Patient Safety | 12.13.22
Hospital Linens Identified as Potential Route of Contamination in Mucormycosis Outbreak
by Healio
Shortcomings in hospital linen reprocessing, delivery, and intake were identified as a potential route of contamination in a health care-associated mucormycosis outbreak reported in Arkansas. CDC supported the Arkansas Department of Health and the hospital in question to investigate potential causes of this increase in mucormycosis. The researchers used the data to calculate annual incidence of health care-associated mucormycosis (HCM) defined as mucormycosis diagnosed within seven or more days after hospital admission. They performed targeted environmental assessments, including linen sampling at the hospital, to identify potential sources of infection. According to the research, over half of the patients with HCM in this outbreak had hematologic malignancies (56 percent) with other commonly reported comorbidities in HCM patients being traumatic injury (38 percent) and diabetes (31 percent). HCM cases were not epidemiologically linked by common procedures, products, or rooms. However, the investigation showed that at the hospital and its contracted offsite laundry provider, “suboptimal handling of laundered linens” and “inadequate environmental controls” to prevent mucormycete contamination were observed.
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