Bacterial foodborne pathogens of concern

Microbial Contaminants and Contamination Routes in Food Industry - 1st Open Seminar arranged by SAFOODNET; Espoo; Finland; 22 January 2007 through 23 January 2007A high level of protection of public health is one of the fundamental objectives of food law as laid down in regulations (EC) No 178/2002 and 852/2004. Throughout the European Union (EU) consumers are requiring the food industry to provide them with an increasing range of safe, nutritious and healthy foods of high sensory quality and increased shelf life. To meet the demand for healthier food of high sensory quality, the use of additives and preservatives is being reduced or eliminated and minimal processing techniques introduced. To increase food safety and quality considerable amount of time, effort and money has been spent to food safety control and management (ISO 22000:2005) systems including better packaging methods and improved new pathogen detection methods

Comparison of three distinct surgical clothing systems for protection from air-borne bacteria: A prospective observational study

Abstract Background To prevent surgical site infection it is desirable to keep bacterial counts low in the operating room air during orthopaedic surgery, especially prosthetic surgery. As the air-borne bacteria are mainly derived from the skin flora of the personnel present in the operating room a reduction could be achieved by using a clothing system for staff made from a material fulfilling the requirements in the standard EN 13795. The aim of this study was to compare the protective capacity between three clothing systems made of different materials – one mixed cotton/polyester and two polyesters - which all had passed the tests according to EN 13795. Methods Measuring of CFU/m3 air was performed during 21 orthopaedic procedures performed in four operating rooms with turbulent, mixing ventilation with air flows of 755 – 1,050 L/s. All staff in the operating room wore clothes made from the same material during each surgical procedure. Results The source strength (mean value of CFU emitted from one person per second) calculated for the three garments were 4.1, 2.4 and 0.6 respectively. In an operating room with an air flow of 755 L/s both clothing systems made of polyester reduced the amount of CFU/m3 significantly compared to the clothing system made from mixed material. In an operating room with air intake of 1,050 L/s a significant reduction was only achieved with the polyester that had the lowest source strength. Conclusions Polyester has a better protective capacity than cotton/polyester. There is need for more discriminating tests of the protective efficacy of textile materials intended to use for operating garment.</p

Single-use surgical clothing system for reduction of airborne bacteria in the operating room

It is desirable to maintain a low bacterial count in the operating room air to prevent surgical site infection. This can be achieved by ventilation or by all staff in the operating room wearing clothes made from low-permeable material (i.e. clean air suits). We investigated whether there was a difference in protective efficacy between a single-use clothing system made of polypropylene and a reusable clothing system made of a mixed material (cotton/polyester) by testing both in a dispersal chamber and during surgical procedures. Counts of colony-forming units (cfu)/m(3) air were significantly lower when using the single-use clothing system in both settings

Results from a Swedish survey - investigations in operating rooms

A survey is presented with data from 27 operating rooms in four county councils, where air flows, concentration of airborne viable particles and used clothing systems have been given from 111 ongoing surgeries. With the results from the survey, a simple mathematical expression based upon the dilution principle has been established to predict the concentration of airborne viable particles present in the operating room during ongoing surgery. This expression has shown relatively good agreemtn with reported results from ongoing surgery

Study of proper placements of HEPA-filter units in order to prevent airborne contamination of autoclaves in aseptic production by using computional fluid dynamics.

Autoclaves are common process equipment used in the pharmaceutical industry. This type of process equipment can cause temperature differences relative to ambient air. During unloading autoclaves used for aseptic production, entrainment of room air into the loading chamers may occur creating contamination risks. To minimize these risks, high-efficiency particulate air filter units with unidirectional flow (UDF) can be used to provide the chamber openings with clean air protection. This paper describes the use of computational fluid dynamics to simulate unloading of autoclaves used for aseptic production in meaning to improve the understanding of contamination risks of the autoclave chamber and present solutions of proper placement of HEPA-filters in order to protect the openings of autoclaves