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09 November 2023 | Story André Damons | Photo SUPPLIED
UFS experts give presentations on hospital-acquired infections at Africa Health
From left (bottom) Samantha Mc Carlie, Prof Robert Bragg and Caroline Bilen. (Back) Hugo La Reserve (from PMB Health and Safety) and Dr Noor Zakhura (from Free State Department of Health) at the Africa Health Exhibition.

It was recently discovered that bacteria are capable of growing inside bottles of disinfectants, hand sanitisers and antiseptics. These cleaning products, which are actively used in South African hospitals, are doing more harm than good by contaminating the environment they are designed to clean. Upon testing, some of these contaminated bottles harbouring harmful microorganisms were still actively in use in hospitals and instead of killing microorganisms, the contaminated cleaning solutions were spreading pathogens throughout the hospital with their use. 

This is according to Samantha Mc Carlie from the Department of Microbiology and Biochemistry at the University of the Free State (UFS). She, with her promotor, Prof Robert Bragg, were part of a workshop at the Africa Health Exhibition – the biggest gathering of health care professionals in South Africa and Africa. This was held at Gallagher Estate, Midrand, from 17 to 19 October 2023. 

Increasing mortalities in health-care setting

In a workshop titled: “Developing and sustaining safe health-care environments”, they were part of the main presenting panel, together with Caroline Bilen from the Compass Health Consultancy in Dubai 

Prof Bragg, whose main research is in disease-control, first in the agricultural industry, and now human health, started off the session by highlighting the problems with the increasing mortalities in the health-care setting. He presented data indicating that in the not too distant future, deaths from hospital-acquired infections would be the leading cause of human deaths. “This problem is rapidly growing as most of the pathogens which people contract while in hospital are now resistant to antibiotics, making them very difficult to treat,” he explained.

He used an analogy from San Tzu from the book The Art of War to explain why humankind is losing the war against the microbes. “San Tzu stated that if you know yourself and know your enemy, you will be victorious in every battle. On the other hand, if you do not know yourself or the enemy, you will be defeated in every battle. He pointed out that we do not know the enemy and we do know ourselves (or rather the weapons we have to defeat the enemy) and for this reason we are being defeated,” according to Prof Bragg. 

He continued: “We know the names of the different pathogens causing diseases, but do we really understand them? The answer to that must be ‘no’. A typical example is people are using ethanol-based or chlorine-based products to disinfect and then they wonder why there are increasing problems with Clostridioides difficile infections. If we knew the enemy, we would know that this bacterium producers endospores  and chlorine and ethanol-based disinfectants do not inactivate bacterial endospores, and so will not kill this bacterium,” said Prof Bragg. 

He stated that a major concern for hospitals is that they are currently unaware of whether the disinfectants they are using are effective against the pathogens in their hospital. It is assumed that their cleaning products are working but no testing is being done.

Bacterial resistance to disinfectants

Mc Carlie, in her presentation, highlighted the development of bacterial resistance to disinfectants and why this is important in the health-care setting. She pointed out that the standards for the registration of disinfectant products is based on the use of reference strains of bacteria.

“Bacteria found in hospital environments often exhibit significantly greater resistance to disinfectant compounds compared to the standard strains used for product testing. The presence of these resistant bacteria can result in microbial growth and contamination within containers of disinfectants, hand sanitisers, and antiseptics intended for hospital cleaning purposes. Instead of effectively eliminating microorganisms, these contaminated products inadvertently spread these resilient bacteria throughout the hospital environment, contributing to overall contamination,” said Mc Carlie.

She also discussed the consequences of using incorrectly diluted disinfectant products at concentrations that will not be effective against resilient hospital pathogens. 

Prof Bragg finished the session with a discussion on the solutions to the current problem and highlighted the need for a paradigm shift in medicine. “The current paradigm, since the discovery of antibiotics, has been treatment. As we are entering into a post-antibiotic era, this paradigm of treatment needs to change to one of ‘prevention’. The old saying ‘Prevention is better than cure’ has never been more true.”

He concluded by discussing various options which could be used when focus is placed on biosecurity for the prevention of hospital-acquired infection; including the installation of UV lights, monitoring of the laundry process, correct disinfecting of surfaces, using products with proven efficacy against the pathogens isolated from the different health-care setting and finally, the use of antimicrobial bedside privacy curtains.

The workshop ended with a panel discussion on biosecurity and the efforts needed to reduce the ever-increasing numbers of hospital-acquired infections. It is hoped that the message of this workshop will have a significant impact on the reduction of hospital acquired infections. 

Click to view documentProf Bragg's presentation.

Click to view documentMc Carlie's presentation.

News Archive

CTL experiments with mobile technology in teaching and learning
2016-05-23

Description: CTL experiments with mobile technology  Tags: CTL experiments with mobile technology

On the left is Nokukhanya Nkosi, Researcher and Project manager at the Centre for Teaching and Learning presenting Annah Nggoepe her brand new laptop as part of the project which assesses the impact of personal mobile devices on teaching and learning.
Photo: Supplied

Video clip

Same curriculum. Add technology. Wait and see what happens. This research project which is funded by the Department of Higher Education and Training (DHET) seeks to understand the impact of personal mobile devices (PMD) in teaching and learning.

The University of the Free State (UFS), in conjunction with the University of Cape Town, the University of the Witwatersrand, the University of Johannesburg, and Sol Plaatje University, was approached by the DHET to spearhead this national collaborative project. Investigating whether the financial investment of a PMD on either the part of a university or of students adds value to the teaching and learning experience is the overall objective of the project.

Contemporary education
The Centre for Teaching and Learning (CTL) at the UFS have been taking an active part in the project since 2015, focusing specifically on the use of personal mobile devices in teaching and learning by both staff and students.

At the student level, the study will focus specifically on not just the obstacles that first-generation students face in terms of using technology in teaching and learning, but how institutions can support these students through access to these devices.  “In 2015, the CTL conducted the Digital Identity Study of students which highlighted the view that students at the UFS deemed laptops to be the most important PMD in their studies,” said Nokukhanya Nkosi, Researcher and Project manager at the CTL.   

In April 2016, thirty students were presented with laptops funded by the project grant. For the next two years, the CTL will assess whether these laptops enable greater flexibility and effectiveness of teaching and learning, both inside and out of the classroom for these students.  

Rise of the digital classroom
Annah Ngoepe, a second-year Geography and Environmental Management student taking part in this study, commends the shift from using only textbooks in the past to incorporating technology. “The laptop has the latest applications and programmes, which are convenient for me as a student, because they help in my learning. I can also download textbooks, get summaries of the textbooks, and even other people’s views on a particular subject online.”

Tiana van der Merwe, Deputy Director at the CTL, anticipates that, after two years, the Centre would be able to make not only institutional recommendations, but also recommendations to the National Department of Higher Education.

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