Germany’s largest geriatric facility – the Berlin Geriatrics Centre (Evangelisches Geriatriezentrum Berlin), – has specified antimicrobial copper door furniture throughout to augment its infection prevention procedures – the largestscale antimicrobial copper deployment in healthcare to date.
The Copper Development Association (CDA) says the touch surfaces will ‘rapidly kill bacteria and viruses that settle on them’, adding that ‘up to 600,000 patients’ catch healthcare-associated infections each year in Germany. Professor Martin Exner, director of the Institute for Hygiene and Public Health at the University of Bonn, and President of the German Society for Hospital Hygiene, said: “Our weapons in the fight against nosocomial infections are becoming ever weaker as resistance to antibiotics grows. That is why such infections pose one of the greatest medical challenges of the future for the whole of Europe.” The CDA, which says an increasing number of German hospitals are joining others worldwide in using copper for touch surfaces such as door handles and light switches, added: “Laboratory research has demonstrated copper’s ability to eliminate bacteria, viruses, and fungi at room temperature and humidity. For example, 1 cm2 of copper will kill 106 VRE bacteria in under 10 minutes.”
