How bad cleaning aggravates super-bug risk

Monday December 28th, 2009

Badly applied disinfectants could aggravate the risk of drug-resistant bacteria emerging, researchers warned today.

Irish researchers have discovered a bug that develops resistance to a common antibiotic when it survives attempts to disinfect it.

Researchers said the findings demonstrated the importance of hospital cleaning being thorough.

Cleaning has been a key issue since the emergence of a range of so-called superbugs.

The scientists at the National University of Ireland, Galway, tested bacteria called Pseudomonas aeruginosa, which can pose a threat to people with weak immune systems and diseases such as diabetes.

They added increasing amounts of disinfectant to laboratory cultures of the germs to find out the effect on surviving organisms.

This showed that survivors mutated to fight off disinfectants - but also had developed mutations to resist antibiotics of the ciprofloxacin family.

The findings are being reported in the journal Microbiology today.

Researcher Dr Gerard Fleming said: "In principle this means that residue from incorrectly diluted disinfectants left on hospital surfaces could promote the growth of antibiotic-resistant bacteria.

"What is more worrying is that bacteria seem to be able to adapt to resist antibiotics without even being exposed to them."

Microbiology; 156: 30-38

Tags: Europe | MRSA & Hygiene | Nursing & Midwifery

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