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from HCWs. In addition, our sampling frequency might not have been great enough to accurately determine the time of MDRO contamination. Still, our study provides important prospective data with relevance to routine practice. Finally, antimicrobial curtain B was only studied in a cubicle setting in medical wards, due to the difficulty in recruiting long-stay patients with MDROs residing in rooms that allowed multiple sampling of curtains before replacement and the high incidence and prevalence of MDROs in medical units.12 For patients with Clostridium difficile infection, we did not recover any C. difficile isolates on either antimicrobial curtain A or the standard curtain placed in the isolation room. Therefore, we could not determine the sporicidal efficacy of antimicrobial curtain A for C. difficile. In conclusion, privacy curtains were rapidly and frequently contaminated with MDROs. Antimicrobial curtain B (quaternary ammonium chlorides plus polyorganosiloxane), but not anti- microbial curtain A (built-in silver), did effectively reduce the microbial burden and MDRO contamination compared with the standard curtain, even after extended use in an active clinical setting. The median time of first contamination by MDROs was extended from 5 days (standard curtain) to 19 weeks (anti- microbial curtain B). Thus, replacing the standard curtain with an antimicrobial curtain could avert the costs related to curtain changing, laundering, and revenue loss, in addition to improving patient care by removing an environmental source of MDROs. Further studies to assess whether antimicrobial curtain can decrease the transmission of MDROs or lead to the emergence of antimicrobial resistance are needed.
Acknowledgments. We thank the hospital infection control teams and microbiology laboratory staff for data collection, specimen collection and processing.
Financial support. No financial support was provided relevant to this article.
Conflicts of interest. All authors report no conflicts of interest relevant to this article.
Shik Luk et al
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