sink

Towards standardisation of hospital wastewater sampling

Guest Blogger Water , , , , , , , ,

Another guest post from Dr Phil Norville (bio below)…

Very few weeks go by without me reading a paper discussing a multidrug-resistant outbreak that is linked to contaminated water or wastewater systems. The most recent was an outbreak of Achromobacter species in 22 patients which was linked to water in contaminated tubes of a medical pressurizer (used for urology surgery). It was one the reasons Jon and I wrote a letter to the Journal of Hospital Infection calling for a move towards the standardisation of wastewater sampling.

Continue reading →

Dispersal of CPE from contaminated sinks and drains: a refection from Infection Prevention 2019

Jon Otter (@jonotter) drains , , , , , ,

I’ve spent the last couple of days up in Liverpool for Infection Prevention 2019. One of the highlights was a talk by Dr Paz Aranega-Bou on the issues around contamination of sinks and drains. Paz flagged a paper just published in JHI investigating the dispersal of CPE in a sink/drain test risk at PHE, showing the CPE can make its way from contaminated drains to sink and surrounding surfaces via splashback.

Continue reading →

The best IPC article of 2018: a blogoff with Brett Mitchell

Jon Otter (@jonotter) environmental hygiene , , , , , ,

In honour of Infection Prevention 2018, Brett Mitchell and I are having a blogoff so that you can choose the best IPC article of 2018. This post presents my case, Brett’s post (here) presents his case, and there’s a vote below so that you can choose. The results will be published next Monday morning at Infection Prevention 2018…

Continue reading →

Are our attempts to contain CPE going down the drain?

Jon Otter (@jonotter) CRE , , , , ,

I posted recently on the potential risk of CPE contamination of sinks, drains, and hospital wastewater. The question in my mind then was whether contamination is a smoking gun or innocent bystander regarding CPE transmission? What we really need is an intervention to show that better management of sinks and drains results in reduce CPE transmission. And now, we have one! The findings suggest that attempts to control CPE will go down the drain if we don’t intervene to improvement the management of sinks and drains.

Continue reading →