Privacy Curtains Proven Source Of MRSA Contamination

Link: Privacy Curtains Proven Source Of MRSA Contamination.

         A study from The Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Birmingham, UK, has highlighted a hitherto overlooked source of the killer super-bug MRSA. It has long been thought that environmental hygiene was the key to curbing the spread of the organism and infection-control staff across the country have been charged with ensuring that wards are kept clean, staff are meticulous over hand washing and wherever possible incidents of airborne infection are minimised. Until recently however one vital piece of the jigsaw has been missing, but at long last there is hard medical evidence to show that the privacy curtains surrounding patients' bed are an important but overlooked source of outbreaks. The Department of Microbiology at Birmingham's Queen Elizabeth hospital in collaboration with local partners has produced a report that conclusively proves a link between dirty curtains and MRSA. The results of this controlled study show that ‘The curtains surrounding the patients beds were the predominant source with comparatively high counts of organisms found'.