ArticlePloS one2019
Contamination of hospital surfaces with respiratory pathogens in Bangladesh.
Article in PloS one, 2019. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 13 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
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Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
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Who cites it
13 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 31 citations in OpenAlex.
- Potential for Person-to-Person Transmission of Henipaviruses: A Systematic Review of the Literature.The Journal of infectious diseases · 2024Pooled it
- The Role of Neonatal Ward Environment as a Reservoir for the Dissemination of Multidrug-Resistant Klebsiella pneumoniae in Algeria.MicrobiologyOpen · 2026Article
- Comparative Analysis of Biofilm Formation and Antibiotic Resistance in Five ESKAPE Pathogen Species from a Tertiary Hospital in Bangladesh.Antibiotics (Basel, Switzerland) · 2025Article
- Textiles as fomites in the healthcare system.Applied microbiology and biotechnology · 2023Review
- How Does Hospital Microbiota Contribute to Healthcare-Associated Infections?Microorganisms · 2023Review
- Seasonal influenza vaccine uptake among healthcare workers in tertiary care hospitals, Bangladesh: Study protocol for influenza vaccine supply and awareness intervention.BMC public health · 2022Article
- What does family involvement in care provision look like across hospital settings in Bangladesh, Indonesia, and South Korea?BMC health services research · 2022Article
- In Vitro Cyto- and Genotoxicity Assessment of Antibacterial Paints with Triclosan and Isoborneol.Toxics · 2022Article
- Contamination of Hospital Surfaces with Bacterial Pathogens under the Current COVID-19 Outbreak.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2021Article
- High-Content Imaging to Phenotype Antimicrobial Effects on Individual Bacteria at Scale.mSystems · 2021Article
- Multi-route transmission potential of SARS-CoV-2 in healthcare facilities.Journal of hazardous materials · 2021Article
- Protecting frontline healthcare workers should be the top priority in low-resource health systems: Bangladesh and COVID-19.Infection control and hospital epidemiology · 2021Article
- Surface Wiping Test to Study Biocide -Cinnamaldehyde Combination to Improve Efficiency in Surface Disinfection.International journal of molecular sciences · 2020Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
9 authors at 4 institutions in 3 countries.
Funding
Abstract
With limited infection control practices in overcrowded Bangladeshi hospitals, surfaces may play an important role in the transmission of respiratory pathogens in hospital wards and pose a serious risk of infection for patients, health care workers, caregivers and visitors. In this study, we aimed to identify if surfaces near hospitalized patients with respiratory infections were contaminated with respiratory pathogens and to identify which surfaces were most commonly contaminated. Between September-November 2013, we collected respiratory (nasopharyngeal and oropharyngeal) swabs from patients hospitalized with respiratory illness in adult medicine and paediatric medicine wards at two public tertiary care hospitals in Bangladesh. We collected surface swabs from up to five surfaces near each case-patient including: the wall, bed rail, bed sheet, clinical file, and multipurpose towel used for care giving purposes. We tested swabs using real-time multiplex PCR for 19 viral and 12 bacterial pathogens. Case-patients with at least one pathogen detected had corresponding surface swabs tested for those same pathogens. Of 104 patients tested, 79 had a laboratory-confirmed respiratory pathogen. Of the 287 swabs collected from surfaces near these patients, 133 (46%) had evidence of contamination with at least one pathogen. The most commonly contaminated surfaces were the bed sheet and the towel. Sixty-two percent of patients with a laboratory-confirmed respiratory pathgen (49/79) had detectable viral or bacterial nucleic acid on at least one surface. Klebsiella pneumoniae was the most frequently detected pathogen on both respiratory swabs (32%, 33/104) and on surfaces near patients positive for this organism (97%, 32/33). Surfaces near patients hospitalized with respiratory infections were frequently contaminated by pathogens, with Klebsiella pneumoniae being most common, highlighting the potential for transmission of respiratory pathogens via surfaces. Efforts to introduce routine cleaning in wards may be a feasible strategy to improve infection control, given that severe space constraints prohibit cohorting patients with respiratory illness.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.