Privacy curtains may pose risk for infection transmission

51st ICAAC

CHICAGO — Privacy curtains are frequently and rapidly contaminated with potentially pathogenic bacteria, according to a speaker at the 51st Interscience Conference on Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy.

Marin Schweizer, PhD, associate at the University of Iowa Carver College of Medicine, Iowa City, Iowa, said that further study is warranted regarding the role of these curtains in pathogen transmission.

“We talked to our cleaning staff and they said the curtains are washed only when they appear visibly dirty,” Schweizer told Infectious Diseases in Children. “But we know that they can be ‘dirty’ without the contaminants being visible.”

During the 3-week longitudinal study, swab cultures (n=180) were obtained twice weekly from an 800 cm² area of 43 separate privacy curtains in 30 rooms from three locations: the medical intensive care unit, the surgical ICU and the medical ward. Curtains were marked to determine when they were changed.

Contamination with Staphylococcus aureus, methicillin-resistant S. aureus (MRSA), Enterococcus spp., vancomycin-resistant enterococcus (VRE), or aerobic gram-negative rods was determined by standard microbiologic methods, including broth enrichment. To distinguish persistence of pathogens on curtains from recontamination, all VRE and MRSA were typed using pulsed-field gel electrophoresis (PFGE).

Of the 13 privacy curtains observed, 12 (92%) showed contamination within 1 week. Forty-one privacy curtains (95%) demonstrated contamination on at least one occasion.

VRE was the most commonly isolated contaminant (42%), followed by MRSA (21%). Eight privacy curtains were contaminated with VRE at more than one time point; three with persistence of a single isolate type and five with different types over time, “which indicates recontamination,”

Overall, 119 of 180 (66%) cultures were positive for either S. aureus (26%), Enterococcus spp. (44%), or gram-negatives (22%).

“This clearly represents a problem,” Schwiezer said. “There are new technologies in the works that may help with this problem."

Disclosure: Dr. Schweizer reports no relevant financial disclosures.

For more information:

Ohl M. #K-1463. Hospital Privacy Curtains are Frequently and Rapidly Contaminated with Potentially Pathogenic Bacteria. Presented at: 51st ICAAC. Sept. 17-20, 2011. Chicago.

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