Latest news
- Infection Management Limited has just completed a project for Cork University Hospital in the Republic of Ireland - Read more ...
- Bean sprouts to blame for 'decade-old' E. coli - Read more ...
- Patient mobile phones pose infection control threat - Read more ...
- WHO warns of drug resistant superbugs - Read more ...
- Infection control nurses warned of mutant bacteria - Read more ...
- New superbug could make antibiotics 'redundant' - Read more ...
- Tuberculosis infection rates reach a 30-year high after rise in immigration - Read more ...
Infection Management Limited has just completed a project for Cork University Hospital in the Republic of Ireland
10/06/2011
The system is fitted into the new Cystic Fibrosis Unit
recently built and commissioned at the hospital.
Cork University Hospital (CUH) is the largest hospital in Ireland and is the only Level 1 Trauma centre in the country, with over 40 different medical and surgical specialties on the campus. It is also the primary teaching hospital for the Faculty of Health and Science in University College Cork.
What is Cystic Fibrosis?
Cystic fibrosis (CF) is a common recessive genetic disease which affects the entire body, causing progressive disability and often early death. Difficulty breathing is the most serious symptom and results from frequent lung infections that are treated with, though not cured by, antibiotics and other medications.
CF is most common among Caucasians, and Ireland has both the highest incidence of CF in the world; 2.98 per 10,000 - and the highest carrier rate in the world with 1 in 19 individuals classed as carriers. Cystic fibrosis is Ireland's most common life-threatening inherited disease.
Lung disease results from clogging of the airways due to mucus build-up, decreased mucociliary clearance and resulting inflammation. Many of these symptoms occur when bacteria that normally inhabit the thick mucus grow out of control and cause pneumonia. Staphylococcus aureus, Haemophilus influenzae, and Pseudomonas aeruginosa are the three most common organisms causing lung infections in CF patients.
In addition to typical bacterial infections, people with CF more commonly develop other types of lung disease. Among these is allergic bronchopulmonary aspergillosis, in which the body's response to the common fungus Aspergillus fumigatus causes worsening of breathing problems. Another is infection with Mycobacterium avium complex (MAC), a group of bacteria related to tuberculosis, which can cause a lot of lung damage and does not respond to common antibiotics.
How IML's solution helps CF patients
The aim of the project was to provide disinfection through the use of UVC technology, to prevent infections to patients visiting the unit. Infection Management Limited (IML) designed, built and installed a UVC system for the Patient Review Rooms, the Clinician’s Room and the Gymnasium.
The system provides measured doses of UVC to each room
through ceiling mounted lamps and each room is controlled via a central control
panel (right). The central control panel contains the necessary control and safety
circuits for each associated room. Low voltage safety relays contained within
the panel control all safety aspects of the system which will fail safe in the
event of the safety circuit being activated.
Each room has individual controls to allow flexibility of operation and to allow the resetting of rooms should the safety circuit be activated during UV operation. A single room failure does not affect the operation of the system to the other rooms.
Personnel safety is ensured by using magnetic safety switches to each of the doors, and in addition Emergency Stop switches are provided. In total 21 lamps have been supplied together with their associated controls.
Indicator Panel
Safety Switch
Key points:
- IML's UVGI cleaning relies on a physical rather than chemical process so is not susceptible to resistance, and will tackle new mutations as they arise.
- IML’s air disinfection units work 24 hours a day to reduce airborne infections, and can help to prevent outbreaks altogether.
- IML’s whole room and upper-air UVGI treatment devices are a significant tool for the control of airborne organisms.
- IML's range of UVGI equipment is bad news for superbugs, because resistance to the disruptive power of ultraviolet light, acting directly on DNA, cannot be developed.
Bean sprouts to blame for 'decade-old' E. coli
New Scientist - 10 June 2011
The strain of Escherichia coli that has caused lethal food poisoning in northern Germany was almost certainly carried by bean sprouts. The bacteria have not been found in food, but epidemiological investigation of what victims ate point towards one German sprout farm.
Meanwhile, mounting evidence suggests the bacterial strain responsible for the outbreak has been circulating in Germany for the past decade - and in people, not cattle as initially supposed.
The genome of the outbreak bacteria has been sequenced to show that it carries genes from a type of E. coli called entero-aggregative, which usually causes persistent but not fatal diarrhoea, plus one for Shiga toxin, which causes bloody diarrhoea and haemolytic-uraemic syndrome (HUS), a severe complication that can be fatal.
- IML's UVGI cleaning relies on a physical rather than chemical process so is not susceptible to resistance, and will tackle new mutations as they arise.
- IML's air disinfection units work 24 hours a day to reduce such airborne infections, and can help to prevent outbreaks altogether.
- IML's whole room and upper-air UVGI treatment devices are a significant tool for the control of airborne organisms
- IML's range of UVGI equipment is bad news for superbugs, because the disruptive power of ultraviolet light, acting directly on DNA, cannot be resisted.
Patient mobile phones pose infection control threat
The Nursing Times - 3 June, 2011
Around 40% of mobile phones entering hospitals with patients, carers and visitors may contain multi-drug resistant pathogens such as MRSA.
