Everyday surgical adhesive tape can harbour a cocktail of virulent superbugs, an Australian study has shown, with half of rolls sampled from New South Wales hospitals found to contain MRSA or vancomycin-resistant enterococci (VRE).
The organisms were found on 11 out of 21 partially-used rolls of tape, taken from three hospitals. Ten rolls harboured VRE, four harboured MRSA and three contained both.
All 21 samples showed evidence of contamination with at least one other non-antibiotic-resistant bacterium, including enterobacteriaceae, and acinetobacter and pseudomonas. Infectious disease experts from the hospitals recommended that surgical tape be supplied in shorter, single-use rolls.
They noted that simply removing the outer layer of tape was “unlikely to reduce contamination”, and that the entire roll should therefore be discarded after use.
“Our results indicate that surgical adhesive tapes are frequently contaminated with multiresistant organisms,” they wrote in a letter to the Medical Journal of Australia. “Items such as intravenous cannulae, surgical drains and wound dressings are frequently fixed using surgical adhesive tape. This may lead to colonisation and subsequent infection.
“Furthermore, tape rolls are often left lying on contaminated surfaces, are handled by multiple individuals and cannot be disinfected.”
MJA 2012; 196 (1): 34. doi: 10.5694/mja11.11211
About Mary Anne Kenny
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