Outbreak of Burkholderia cepacia bacteraemia in a tertiary care centre due to contaminated ultrasound probe gel.
BACKGROUND
Burkholderia cepacia is an important opportunistic organism in hospitalized and immunocompromised patients, particularly in cystic fibrosis.


AIMS
To describe the epidemiological investigation of an outbreak of B. cepacia bacteraemia.


METHODS
The study examined 14 patients during their admission to three intensive care units in a tertiary care hospital between January and June 2016. The outbreak involved nine (57%) female and six (43%) male patients. All patients were adults of ages ranging from 19 to 85 years with a median age of 52 years. Patients' medical charts, laboratory cultures, exposures, and central line insertion procedures were reviewed.


FINDINGS
B. cepacia was isolated from the blood cultures of 14 patients resulting from contamination of the gel applied to the ultrasound probe used to guide the insertion of a central venous catheter. Molecular pathogen typing using pulsed-field gel electrophoresis showed 95% similarity between the B. cepacia isolates from the blood of these patients and those isolated from the ultrasound gel.


CONCLUSION
Ongoing surveillance and prompt investigation of unusual disease outbreaks are vital for identifying sources of contamination of B. cepacia and protecting at-risk patients. Sound epidemiological methods are very important for identifying the source of any hospital infection outbreak.
['Abdelfattah|R|R|', 'Al-Jumaah|S|S|', 'Al-Qahtani|A|A|', 'Al-Thawadi|S|S|', 'Barron|I|I|', 'Al-Mofada|S|S|']
D000328:Adult D000368:Aged D000369:Aged, 80 and over D016470:Bacteremia D001769:Blood D019121:Burkholderia Infections D016956:Burkholderia cepacia D016022:Case-Control Studies D002405:Catheterization, Central Venous D004196:Disease Outbreaks D016521:Electrophoresis, Gel, Pulsed-Field D004866:Equipment Contamination D005260:Female D005782:Gels D006801:Humans D008297:Male D008875:Middle Aged D017720:Molecular Epidemiology D058889:Molecular Typing D062606:Tertiary Care Centers D014463:Ultrasonography D055815:Young Adult
Burkholderia cepacia Bacteraemia Intensive care units Opportunistic infections Outbreak investigations Ultrasound probe cover