Long Fingernails Might Contribute To Spread Of Infection

Posting Date: 02/29/2000

Investigators with the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) are hinting that long or artificial fingernails may have contributed to an infectious outbreak that resulted in 11 deaths in a neonatal intensive care unit in an Oklahoma City hospital.

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While the evidence isn?t strong enough to ban all health care workers from wearing long or artificial nails, researchers did isolate Pseudomonas aeruginosa from the hands of three nurses out of 104 hospital personnel tested, according to a report in Infection Control and Hospital Epidemiology.

A type of P. aeruginosa responsible for 75 percent of the infections in the neonatal ward was found in the cultures of two nurses and a strain type that caused 15 percent of the infections showed up in the culture of the third nurse.

Of the three nurses, one had long natural fingernails, one had long artificial fingernails and the other had short natural fingernails ? which is why investigators are still scratching their heads.

One thing the CDC didn?t pin down is the source of the P. aeruginosa contamination. The investigators also don?t know if germs on the nurses? hands caused the outbreak, or ended up on their hands because of the outbreak.

In other words, we really don?t know if wearing long or natural fingernails is a risk factor in a hospital setting where germs abound. But the researchers did recommend that neonatal ICU health care workers be restricted from having long or artificial fingernails.

Source: Infection Control and Hospital Epidemiology, February 2000