidelines, with an emphasis on thorough environmental cleaning and use of Environmental Protection Agency—approved detergent-disinfectants.
Subfields: Infectious Diseases, Microbiology, Pulmonary and Respiratory Medicine
View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/22c1f5974d6cd3c933ce42a90aff6b4c84728c6e
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In Infectious Diseases
Citations in the corpus
- A Review of the Research Literature on Evidence-Based Healthcare Design (2008, background): “This underscores the importance of selecting materials that are easily cleaned and of proper cleaning and disinfection procedures (Aygun et al., 2002; Barker, Vipond, & Bloomfield, 2004; Boden, 1999; Dettenkofer, Wenzler et al., 2004; French et al., 2004; Griffiths, Fernandez, & Halcomb, 2002; Hota,”
- 2007 Guideline for Isolation Precautions: Preventing Transmission of Infectious Agents in Health Care Settings (2007, background): “11, 72, 73, 834 The frequency or intensity of cleaning may need to be changed, based on the patient's level of hygiene and the degree of environmental contamination and for certain infectious agents with reservoirs in the intestinal tract.”