Mobile Spread Superbugs In Hospitals

Cellular phones, hospital doctors and nurses will work to a level of contamination with dangerous pathogens, even if health care workers to wash their hands regularly, a new study has found.


"Our findings suggest cross-contamination of bacteria in the hands of healthcare professionals and their mobile phones," wrote the researchers from Turkey Ondokuz Mayis University in the Annals of Clinical Microbiology and Antimicrobials.

"These mobile phones can serve as a source of infection, which can facilitate the transmission of bacteria from patient to patient in hospital."

The researchers tested the dominant hand and cell phones 200 doctors and nurses in hospital intensive care units and operating rooms bacteria can cause disease. Although the majority of healthcare workers after hand washing guidelines, 95 percent of their phones for at least a positive form of harmful bacteria. Nearly 35 percent of the phones included two strains of bacteria, while more than 11 percent included three or more.

A total of 12.5 percent of the phones have been tested positive for methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA).

MRSA is an antibiotic-resistant variant of the common bacteria S. aureus is responsible for staphylococcal infections. Because of its prosperity resistant, MRSA is very difficult to treat than ordinary staph infection and are much more likely to lead to dangerous complications. If MRSA invades the deeper tissues or spread beyond the skin to other organs, complications include necrosis of the skin, unsightly boils, blood infections, pneumonia and even death. It is especially dangerous for those in a weakened state, as inpatients.

The prevalence of bacteria is increasing, with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) estimate that the rate of hospital infections caused by staph MRSA have risen by 2 percent in 1974 to 63 percent in 2004. MRSA is now considered responsible for a total of 60 percent of all infections in hospitals.

CDC statistics reported 94,000 MRSA infections per year in the United States, 19 000 deaths - more than 12 500 deaths from AIDS in 2005. These figures, 31.8 per 100 000 inhabitants of the United States infected with MRSA each year. The figures were roughly in the investigation conducted by the Association for Professionals in Infection Control and Epidemiology in 2007, which estimated that for every 1000 patients in 46 medical facilities contracts MRSA infection, which represents 1.2 million € per year.

Previous studies showed MRSA contamination in electronic devices such as keyboards, but the current study could be the first to look specifically for mobile phones.

The researchers attributed the high cellular contamination that only one of the 10 reported by health care workers cleaned their phone on a regular basis.

"Mobile phones are widely used for non-medical portable electronic devices, and [is] in close contact with the body," the authors write. "Mobile phones are used routinely throughout the day, but has not been cleaned properly, as health workers [not] wash their hands more often as it should."

Although doctors and nurses may be exposed to dangerous bacteria in their work, they can then proceed to the house on their phones and expose others to danger, researchers have warned.

"As no warning is given for cleaning cell phones to meet hospital standards, the same rates and the composition of the contamination of cell phones be risky when it occurs outside the hospital."

Investigators have reported that health professionals on a regular phone mop disinfectant alcohol or antimicrobial agents. They concluded that ban cell phones from hospitals would be impractical, because the phones are now often used for commercial purposes, in emergency situations.