Hygienic-Microbiological Evaluation of Tissue Dispensing Systems for Surface Disinfection in Hospitals

Abstract

Surface disinfection is one of the elementary measures of infection prevention in healthcare facilities. However, the current widely used tissue dispenser systems can be microbially contaminated as a result of various causes and play a decisive role in the spread of pathogens. For this reason, these systems must be considered both as a source of infection in routine surveillance and as part of nosocomial outbreaks. Tissue dispenser systems used at the University Hospital Leipzig (UKL) were extensively analyzed between 2016 and 2018 in accordance with the recommendations of the German Association for Applied Hygiene (VAH). Within this period, 1096 disinfectant solutions from dispenser systems were tested. Areas without or with infection risk were represented with equal distribution. To exclude the possibility of contamination by dosing units (DU), the microbial-hygienic tests were extended to the 135 decentralized DU at the UKL. Overall, a decline in contaminated disinfectant solutions was recorded over the study period (31% in 2016, 18% in 2017 and 8% in 2018). However, in 2017 as well as in 2018, more contaminants were recorded in high-risk areas. Specific follow-up examinations after training in handling and preparation of the systems resulted in a decrease of contaminated disinfection solutions at hospitals. The dominant microbial contamination was with Achromobacter spp. (81%), followed by Pseudomonas spp. (10%), vancomycin-resistant enterococci (VRE) (4%) and apathogenic environmental microorganisms (5%). The solutions taken from the dosing units (n=135) did not show any growth (91.1%). Bacillus spp. were detected in 8.2% and molds in 0.7% of solutions. Contaminated dosing units as well as drinking water used for this purpose could be excluded as source of the pathogens detected in tissue dispenser systems. It is assumed that a lack of knowledge and a false sense of security led to incorrect handling of tissue dispenser systems when dealing with disinfectants.