Thirty-four hospital curtains and two control curtains were placed and cultured as described. A total of 14 hospital curtains were removed prior to week 8. Out of 14 hospital curtains, seven were removed following various changing schedules of each ward, three due to isolation of VRE from curtain cultures, two due to isolation of MRSA from admitted patients, and two due to isolation of VRE from admitted patients. None of the curtains were removed due to visible contamination.
The contamination level of control curtains remained under 0.2 CFU/cm2 over the study period. Eleven hospital curtains exceeded the contamination threshold of 2.5 CFU/cm2 before week 8. The cumulative rate of contaminated curtains increased during the study period (15.6% at week 2, 37.0% at week 4, and 55% at week 8; Table 1). MRSA was isolated from neither control nor hospital curtains during the study period. VRE was not isolated from control curtains, but was isolated from 11.8% (4/34) of hospital curtains during the study period (two at week 2, one at week 4, and one at week 6).
Table 1
Cumulative contamination rates of hospital privacy curtains
| Baseline | Week 1 | Week 2 | Week 3 | Week 4 | Week 6 | Week 8 |
No. of curtains evaluated | 34 | 34 | 32 | 31 | 27 | 22 | 20 |
No. of contaminated curtains | 0 | 3 | 5 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 11 |
Cumulative contamination rate (%) | 0 | 8.8 | 15.6 | 29.0 | 37.0 | 50.0 | 55.0 |
Among the five curtains in the ICU, none were contaminated above a threshold of 2.5 CFU/cm2. In contrast, out of 29 curtains in general wards, eleven (37.9%) were contaminated. The contamination rates of curtains from 2-, 4-, 5-, 6-, and 7-bed rooms were 0% (0/1), 0% (0/4), 20% (1/5), 43.8% (7/16), and 100% (3/3), respectively.