SHBC1016

J.P.L.KHNG¹, Y.J.LOH¹, T.N.LOH¹, B.S.M.LEONG¹, M.L.FOO¹, L.W.KONG¹, A.F.W.LEONG¹

Khoo Teck Puat Hospital¹

Human pathogens can survive on hospital curtains for weeks to months, which are subsequently transmitted to the hands of healthcare workers and patients. This project aims to validate the effectiveness of antimicrobial and sporicidal disposable curtains in reducing retention of common human pathogens over a period of 1 year.

In a hospital cubicle (which is used to house all post-operative infectious cases for monitoring), the existing fabric curtain was replaced with an antimicrobial and sporicidal disposable curtain for a trial period of 1 year. Samples of disposable curtain were sent for microbiological analysis prior to installation (baseline) and thereafter every 3 months. At the end of 12 months, two additional microbiological tests (AATCC Test Method 100-2019 and AATCC Test Method 147-2004) were conducted to further validate the effectiveness of trialled curtain.

For results of Total Aerobic Plate Count, Colony Forming Unit (CFU) / test piece for the baseline, 3, 6, 9 and 12-month samples were “Not detected”. For AATCC Test Method 100-2019, the percentage reduction in count of test microorganism after 24 hours for treated samples were more than 99.99% for all three test microorganisms. For AATCC Test Method 147-2004, for treated samples, there were presence of zones of inhibition and no growth was observed under specimen for all three test microorganisms after 24 hours.

We had validated the efficacy of antimicrobial and sporicidal disposable curtain that offers an infection prevention strategy in combating common human pathogen transmissions among patients and healthcare workers.