RELATION OF INTENSITY OF STAPHYLOCOCCAL INFECTION IN NEWBORN INFANTS TO CONTAMINATION OF NURSES' HANDS AND SURROUNDING ENVIRONMENT

Abstract

A method for measuring the intensity of staphylococcal infection and contamination was devised and used to study staphylococcal infections in a newborn nursery. Four hundred infants had multiple cultures from various body sites and from their immediate environment. The degree of intensity of infection at any given body site was associated directly with total body infection intensity and intensity of contamination in the surrounding environment. When nurses contacted babies with staphylococci on their bodies or in their immediate environment, staphylococci could be isolated subsequently from the nurses' hands 11.8% of the time, in contrast with 0.6% with uninfected and uncontaminated babies. Approximately 95% of the time the phage type from the hand was the same as that in the contacted infant. Two percent of the time, nurses' hands were found to be contaminated with staphylococci before they contacted babies, a majority of which were of the same phage type as found on the baby she had just left. Heavily infected babies contaminated nurses' hands more frequently than did lightly infected babies and certain kinds of nursing care, such as diapering and routine morning care, resulted in more intense nurse hand contamination than did other activities. It is suggested that the measures of infection intensity used in this study have identified babies with different potentials for spreading staphylococcal infections.