Cross Contamination ensues complication among COVID 19 patients

COVID 19 was an eye-opener for the public health department to pay attention to the bacterial pathogens, which increases hospital admission and complicates their stay. The Journal of Infection in Developing Countries published a study, which characterized ESKAPE bacteria and identified the risk of clonal spread in medical devices, patients, and medical personnel of the ICU for COVID-19 patients of the Hospital Juarez de Mexico.

Emilio Mariano Durán-Manuel, the lead author, reported, “ESKAPE bacteria include Enterococcus faecium,  Staphylococcus aureus, Klebsiella pneumoniae, Acinetobacterbaumannii, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, and Enterobacter cloacae, which are a group of bacteria that directly relate to ventilator associated pneumonia. These bacteria increase the risk of associated complication among the COVID 19 patients especially with implanted devices.”

The research team identified that Acinetobacterbaumannii and Staphylococcus aureus was the predominant ESKAPE members observed among the COVID 19 patients in addition to the non-ESKAPE members. In addition,  intergenic regions showed an important clonal distribution of A. baumannii (AdeABCRS+); however, the SCCmec mobile genetic elements and the icaA gene presented no specific distribution of S. aureus.

Thus, the authors emphasized the danger of bacterial cross contamination from the nearby areas mediated by the health personnel. Moreover, with the new emerging infections,there has been a sudden rise inthe risk of multi-resistance to antibiotics and a greater degree of health problems for medical personnel. Hence, this ensures a greater risk for the COVID patients in ICU who are in direct contact.

Therefore, Emilio highlighted the importance of adopting good practices for equipment disinfection, surfaces and management of COVID-19 patients. The spread of bacterial infection is common in a hospital environment; however, employing the recommendation given by the health authority is necessary to control the infection spread among the COVID-19 patients.