Self-disinfecting surfaces and infection control.

Colloids Surf B Biointerfaces

National Institute of Health, Environmental Health Department, Porto, Portugal; EPIUnit - Institute of Public Health, University of Porto, Porto, Portugal.

Published: June 2019

AI Article Synopsis

  • The World Health Organization reports that 4 million patients in the European Union acquire healthcare-associated infections annually, highlighting the need for effective infection control, especially in hospitals where vulnerable patients reside.
  • Public spaces are also significant sources of infectious disease outbreaks due to inadequate infection control measures; surfaces are often overlooked, despite their role in microbial spread.
  • The review focuses on new strategies to minimize surface contamination, including anti-adhesive surfaces, antimicrobial substances, and the use of biologically active metals, and it aims to present both the issues related to contaminated surfaces and innovative solutions, some of which are already commercially available.

Article Abstract

According to World Health Organization, every year in the European Union, 4 million patients acquire a healthcare associated infection. Even though some microorganisms represent no threat to healthy people, hospitals harbor different levels of immunocompetent individuals, namely patients receiving immunosuppressors, with previous infections, or those with extremes of age (young children and elderly), requiring the implementation of effective control measures. Public spaces have also been found an important source of infectious disease outbreaks due to poor or none infection control measures applied. In both places, surfaces play a major role on microorganisms' propagation, yet they are very often neglected, with very few guidelines about efficient cleaning measures and microbiological assessment available. To overcome surface contamination problems, new strategies are being designed to limit the microorganisms' ability to survive over surfaces and materials. Surface modification and/or functionalization to prevent contamination is a hot-topic of research and several different approaches have been developed lately. Surfaces with anti-adhesive properties, with incorporated antimicrobial substances or modified with biological active metals are some of the strategies recently proposed. This review intends to summarize the problems associated with contaminated surfaces and their importance on infection spreading, and to present some of the strategies developed to prevent this public health problem, namely some already being commercialized.

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Source
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7127218PMC
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.colsurfb.2019.02.009DOI Listing

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