CDC Investigations Find Common Sources of Health Care Infections

SEATTLE — Preventing serious health care acquired infections (HAIs) may come down in many cases to relatively simple control measures, including rigorously practiced hand hygiene, better cleaning and disinfection practices, and ultimately improved facility design, a CDC investigator explained June 7 in a presentation given at the AIHce EXP conference here.

Bryan E. Christensen, Ph.D., an industrial hygienist and epidemiologist with CDC’s National Center for Emerging and Zoonotic Infectious Diseases, discussed four recent HAI investigations, including one involving nontuberculous mycobacteria (NM) infections of patients who had undergone cardiopulmonary bypass surgery. The investigation centered on heating/cooling units used in the surgery, equipment that contained three water tanks, high-pressure pumps, and multiple fans, he said. “We’re still investigating where it’s actually coming from in the unit,” he said, explaining they confirmed that NM contamination in the airflow entered the patient’s’ chest cavities, but in these cases the resulting illness would manifest two or three years later and be fatal for some of them. NM is an opportunistic and emerging HAI, he said.

Possible controls to prevent these infections include using disposable water tanks and reconfiguring the operating rooms so the heating/cooling units are not inside the room during the operation, he said.

An estimated 727,000 HAI cases occurred in the United States in 2011 alone in acute care hospitals, resulting in about 75,000 deaths, he said.

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