The effect of handling procedures on microbial contamination of enteral feeds--a comparison of the use of sterile vs non-sterile gloves.

The use of non-sterile disposable gloves to reduce the level of microbial contamination introduced into enteral feeds during the assembly of the feeding systems was investigated. No contamination was detected in any of the feed samples collected from the systems assembled wearing non-sterile gloves. The number of microorganisms transferred to the surface of agar plates used for fingerprint cultures was reduced from an average of 43-54 colony forming units (cfu) per plate for volunteers with bare hands to less than 1 cfu when they wore non-sterile gloves. No contamination was detected on plates touched by volunteers wearing sterile gloves.