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Cell Phones May Spread Infections
CHaN_316 writes "Yahoo is running an article talking about how cell phones from health workers are helping spread dangerous infections in hospitals. 'They found that 12 percent of healthcare providers' cell phones were contaminated with [Acinetobacter baumannii]. The results are disturbing because [it] has the propensity to develop resistance to almost all available antibiotics ... Cell phones provide a large dry surface that allows survival of A. baumannii--it requires no nutrients ... [it] is found in intensive care units, and the mortality rate among infected patients is very high -- between 50 and 60 percent.' The hospital that conducted this research no longer allows the use of cell phones, and are switching to devices that don't require hand contact like pagers." So how long before someone develops a cell phone that can be dunked in alcohol or run through the autoclave to sterilize it?
Alright, but how many consumer phones are also a breeding ground for this sort of thing now? I'm sure the bacteria spread fairly quickly, so I have to wonder. Also, how would a consumer clean such an infected phone without destroying it?
And while we're at it, we should sterilise the healthcare workers too. Honestly, this is just another knee-jerk pogrom against a new technology, wasting money that could have been better spent elsewhere.
What he can't kill, he has sex on. Trent.
I own an ericson R310 Waterproof shockproof phone (antenae that looks like a sharks fin). I noticed that during the recent sars outbreak they seemed to be the phone of choice for the men in bunny suits!
So how long before someone develops a cell phone that can be dunked in alcohol or run through the autoclave to sterilize it?
Actually, you can dunk your phone in alcohol right now if you wanted (minus the screen)... I was a part-time cell phone dealer about 2 years ago, whenever a phone had water damage or got dirty internally, all we did was take the phone apart, get a toothbrush and rubbing alcohol (isopropyl) and start scrubbing away at the corrosion.
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A scam in which all people involved perceive as beneficial...
Wouldn't simply irradiating the cel phone do the trick?
Maybe some internal parts would need to be shielded to withstand it, but the external surface could be sterilized that way.
I don't know the meaning of the word 'don't' - J
More interesing recent story on cell phones:
Mobiles 'betray' cheating Italians.
If cell phones harbor nasty germs, what about those PDA and Tablet PC medical terminals? The construction is equivalent -- lots of plastic, elastomeric buttons, touch screens, stylus, etc. Worse, medical terminals are more likely than are cell phones to be handled by multiple people.
Two wrongs don't make a right, but three lefts do.
Heck, come to think of it, the plastic bag would let sound through without a problem. Just get a cell phone that you don't need to fold or unfold to use, and heat-seal it in a fresh sterile plastic bag every time you enter the hospital, and remove the plastic bag every time you leave. That would do the trick, wouldn't it?
A solution, of course, is readily available. At my work we have a regular supply of "screen wipes", basically towlettes moistened with isopropyl alcohol. Before cleaning my screen, I wipe off my cell (and regular) phones first. I just think it doesn't occur to most people that these things need to be cleaned...
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You would think it'd be pretty easy to make some kind of plastic bag that would act like a thin sleeve for the phones, like disposable gloves and whatnot.
It could just be thin cellophane in the shape of a tube sock, maybe even with a zip lock on one end. Even a flip-open phone could be put in flipped open, then shut (plastic would fold over inside it).
That way, you could dispose of the bag and not worry about getting a special phone or banning them in hospitals altogether.
Chris
so I'm not surprised/affected in the least by this.
c'mon people, any object that is carried -everywhere- or used daily (potentially used by or in the immediate proximity of sick people) provides an opportunity for disease to spread. particularly when it's something that people never clean.
i honestly hope no-one is surprised by this.
it's reminicent of the studies that surprised you all a few years back, that showed the average computer workstation is dirtier (bacteria) than the average bathroom.
primarily because: how often do you clean around your PC? actually picking it up, moving it around, and wiping it all down with sanitizing pads? (particularly keyboard,mouse,wrist pads,power buttons,etc)
ok, now how often do you wipe down your cell phone with a sanitizing pad? exactly.
your phone is almost certainly more filthy than your toilet. think about that.
and while you do your reactionary one time cleaning, don't forget your pager, pda, land-lines, av remotes, video gaming controllers, camera, keys, wallet, laptop, and car interior (radio, steering wheel,shifter,beltbuckler,door handles,etc).
me? my neuroses keeps me well protected from you damned dirty apes.
// "Can't clowns and pirates just -try- to get along?"
