From: ian blenkharn@ianblenkharn.com
Category: News & information
Date: 25 Aug 2008
Time: 11:51:11 +0200
Remote Name: 86.146.8.18
Lots of press reports this morning of the high rate of insect and vermin infestations in our hospitals.
That comes as no real surprise. Many will gain access on the backs of patients and visitors, literally! Elsewhere, while the majority of our hospitals are accommodated in rambling old buildings dating back over 100 years or more, infestations are not unlikely. Keeping on top of this with a comprehensive pest control programme seems more than adequate as long as there is no encroachment of pests into clinical or clinical support areas.
Wastes are a particular target for vermin.
Almost every clinical waste management establishment will have a pest control service, but will generally rely on strict site hygiene and a limit on the time that wastes remain on site to avoid these problems.
In hospital premises, hygiene standards in waste storage areas are often less than satisfactory and the same controls are often overlooked.
Does it matter? Yes
There is research to show the prolonged survival of several viruses in the gut of cockroaches, and there to survive the effects of disinfection. Problems arise when cockroaches move to other areas of the hospital and at least one outbreak of infection spread in this way has been recorded. Other studies have shown cockroaches to feed on dried sputum, and in doing so to ingest tubercle bacilli (the bug that causes TB in man) from that sputum. The organism survives for prolonged periods in the cockroach gut and passes out, alive and fully infective, in cockroach droppings.
Enjoy!