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?

Comments

Banning cell phones is not the answer.

[ksheka]

Sure, cell phones can spread disease. But so can any other dry surface. Like skin, clothing, stethoscopes, etc.

The nasal passages of more than half the health care workers that work in a hospital for more than a year are colonized with MRSA (methicillin-resistant staphylococcus aureus).

Banning cell phones is not the answer. Universal precautions is. Universal precautions includes cleaning your hands and instruments after every single patient contact. How many health care workers do that, do you suppose?