In an interview with Infection Control Today, Becky Smith, MD, medical director of infection prevention at Duke University Hospital, discussed a case of serial transmission of NDM-1 Klebsiella pneumoniae tied to a hospital sink drain.
In 2017, Duke Hospital identified a patient who had an NDM-1 Klebsiella pneumoniae. The hospital eventually found that a second were able to identify that this patient was in the same room as the room that the first patient .
Duke sampled the sink based on the literature that has implicated sink drains and P-traps and shower drain P-traps in being persistent point sources for carbapenemase-producing organisms. The hospital also actually closed the room just out of an abundance of caution and took out the sink.
The sink drain culture from the biofilm was positive for the NDM-1 Klebsiella pneumoniae. The P-trap water was negative.
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