Mobile phones may be source of hospital infections

	Tweet

Mobile phones used by hospital healthcare workers are often contaminated with germs, including those that can causes illness in hospitalized patients, a Turkish research team reports.

Dr. Fatma Ulger and others at Ondokuz Mayis University, Samsun, swabbed the dominant hand and the mobile phones of 200 doctors, nurses, and other healthcare staff working in intensive care units and operating rooms.

They found that 95 percent of telephones were contaminated, often with more than one type of microbe, and often with antibiotic-resistant bacteria. 

Potentially serious infectious bugs such as staphylococci were isolated from phones in intensive care units, the team reports in the online BMC journal Annals of Clinical Microbiology and Antimicrobials.

When the study participants were questioned, 90 percent said they never cleaned their mobile phones. The investigators conclude that mobile phones “may facilitate transmission of bacterial isolates from patient to patient in wards or hospitals.”

They recommend routine decontamination of mobile phones with alcohol-containing disinfectants.

SOURCE: Annals of Clinical Microbiology and Antimicrobials 2009.

RELATED STORIES:
Government official tells people to relax about flu vaccine   Study Finds Virus to Be Fast Learner on Infecting   Finding is a feather in the cap for researchers studying birds’ big, powerful eyes   Morocco may have first human mad cow death   Study finds fire stations contaminated with MRSA   Environmental changes are spreading infectious diseases – UN study   British tourist in Hong Kong has mad cow disease   Chickenpox vaccination may not prevent infection   Experts redesign common microbe to fight drug-resistant bacteria   Pneumonia jab ups survival in elderly with pneumonia   West Nile fever more severe than formerly thought   Interferon Does Not Slow or Stop Progression of Hepatitis C in Certain Patients

Comments

[ + Post Your Own ]

Now you're in the public comment zone. What follows is not Armenian Medical Network's stuff; it comes from other people and we don't vouch for it. A reminder: By using this Web site you agree to accept our Terms of Service. Click here to read the Rules of Engagement.

There are no comments for this entry yet. [ + Comment here + ]