We examined a cluster of 5 hemodialysis patients who contracted gram-negative bacteremia. A nurse who used an artificial fingernail to open a vial of heparin that was mixed to make a flush solution had a culture of an artificial fingernail specimen positive for Serratia marcescens. The typing of the S. marcescens strains isolated from the 5 patients and the nurse showed them to be identical. This finding provides strong support for policies prohibiting artificial nails for healthcare workers in all hemodialysis units.

Fire incidents in German hospitals related to the use of alcohol-based hand rubs were analyzed. Seven nonsevere fire incidents were identified, occurring during 25,038 hospital-years, which were caused by individual human actions and not by technical failure. The results underline the safety of using alcohol-based hand rubs in hospitals.

Registered nurses working at a teaching hospital in Kuwait were surveyed to assess the psychosocial variables associated with their intention to comply with glove-wearing recommendations. Perceived consequences and normative beliefs, as well as sex and years of nursing experience, significantly influenced their behavioral intentions, suggesting that improvements in intention to comply are more likely to come from practical demonstrations that show nurses the potential outcomes of both using and not using gloves.

We investigated the epidemiology and prevention of sharps injuries in the United Arab Emirates. Among 82 emergency nurses and 38 doctors who responded to our questionnaire, risk factors for sharp device injuries identified using the Haddon matrix included personal factors (for the pre-event phase, a lack of infection control training, a lack of immunization, and recapping needles, and for the postevent phase, underreporting of sharps injuries) and equipment-related factors (for the pre-event phase, failure to use safe devices; for the event phase, failure to use gloves in all appropriate situations). Nearly all injuries to doctors were caused by suture needles, and among nurses more than 50% of injuries were caused by hollow-bore needles.

A gram-positive rod with a restriction pattern closely related to the published nucleotide sequence of Mycobacterium mucogenicum was isolated from 6 of 45 units of peripheral blood stem cell products. The source of the contamination was traced to ice cubes used in processing the peripheral blood stem cell products. Substituting reusable ice trays for ice from an ice machine terminated the outbreak.

A cluster of clinical isolates of Bordetella bronchiseptica was identified by microbiology laboratory personnel. A clinical and molecular epidemiologic study determined that this cluster represented a pseudo-outbreak due to bacterial contamination of rabbit blood used as a broth culture supplement. This pseudo-outbreak highlights the importance of quality assurance programs in the laboratory.