Researchers Present 'a Novel, Automated, Efficient Environmental Disinfection Technology that Significantly Reduces C. difficile, VRE and MRSA Contamination' | Reuters.
In a study presented at the 49th Interscience Conference on Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy (ICAAC), researchers used a mobile, automated UV device to decontaminate hospital rooms at the Cleveland Veterans Affairs (VA) Medical Center in Ohio and analyzed its ability to remove troublesome bacteria, including C. difficile spores. The device, known as Tru-D, uses reflected UVC germicidal energy to decontaminate air and surfaces, including those in primary shadows. Tru-D is manufactured by Lumalier in Memphis, Tennessee. Curtis Donskey, MD, Chair of the Infection Control Committee at the Cleveland VA Medical Center, concluded that Tru-D is a "novel method for cleaning hospital rooms...easy to use...and more effective than standard disinfection for removing hardy bacteria. The Tru-D device was able to decontaminate all surfaces in 40 hospital rooms, including hard-to-clean surfaces such as the undersides of tables." 18% of sites under the edges of bedside tables were still contaminated with MRSA after routine hospital cleaning, versus 0% after Tru-D use. Research revealed that disinfection with Tru-D reduced the frequency of positive MRSA and VRE cultures by 89%.