Maybe for skinny people. I always had to adjust the pager to read the little screen. This was a few years ago when I had a pager with a small screen for some months. Of course, then I had to touch a phone that everyone else touches to return the page.
What is it about mobile phones in a hospital that they get infected, when all the other wall phones in the hospital that doctors will use to return pages won't get infected? Too me, as long as the bacteria is on the health care worker's hands, it will be everywhere else.
~afniv
"Man könnte froh sein, wenn die Luft so rein wäre wie das Bier"
Richard von Weizs
to me the point is that cell phones are used in non controlled, non-sterile enviroments. if the pager was a doctors personal one it would cause the same problem. you'd have to have "hospital only" units kept at work and sanitised daily to be safe(r).
"A towel is the most astounding Mind-boggleing useful thing in the universe, allways know where your towel is"
My fiancee works in a research facility that requires disinfection of all items brought in. To bring her cell phone in she puts it in a zip lock bag and dips it in whatever they use as a disinfectant solution. The phone works fine through the bag without a headset.
Certainly the cell phone is a conveinent place to pick up bugs. But so are doorknobs, restrooms, etc.
The real problem...and working in public health I know this hasn't changed even since the advent of germ theory...is just getting the damn workers (I *include* physicians) in hospitals to wash their hands corrrectly before working with a patient. I still see plenty of infectious disease workers more than happy to walk out of a bathroom without washing their hands.
And even if you do, when you touch just about anything (or just wait, as the stuff as you left on your hand grows) you could be putting patients...esp immunosuppresed patients (HIV/chemo/elderly) at great danger.
I always shudder seeing hospital staff walking outside on the streets in their scrubs, shoe covers and hair covers like they are some magical shield that will never pick up pathogens harmful to the patients.
Studies of cutting boards show that wooden cutting boards are safer than plastic ones. The research shows that you can find bacteria on plastic cutting boards (even ones that where hand-scrubbed), but that even unwashed wooden boards have no bacteria on the surface after they dry. Apparently capilliary action pulls bacteria into the wood's pores and away from the surface of the wood, leaving the surface sterile.
Wooden cellphone skins would make a nice retro-fashion statement. For extended use, the wooden phone skins could be removed and autoclaved.
Two wrongs don't make a right, but three lefts do.
Samsung is not the only one. Nokia has this model 6250 which is made to be shock proof and water proof.
You may drop it from 3 meters, and/or put it into water for 24 hours. (This according to the manual)
I own one of those, and I usually take it with me to the sauna / shower. And, I have dropped it numerous times, etc.
The only bad thing is that I can't use any regular cell phones anymore, I'd break them instantly.
when can you use cell phones in hospitals?? EVERY hospital i've been in in the last 5 years has signs at every entrance saying, "Cellular phones may interfere with life saving equipment. TURN THEM OFF"
I write code.
My favorite is when they wear nice gloves, at the dentist for example, and are continually opening this or that drawer with their gloves. I suppose they think the germs from my mouth aren't going to get onto the drawer, because they have gloves on??!! Of course they wipe all surfaces down with antiseptic, even every nook and cranny behind those drawer pull knobs, between every patient. Right.
Then there was the dental assistant who used her own five-second rule (oops, wrong story) to quickly pick up and start to re-use a tool she had dropped on the floor.
Apply the same mentality to a cell phone, which has much greater mobility in and out of the environment, and it does make an effective germ vector.
Phones only spread infections when people share the phones. So a pay phone or other public phone would do more to spread infection than a cell phone.
The fact that we are all running around with our private little phones means that we are exposing ourselves to fewer phone carried bugs than we would get by using a common phone.
I really can't remember the last time I handed my phone to a stranger. In fact, its been several month since anyone other than myself has touched my cell phone.
As for companies that have use a common phone for people on call...they really should just get forwardable 800 number...that way they could swith duties by pointing to different phones...it is much more convenient.
Except, however, the one form of antibiotic that is frowned upon by professionals. Let me introduce you to colloidal silver. It's a suspension of silver particles in water... and guess what? It has been shown to kill germs including bacteria, viruses, yeast, mold, fungus and parasites, many of which are resistant to antibiotics.
I know many of you are saying "snake oil" right now, but I've used the stuff to cure ear infections, and it works a lot faster and at a much lower price than antibiotics.
You can even make your own.
"To confine our attention to terrestrial matters would be to limit the human spirit." -Stephen Hawking