Home|Journals|Articles by Year|Audio Abstracts
 

Original Article

SJEMed. 2023; 4(1): 263-267


The distribution of surface contamination with SARS-COV-2 in various parts of an emergency department at a tertiary care hospital in Dubai- a prospective study

Malik Zaka Ullah, Ayesha Maklai, Zebunnisa Sohail, Firas Jaafar Kareem Al Najjar, Maya Habous.




Abstract

Objective: This study aimed to find if certain places are more contaminated by SARS COV-2 than the others in an Emergency Department (ED) of a tertiary care hospital.
Methods: This was a prospective cross-sectional study carried out at the tertiary care hospital of Dubai. The study was carried out over a course of 4 weeks. Total 50 swab samples were taken. Twenty five were collected from the “dirty” areas and twenty five from the “clean” areas. Patients who had a positive SARS-COV-2 polymerase chain reaction (PCR) test in both areas were included in the study.
Results: From a total of 50 swabs collected, large number of swabs was collected from resuscitation and major treatment area (38% and 30%, respectively). Of total, positive SARS-COV-2 PCR was detected on 38% of swabs. Of which 44% were from dirty areas and 32% were from clean areas. Considering areas of ED positive SARS COV-2 PCR, it was detected majorly from zone 4 (50%) followed by major (40%) and minor treatment areas (33.3%), respectively.
Conclusion: The detection of the virus in 32% of the samples taken from clean areas emphasizes on the importance of using personal protective equipment and hand hygiene measures even when working in areas where patients have been triaged without the presence of symptoms suggestive of a COVID-19 infection.

Key words: Surface contamination, SARS-COV-2, emergency department, tertiary care hospital, Dubai.






Full-text options


Share this Article


Online Article Submission
• ejmanager.com




ejPort - eJManager.com
Refer & Earn
JournalList
About BiblioMed
License Information
Terms & Conditions
Privacy Policy
Contact Us

The articles in Bibliomed are open access articles licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY), which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.