Controlling healthcare acquired infections in the superbug era

Even the cleanest hospitals can serve as breeding grounds for dangerous microbes. Viral particles launched by a sneeze — or by a change of bed linens — hover in the air, to be inhaled by patients or to land on intravenous poles. Pathogens deposited into a box of surgical gloves hitch a ride, via central line, to a patient’s bloodstream, or via catheter to the urinary tract. Bacteria travel from the bed rail of an infected patient to the hands of a nurse and from there to vulnerable patients.8 The web of transmission routes is vast, complex, and invisible.