Nosocomial transmission of Salmonella gastroenteritis to laundry workers in a nursing home.

BACKGROUND

Outbreaks of salmonella gastroenteritis in nursing homes are common. Person-to-person transmission to nursing home personnel occurs occasionally, but infection of laundry staff as a result of handling soiled linen rarely has been reported.

OBJECTIVE

To examine the nosocomial transmission of infection to laundry staff during an outbreak of salmonellosis in a nursing home.

SETTING

A 250-bed nursing home in a rural Tennessee county.

METHODS

Residents and staff of the nursing home were interviewed and cultures of stool samples examined for enteric pathogens.

RESULTS

Stool cultures from 32 residents and 8 employees were positive for Salmonella hadar. Infection among the residents was food-borne, but infection among employees likely represented secondary transmission, as none of the employees ate food prepared in the kitchen and their onset of symptoms occurred seven to 10 days after that of ill residents. Three laundry personnel who had no contact with residents were infected. Most of the ill residents (81%) were incontinent, which led to an increase in both the degree of fecal soiling and the amount of soiled linen received by the laundry during the outbreak. Laundry personnel regularly ate in the laundry room, did not wear protective clothing, and did not wear gloves consistently while handling soiled laundry.

CONCLUSIONS

This investigation implicates linen soiled with feces as the source of nosocomial S hadar infection in laundry workers and underscores the importance of using appropriate precautions when handling linen.