title: Non-touch fittings in hospitals: a procedure to eradicate Pseudomonas aeruginosa contamination.
abstract: Non-touch taps, now common in hospitals, can easily be contaminated with Pseudomonas aeruginosa. We report our experience with 87 non-touch taps in a newly built wing of our teaching hospital contaminated with P. aeruginosa from the central pipe water system. Serotyping and genotyping of strains revealed genetic diversity of isolates, but also showed that major clones were able to persist for long periods of time in non-touch taps despite chlorination. It is notoriously difficult to decontaminate such taps with biocides and disinfectants. We describe an easy and economical procedure for the eradication of P. aeruginosa contamination from non-touch taps that does not require their removal.
authors.affiliation: Département de Microbiologie Médicale et Moléculaire, Unité de Bactériologie, EA 3854, UFR Médecine, Tours, France. n.vandermee@chu-tours.fr
authors.forename: N
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: van der Mee-Marquet
authors.forename: D
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Bloc
authors.forename: L
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Briand
authors.forename: J-M
authors.initials: JM
authors.lastname: Besnier
authors.forename: R
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Quentin
mesh_terms: D004865:Equipment and Supplies, Hospital / Q000382:microbiology*; D006801:Humans; D011550:Pseudomonas aeruginosa / Q000145:classification / Q000302:isolation & purification* / Q000472:pathogenicity; D012703:Serotyping; D014881:Water Supply