Infection prevention methods are not fail safe

Hospital patients continue to transmit infections between each other despite strict control measures, new research suggests.

Using DNA tracking of an outbreak among cystic fibrosis patients at a treatment centre in Britain, experts identified frequent patient-to-patient transmission despite stringent infection control measures.

The findings will have major implications for how patients with cystic fibrosis are cared for in hospitals and raise critical questions about the adequacy of current infection control measures and cross-infection in other patient groups.

Study leader Dr Andres Floto, of Cambridge University, said: “We believe that transmission probably occurred indirectly despite of control measures. For example via hair, clothing and bedding contamination or aerosol generating procedures such as lung function testing.”

Findings were published online by the Lancet.