Healthcare laundries are effective at preventing the spread of infection, according to an article on the Healio website.

“Recent innovations in the laundry industry have led to major advances in laundry equipment, laundry chemicals, fiber and fabric technology, and laundry facility design and engineering,” Lynne M. Sehulster, PhD, infectious disease epidemiologist at the CDC, wrote in a research review published in Infection Control and Hospital Epidemiology.

The study looked at 12 healthcare textiles-related outbreaks in the last 43 years. Seven occurred during the summer as the result of contamination from Bacillus cereus.

Causes for the outbreaks included contaminated washing machines; improper wash cycles or water temperatures or issues regarding reused water (58%); textile storage conditions that promoted growth of microbial pathogens (33%); and the contamination of textiles during transit from the laundry facility to the hospital (8%), the article said.

Read the article.