The researchers looked at mobile phones used by patients, patients' companions, visitors, and health care workers.
Significantly higher rates of pathogens were found in the mobile phones of patients rather than health care workers.
Multidrug pathogens in the patients' mobile phones included methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, extended-spectrum ?-lactamase-producing E. coli, and Klebsiella spp, high-level aminoglycoside-resistant Enterococcus spp, and carabepenem-resistant Acinetobacter baumanii.
The researchers said: "Specific infection control measures may be required for this threat."
- IML's UVGI cleaning relies on a physical rather than chemical process so is not susceptible to resistance, and will tackle new mutations as they arise.
- IML's air disinfection units work 24 hours a day to reduce such airborne infections, and can help to prevent outbreaks altogether.
- IML's whole room and upper-air UVGI treatment devices are a significant tool for the control of airborne organisms
- IML's range of UVGI equipment is bad news for superbugs, because the disruptive power of ultraviolet light, acting directly on DNA, cannot be resisted.
WHO warns of drug resistant superbugs
The World Health Organisation - 6 April 2011
According to WHO, drug resistance is now becoming so severe that many infections are no longer easily cured, leading to prolonged and expensive treatment and greater risk of death. The seriousness of the situation regarding antibiotics was summed up by the WHO director-general Dr Margaret Chan, who said that if no action is taken, "the world is heading towards a post-antibiotic era, in which many common infections will no longer have a cure and, once again, kill unabated".
The introduction of antibiotics in the 1940s was a medical revolution. Bacteria that had previously caused the death of millions through diseases such as syphilis, gonorrhoea, leprosy, and tuberculosis could now be treated. Yet over the passing decades the increasingly widespread use of antibiotics (and other antimicrobials), population growth, and international travel have contributed to the emergence of bacteria and other microorganisms that are resistant to these drugs.
As Dr Chan says, we could now be on the brink of losing these "miracle cures", and with the "therapeutic arsenal" shrinking, the speed at which drug resistance is developing is far outpacing the speed at which new replacement drugs can be developed.
A summary of facts given by the WHO:
- Last year at least 440,000 new cases of multidrug-resistant tuberculosis were detected worldwide, causing at least 150,000 deaths.
- The malaria parasite is acquiring resistance to even the latest generation of medicines.
- Resistant strains of bacteria that cause gonorrhoea and dysentery are limiting treatment options.
- A high proportion of serious infections acquired in hospital are caused by highly resistant bacteria such as MRSA.
- Drug resistant strains of microorganisms are spreading internationally.
- Resistance to antiretroviral medicines used to treat people living with HIV is also emerging.
WHO also says that because hospitals are now the "hotbeds" of highly-resistant pathogens, the implications also threaten many other lifesaving interventions, such as cancer treatments, surgery and organ transplants.
In Europe, according to reports from the WHO regional office, 25,000 people die each year from superbugs, i.e. bacterial infections that can resist even the newest antibiotics.
WHO has published a policy package of measures that governments and their national partners need to take to combat drug resistance. They recommend that governments:
- develop a comprehensive financed national plan
- strengthen surveillance and laboratory capacity
- regulate and promote the rational use of medicines
- enhance infection prevention and control
- foster innovation and research to develop new tools
- IML's UVGI cleaning relies on a physical rather than chemical process so is not susceptible to resistance, and will tackle new mutations as they arise.
- IML's air disinfection units work 24 hours a day to reduce such airborne infections, and can help to prevent outbreaks altogether.
- IML's whole room and upper-air UVGI treatment devices are a significant tool for the control of airborne organisms
- IML's range of UVGI equipment is bad news for superbugs, because the disruptive power of ultraviolet light, acting directly on DNA, cannot be resisted.
Infection control nurses warned of mutant bacteria
The Nursing Times - 28 September 2010
Infection control nurses have been warned about a little-known bacterial enzyme that causes resistance to antibiotics. Speaking at the Infection Prevention 2010 conference in Bournemouth, Hilary Humphreys, professor of clinical microbiology at the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland, warned that extended-spectrum ß-lactamases (ESBLs) were a "problem [that] is already with us, and more difficult to prevent or contain than MRSA or C difficile".
ESBLs are the result of a genetic mutation to common Gram negative bacteria such as Escherichia coli and Klebsiella pneumoniae. These bacteria are normally treatable with antibiotics. However, once they can produce ESBLs, they become resistant.
Professor Humphreys said the overuse of antibiotics had "facilitated ESBL's survival and subsequent dissemination" but that, according to a study last year, only half of intensive care units had a policy on antibiotic use.
Professor Humphreys said: "How do we solve the problem? With difficulty, to be honest."
He said laboratory detection was slow and difficult. In addition, unlike with MRSA, new agents were unlikely to be developed to combat it.
The professor, a consultant microbiologist at the Beaumont Hospital in Dublin, said that, given the possibility of ESBLs being picked up outside the hospital, "effective prevention might be outside the control of the healthcare community".
