A report on a conference on ‘water microbiology – current and emerging issues in healthcare’, which considered how well recent legislation and guidance had been working for those ‘at the frontline of infection control’.
Susan Pearson* reports on some of the most interesting presentations at an International Biodeterioration and Biodegradation Society (IBBS) and Public Health England conference on ‘Water microbiology – current and emerging issues in healthcare’, held at the University of Winchester in early September.** Two and a half years after the publication of the Addendum to HTM 04-01 – which gave advice on controlling and minimising the risk of morbidity and mortality due to P. aeruginosa in augmented care units – a major focus at the event was on how well the Addendum had been working for those ‘at the frontline of infection control’, and what improvements, if any, might be needed.
Published in 2013, Pseudomonas aeruginosa – advice for augmented care units, the new Addendum to Health Memorandum 04-01 on the control of Legionella in water, blazed a trail in changing the perception of the role of water in transmitting hospital-acquired P. aeruginosa and other waterborne bacterial infections to vulnerable healthcare patients. Reports of the association between water and Pseudomonas infections have been accumulating over many years, some going back as far as the 1980s, but the high profile deaths in 2011/12 of four babies in Northern Ireland’s neonatal units from P. aeruginosa infections very firmly established the link between water and Pseudomonas infections when the source of the outbreak was traced back to contaminated water and biofilm in taps. Directly stimulated by this tragedy, HTM 04-01 has been a landmark, the first guidance to be written for P. aeruginosa based on the formation of multidisciplinary Water Safety Groups (WSGs) and detailed Water Safety Plans (WSPs).
However, as the Addendum itself acknowledges, any guidance is only as good as the knowledge on which it is based: “The current state of knowledge on P. aeruginosa, taps, and water systems, is not extensive, and is based on limited scientific evidence. This guidance is based on current expert opinion and will develop as the knowledge base expands.”
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