# 2885
Maryn McKenna has a good post on her Superbug Blog (in truth, all of her posts are good) entitled Resistant bacteria on health care workers' phones.
Highly recommended.
Nosocomial or HAI (hospital acquired) infections are increasing rapidly and exact a huge toll in human misery, deaths, and treatment costs. The numbers are a little vague, but HAI's are blamed for the deaths of up to 100,000 people a year in the United States.
The CDC maintains a web site called Infection Control in Healthcare Settings while the National Nosocomial Infections Surveillance (NNIS) system tracks the incidence of infections.
Cell phones have become ubiquitous among medical staff, are handled almost unconsciously, and are rarely cleaned and so it isn't surprising that swabs taken from them showed contamination with such nasties as S. aureus, MRSA, coliform, enterococci, molds, and yeasts.
One has to wonder what swabs of Stethoscopes, penlights, clipboards, pens, and computer keyboards and mice would turn up.
All of which proves the old adage - That a hospital is no place to send a sick person.
Related Post:
Widget by [ Iptek-4u ]