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Drug Resistant Bacteria a Risk for Health Workers

While there has been an increasing number of reports on the dangers of patients acquiring drug-resistant infections, little attention has been paid to the risk these infections pose to health care workers. But now a recent report in the journal Infection Control and Hospital Epidemiology (September 2006) shines a light on the threat of these bugs to doctors and nurses.

In 2004, two health care workers at an outpatient clinic for people with HIV at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore became infected with an aggressive form of community-acquired methicillin-resistant staphylococcus aureus (MRSA).

Image: Petri DishInfection control experts investigated the outbreak. They swabbed 36 surfaces in the clinic and tested all other clinic staff for infection. Although no other workers were colonized or infected with MRSA, seven surfaces tested positive for contamination, including examination tables, pulse oximeters, countertops, computer keyboards and patient chairs.

Health experts fear that the rising trend of MRSA infections in hospitals could render useless many of the most widely available and effective antibiotics. According to Dr. Trish Perl, a professor at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, the report highlights the fact that “health care workers need to be aware of the risk, alert infection control staff immediately after an infection is suspected, and understand that tighter infection control procedures can guard against subsequent exposure.

The study is believed to be the first to evaluate just how widespread community-acquired MRSA is during an outbreak in an outpatient setting. Previous research focused on hospital wards and inpatient settings.

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