Clostridium difficile is a pathogenic bacterium that induces a potentially life-threatening gastrointestinal illness characterized by extreme diarrhea, fever, nausea, and abdominal pain. To spread to a new host, the microbes convert into hardy spores that are introduced back into the environment through fecal matter. From there, the spores easily migrate around via improperly washed hands or contact with any object or surface that has become contaminated with feces, which, as many scientists point out, is pretty much everything. Thanks to their high tolerance for heat, cold, and many types of disinfectant, these spores can easily persist even in regularly cleaned environments.
And now, new findings from the Infectious Disease Research Group of De Montfort University suggest that these spores can persist through the intense laundry regimens designed to remove dangerous microorganisms from hospital linens, meaning that vulnerable individuals could be getting exposed to C. difficile when sheets and other cloth items used by carriers – or those washed in the same machine cycle – are sent back out for reuse.
Reporting their results in the journal Infection Control & Hospital Epidemiology, the authors note that the issue is particularly worrying because, in the UK, most hospitals and care facilities rent linens from independent companies that launder and redistribute to multiple medical sites. Ubiquitous in nature, C. difficile bacteria do not pose much of a threat to most people but can cause serious harm to people with weakened immune systems, those in hospital, and the elderly.
"The findings of this study may explain some sporadic outbreaks of C. difficile infections in hospitals from unknown sources, however, further research is required in order to establish the true burden of hospital bedsheets in such outbreaks," lead author Katie Laird said in a statement.
Source: iflscience.com
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