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Main Category: Infectious Diseases / Bacteria / Viruses
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You would have thought that an electronic faucet that you do not need to touch would be cleaner than a traditional one, apparently, the automatic ones are more likely to have a high build-up of bacteria, including Legionella spp, scientists from The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine revealed at the Society for Healthcare Epidemiology of America (SHEA) annual meeting.
Hospitals, clinics and other health care centers have been increasingly utilizing electronic-eye, non-touch faucets, with the aim of reducing contamination of the hands of doctors, nurses and other healthcare staff.
Emily Sydnor, MD, and team set out to determine what levels of bacterial growth there might be from faucets at two clinical wards of one hospital from December 2008 to the end of January 2009. There were 20 manual and 20 electronic faucets - all of them had the same water source.
They took cultures from all faucets and found that 50% of the electronic ones had Legionella spp, while only 15% of the manual ones did.
They also found that 26% of the electronic faucet water cultures had "signigifant growth on heterotrophic plate count (HPC) cultures, compared to 13% of manual faucet water cultures".
There was still a difference between the two types of taps after flushing the water system with chlorine dioxide. Afterwards, 29% of the hands-free faucet cultures were still tainted with bacteria, versus just 7% of the manual faucet cultures.
The authors believe that the sophisticated valves that make up the electronic faucet encourage higher contamination levels. They eventually discovered, during the course of collecting water samples, that every automatic faucet grew Legionella spp.
Sydnor does not believe the general public should be concerned about electronic faucet use:
"The levels of bacterial growth in the electronic faucets, particularly the Legionella spp., were of concern because they were beyond the tolerable thresholds determined by the hospital. Exposure to Legionella spp. is dangerous for chronically ill or immune compromised patients because it may cause pneumonia in these vulnerable patients. The levels we found of both Legionella spp. and bacterial burden on HPC were still within the level that is well tolerated by healthy individuals."
Johns Hopkins Hospital is currently taking out the electronic faucets and replacing them with the traditional manual ones. The new hospital building which is under construction will have only manual ones.
Steven Gordon, MD, president of SHEA stressed that good hand-hygiene practices by healthcare staff are crucial for controlling the spread of pathogens in healthcare settings:
"Proper hand hygiene practices are a basic and evidence-based element of helping to prevent HAIs. As infectious disease experts, our job is to remain vigilant about protecting patients from potential exposure to infection causing agents. This means that no matter how innovative the technology, the benefits must always be weighed against patient protection."
Written by Christian Nordqvist
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