Hospital Curtains Could Harbor MRSA, Study Finds

Those hospital curtains that give privacy to patients could also be harboring drug-resistant bacteria, including the infamous methicillin-resistant staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) bug, a new study suggests.

University of Iowa researchers swabbed 43 hospital curtains several times a week for three weeks to get 180 samples, and found that 26 percent of the curtains had MRSA on them and 44 percent of them had the bacteria Enterococcus on them, according to the study.

The curtains were located in the medical ward and in the medical and surgical intensive care units of University of Iowa hospitals, Reuters reported.

Researchers also tested how long it took for curtains to get infected with bacteria by putting 13 new curtains in the hospital. They found that in one week, 12 of those 13 curtains were contaminated with bacteria, according to the study.

"There is growing recognition that the hospital environment plays an important role in the transmission of infections in the health care setting, and it's clear that these (privacy curtains) are potentially important sites of contamination because they are frequently touched by patients and providers," study researcher Michael Ohl, from the University of Iowa, told Reuters.

Ohl's work was presented at the 51st Interscience Conference on Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy in Chicago.

A recent study has also shown that dangerous bacteria, including MRSA, is also found on doctors' and nurses' uniforms and swipe cards. However, Medical News Today reported that people shouldn't be overly concerned about health care professionals spreading disease.

The good news is that the bacteria on the uniforms may not pose a direct risk of disease transmission, but the findings suggest that many hospital patients are in close proximity to antibiotic-resistant strains of bacteria, the researchers said.

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Comments

[karengroovi777]

05:17 AM on 09/27/2011

I REALLY AM a professional pathogen Assasin . in a hospital , have been for 14 years , don't buck my authority , i know my chit.

[karengroovi777]

05:07 AM on 09/27/2011

hey I am a professional pathogen killer , I am not kidding , I work in a hospital .

[karengroovi777]

05:05 AM on 09/27/2011

If you think curtains are bad , think of waiting room magazines . don't ever touch one , you will leave your dr.'s office with more than you arrived with ...................seriously .

[dawns6]

04:59 AM on 09/27/2011

I've never heard this before and its downright nasty . What about the nursing homes ? They have plenty of curtains in their rooms ,Maybe should be conducting a study in thode places as well....I'm sure theres allot of people getting ill from mersa.

[karengroovi777]

05:13 AM on 09/27/2011

usually a curtain is only changed when the patient is contact contagious .. if not then there is no reason to change it . what they have is not infectious to others , and we know before entering a room whats up . pathogen wise that is .

[European1919]

04:44 AM on 09/27/2011

Which probably why civilised societies no longer have hospital curtains.

[karengroovi777]

05:14 AM on 09/27/2011

door knobs make you sicker than curtains you may never touch . a super market cart has more germs than a public phone .

[sabelmouse]

04:41 AM on 09/27/2011

" There is growing recognition that the hospital environment plays an important role in the transmission of infections in the health care setting ''

it took them this long ? poor semmelweiss. i would have thought we were more advanced than that.

[argon66]

04:05 AM on 09/27/2011

The headline is incorrect. Hospital curtains do harbor MRSA and some other nasy organisms.

[certmuff]

09:12 PM on 09/26/2011

This is old news- the most infection laden item in a patients room is the TV remote-next the phone- this is one big reason nurses do not wear their white caps anymore-just a vehicle for infection transmittal

[karengroovi777]

05:23 AM on 09/27/2011

not true , housekeeping really pays close attention to frequently handled items , and we are notifiied of what pathogen , so we can use the correct germ killer on it . , door knobs are the worst.

[Geri Cizmar]

07:18 PM on 09/26/2011

And this is a surprise? Anything in the hospital could be contaminated. When I was operated on a year ago for appendicitis, I told my kids NOT to visit me because I didn't want them exposed to any germs.
It goes without saying that hospitals are chock full of germs and if you look at how some of them are cleaned by staff, most times they do a sub par job.
I was glad to leave the hospital after one week without contracting a disease.

[mschultzpa]

03:38 PM on 09/26/2011

Infected within a week? That is pretty fast. Well, launder twice a week.