Sterilization Technology Kills Hospital Bedbugs

A new hospital sterilization system eradicates highly drug-resistant bacteria as well as a problem increasingly plaguing hospitals—bedbugs.

The AsepticSure sterilization system is a portable, affordable, easily operated system that is placed in the center of the room scheduled to be cleaned. The room vents and doors are then sealed with a cleanly removable adhesive tape product. The system is then turned on from outside of the room through a remote wireless computer interface, and the room is filled with a patented ozone-based gas formula with specific humidity and charge strength.

Following the charge period, the sterilization process is remotely turned off and a separate technology is employed that restores the atmosphere inside the room. The end result leaves the treated room sterile of pathogens with a sweet, fresh oxygen-charged atmosphere. Turnaround time for reuse of rooms up to 113 cubic meters in size is 80–90 minutes; this includes decontamination of carpets, drapes and medical equipment, all to the 6 log sterilization standard. The AsepticSure sterilization system is a product of Medizone International (San Francisco, CA, USA).

“The bedbugs, and particularly the eggs of bedbugs, are even harder to kill than the spores of the bacteria,” said Professor Dick Zoutman, MD, an infectious disease specialist at Queen’s University (Ontario, Canada), and chief medical officer of Medizone International. “Medizone is now working to adapt the system to kill bedbugs in a faster and more effective manner, both for hospitals and other settings as well.”

More than a third of pest-management companies treated bedbug infestations in hospitals in 2012, 6% more than the year before and more than twice as many as in 2010, according to a survey released today by the National Pest Management Association (Fairfax, VA, USA). While bedbugs do not transmit infections to humans, their bites can lead to secondary infections when victims scratch, opening themselves up to bacteria. This is especially problematic in hospitals, where there is a greater likelihood of infection with Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA).

Related Links:
Medizone International
National Pest Management Association