Coins found to harbour MRSA superbug
Sunday, 24 June 2007
Print
Email
Coins can harbour the superbug MRSA, researchers have discovered. Health workers have been urged to be extra careful to wash their hands thoroughly after handling change.
"This study indicates that contaminated coins may serve as a potential source for MRSA," say researchers from the Northern Ireland Public Health Laboratory, Belfast City Hospital.
The researchers tested whether MRSA could survive on one-pence coins. Results show that when the coins were contaminated with blood or pus, organisms were able to survive for some time.
The report says that coins are widely used in hospitals, at mobile ward shops, restaurants, pay phones, car-parking payment machines, TV/phone pay card machines and for paying taxis.
"Given that hands are a major source of contamination of MRSA organisms, it may be postulated that money may thus become contaminated with MRSA in a MRSA-positive hospital environment as it is handled or, alternatively, it may become cross-contaminated because of its cohabitation of pockets with MRSA-positive handkerchiefs," say the researchers. "Given that there are approximately 26,359 million coins currently in circulation in the UK, an examination of the survival dynamics of MRSA on money is warranted."
They say that hands are among the most important way of spreading infection: "Because money may provide an indirect route for hand-to-hand contamination, it is important to prevent such cross-infection by washing hands after handling money if a clinical procedure is to be carried out."
Research in one health trust revealed that hospitals could drastically reduce infection rates by replacing basic equipment and following simple hygiene rules.
The Royal Wolverhampton Hospitals NHS Trust, one of the worst performing trusts in England in terms of its MRSA bloodstream infections, replaced old mattresses after they were said to be full of pin pricks caused by staff sticking used syringes in them to prevent needlestick injuries. After doing so, the number of new cases of the Clostridium difficile infection fell from 138 in the period April to June 2006, to 44 in January to March 2007.
Cheryl Etches, the director of nursing at the trust, told delegates at a conference in Manchester last week that investing in equipment could have a major impact in reducing infections.
