UV lotion to detect superbugs in hospitals

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Public release date: 10-May-2008

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2008-05/bc-ull050808.php

Contact: Charlotte Webber

charlotte.webber@...

44-0

BioMed Central

UV lotion lights the way to cleaner facilities

A team of Canadian scientists using a lotion which glows under

ultraviolet light have shown that up to a third of patient toilets are

not properly cleaned. Their findings, published in BioMed Central’s

journal, BMC Infectious Diseases, also show that spores from the nasty

bacteria Clostridium difficile (C. difficile) linger in the loo even

when it has been thoroughly wiped down.

Alfa and a team of scientists from Manitoba, Canada

investigated the spread of so-called superbugs in hospitals. Hospital

patients are thought to catch bugs like vancomycin resistant Enterococci

(VRE), methicillin resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) and C.

difficile because they are not eradicated from the hospital environment.

These bugs may be transferred between patients through

cross-contamination in the bathroom.

“Various studies have looked at the most effective cleaning agents, but

none of these studies considered whether housekeeping staff were

actually cleaning the toilets properly,” says Alfa. “It is impossible to

assess the effectiveness of any action against these bacteria unless you

can be sure that cleaners comply with protocols.”

Alfa's toilet inspectors smeared the UV lotion under the seats of 20

toilets and commodes being used by patients with diarrhoea at a hospital

in Winnipeg. Seven of these patients had C. difficile infection, while

13 others did not. The toilets and commodes were tested every weekday

for six months and checked using UV light to determine how well they had

been cleaned. In addition, samples were taken from toilet surfaces to

determine whether C difficile spores were present.

The UV marker revealed that the commodes for the seven patients isolated

with C. difficle infections had not been properly cleaned 72% of the

time. The toilets fared slightly better, with half of the samples taken

showing no residual UV lotion after cleaning. The 13 patients not on

isolation had much cleaner toilets, with only 14% glowing brightly under

UV light. Further assessments showed that differences in toilet cleaning

were “ward dependent” and since specific cleaners work on different

wards, the results likely reflect characteristics of the individual

cleaning staff.

More worryingly, C. difficle was still detected in 40% of samples taken

from the cleanest toilets (i.e. those with no detectable UV marker).

“This suggests that both the physical cleaning action as well as the

disinfectant/cleaning agent were ineffective for killing and/or removing

C. difficile from toilets,” notes Alfa.

“Our data suggest that without an agent with some activity against C.

difficile spores the physical action of cleaning alone cannot be relied

upon to effectively eradicate this organism from the toilets of patients

who are shedding this type of spore. Nevertheless, we would still

recommend that monitoring with a UV marker becomes a routine part of a

hospital's housekeeping quality assurance programme.

###

Notes to Editors

1. UV-visible marker confirms that environmental persistence of

Clostridium difficile spores in toilets of patients with C.

difficile-associated diarrhea is associated with lack of compliance with

cleaning protocol

J. Alfa, Dueck , Olson , DeGagne Pat, Papetti

Selena, Wald Alana, Lo and Harding Godfrey

BMC Infectious Diseases (in press)

During embargo, article available here:

http://www.biomedcentral.com/imedia/1653937052166774_article.pdf?random=772019

After the embargo, article available at the journal website:

http://www.biomedcentral.com/bmcinfectdis/

Please name the journal in any story you write. If you are writing for

the web, please link to the article. All articles are available free of

charge, according to BioMed Central’s open access policy.

Article citation and URL available on request at press@...

on the day of publication.

2. BMC Infectious Diseases is an open access journal publishing original

peer-reviewed research articles in all aspects of the prevention,

diagnosis and management of infectious and sexually transmitted diseases

in humans, as well as related molecular genetics, pathophysiology, and

epidemiology. BMC Infectious Diseases (ISSN 1471-2334) is

indexed/tracked/covered by PubMed, MEDLINE, CAS, Scopus, EMBASE, Thomson

Scientific (ISI) and Google Scholar.

3. BioMed Central (http://www.biomedcentral.com/) is an independent

online publishing house committed to providing immediate access without

charge to the peer-reviewed biological and medical research it

publishes. This commitment is based on the view that open access to

research is essential to the rapid and efficient communication of science.

4. Dr. Alfa undertook her B.Sc. in Microbiology from the University of

Manitoba, her M.Sc. in Microbiology at the University of New South Wales

in Sydney, Australia and her Ph.D. in Medical Microbiology at the

University of Alberta. She is board certified as a Clinical

Microbiologist with the Canadian College of Microbiologists. She is

currently a Clinical Microbiologist with the Diagnostic Services of

Manitoba as well as a Professor in the Dept of Medical Microbiology at

the University of Manitoba, and Principal Investigator, Infectious

Diseases, Canadian Centre for Agri-food Research In Health and Medicine.

Dr Alfa is available for interviews on Thursday (8 May) and Friday (9 May).

--

ne Holden, MS, RD

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