He presented the results of a screening study that found 40 per cent of 294 nursing home residents at 16 sites in Belfast tested positive for ESBL.
There was no consensus on screening for ESBLs, he added.
- IML's UVGI cleaning relies on a physical rather than chemical process so is not susceptible to resistance, and will tackle new mutations as they arise.
- IML's air disinfection units work 24 hours a day to reduce such airborne infections, and can help to prevent outbreaks altogether.
- IML's whole room and upper-air UVGI treatment devices are a significant tool for the control of airborne organisms
- IML's range of UVGI equipment is bad news for superbugs, because the disruptive power of ultraviolet light, acting directly on DNA, cannot be resisted.
New superbug could make antibiotics 'redundant'
The Daily Telegraph - 11 Aug 2010
The new bug is resistant to almost all antibiotics and there are none in development which can combat it meaning it is likely to spread worldwide, according to international experts.
There have been 37 cases in Britain and scientists writing in the journal Lancet Infectious Diseases warn it has an 'alarming potential to spread and diversify'.
New Delhi-Metallo-1 (NDM-1) has been found in bacteria carried by patients travelling from Asia after cosmetic surgery, cancer treatment and transplants and returning to Britain for further care. It was found in E. coli bacteria that cause urinary tract and respiratory infections.
NDM-1 is a gene that causes the bacterium to create an enzyme and this enzyme destroys powerful antibiotics. The enzyme-creating gene can easily jump from one bacterium to another and experts fear it will start attaching itself to more dangerous diseases causing them to become resistant to antibiotics.
The new bug is even resistant to the class of antibiotics known as Carbapenems which are reserved for use when all other antibiotics have failed.
The Daily Telegraph highlighted last year how the bug had then been found in 22 patients in Britain and government scientists had issued an alert to hospitals to test for it and limit its spread.
Now an international team of experts have tracked NDM-1 in India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Britain and found the disease is more widespread than previously thought.
Between 2007 and 2009 they found there had been 37 patients in Britain with the disease.
Co-authors of the research, Prof Timothy Walsh from Cardiff University, and Prof David Livermore, from the Health Protection Agency, wrote in the paper: "The NDM-1 problem is likely to get substantially worse in the foreseeable future..."
"The potential for wider international spread and for NDM-1 to become endemic worldwide, are clear and frightening." Prof Livermore said: "These are not bacteria that are historically very harmful to humans but medicine has got better at keeping people alive with conditions that would normally have killed them and they can be exploited by these bacteria.
"The risk is that you have an enzyme with very major resistance and if it combined with a particularly nasty bacterium, then that would be a concern."
- IML's UVGI cleaning relies on a physical rather than chemical process so is not susceptible to resistance, and will tackle new mutations as they arise.
- IML's air disinfection units work 24 hours a day to reduce such airborne infections, and can help to prevent outbreaks altogether.
- IML's whole room and upper-air UVGI treatment devices are a significant tool for the control of airborne organisms
- IML's range of UVGI equipment is bad news for superbugs, because the disruptive power of ultraviolet light, acting directly on DNA, cannot be resisted.
Tuberculosis infection rates reach a 30-year high after rise in immigration
The Daily Mail - 4th November 2010
Tuberculosis rates have reached a 30-year high, startling figures reveal. There were 9,040 infections last year, the highest recorded since 1979. In addition the number of cases of resistant TB - which cannot be treated with a course of antibiotics - has doubled in the past decade.
The number of drug-resistant cases of TB rose from 206 in 2000 to 389 in 2009, according to figures from the Health Protection Agency.
TB can be fatal if not diagnosed early enough and there are around 350 deaths in England every year. The disease, caused by bacteria, infects the lungs and typical symptoms include cough, fever, tiredness, lack of appetite and weight loss. But people can have the illness for several years without feeling at all unwell - which is one of the reasons it spreads so quickly.
Health Protection Agency officials also warn that the bacteria are becoming resistant to the treatment because patients are stopping taking the drugs too soon. Dr Paul Cosford, executive director of health protection services at the HPA, said: 'Although drug-resistant and multi-drug resistant cases of infection represent only a small proportion of TB cases overall, each resistant case requires careful and often prolonged treatment and care.'
Most TB sufferers can be treated with a six-month course of multiple antibiotics. However, those with drug-resistant TB may need to be treated for 18 months or longer. In 2009, almost 7 per cent of new TB cases were resistant to the first-line antibiotic treatment, isoniazid.
Office for National Statistics figures for 2008 showed there were 334 deaths in England and Wales where TB was the underlying cause.
- IML's UVGI cleaning relies on a physical rather than chemical process so is not susceptible to resistance, and will tackle new mutations as they arise.
- IML's air disinfection units work 24 hours a day to reduce such airborne infections, and can help to prevent outbreaks altogether.
- IML's whole room and upper-air UVGI treatment devices are a significant tool for the control of airborne organisms
- IML's range of UVGI equipment is bad news for superbugs, because the disruptive power of ultraviolet light, acting directly on DNA, cannot be resisted.