Mobile phones and computer keyboards: unlikely reservoirs of multidrug-resistant organisms in the tertiary intensive care unit

作者：Smibert O C; Aung A K; Woolnough E; Carter G P; Schultz M B; Howden B P; Seemann T; Spelman D; McGloughlin S; Peleg A Y

来源：Journal of Hospital Infection, 2018, 99(3): 295-298.

DOI：10.1016/j.jhin.2018.02.013

• Mobile phone
• Contamination
• Transmission
• Infection prevention

Few studies have used molecular epidemiological methods to study transmission links to clinical isolates in intensive care units. Ninety-four multidrug-resistant organisms (MDROs) cultured from routine specimens from intensive care unit (ICU) patients over 13 weeks were stored (11 meticillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA), two vancomycin-resistant enterococci and 81 Gram-negative bacteria). Medical staff personal mobile phones, departmental phones, and ICU keyboards were swabbed and cultured for MDROs; MRSA was isolated from two phones. Environmental and patient isolates of the same genus were selected for whole genome sequencing. On whole genome sequencing, the mobile phone isolates had a pairwise single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) distance of 183. However, >15,000 core genome SNPs separated the mobile phone and clinical isolates. In a low-endemic setting, mobile phones and keyboards appear unlikely to contribute to hospital-acquired MDROs.

• 出版日期2018-7