Background
Infection control is critical to providing high‐quality patient care. Many veterinary teaching hospitals (VTHs) utilize footbaths or footmats at entrances and key control points throughout ...the facility to decrease trafficking of pathogenic microorganism on contaminated footwear.
Hypothesis/Objectives
To compare efficacy of 4 disinfectants used in footmats for decreasing bacterial contamination of footwear in a large animal hospital.
Animals
A single adult dairy cow was housed in a stall for 4 days to facilitate stall contamination with fecal material.
Methods
Overboots were experimentally contaminated with organic material in a standardized manner. Each boot was randomly assigned to 1 of 5 treatments (no treatment, or exposure to 1 of 4 disinfectants: an accelerated peroxygen AHP, a peroxygen VIRKON, a quaternary ammonium QUAT, and a phenolic disinfectant PHENOLIC) by stepping on a soaked footmat and collecting samples from boot soles. Generalized linear modeling was used to analyze differences in bacterial counts.
Results
Reductions in colony‐forming units (CFUs) on treated boots ranged from no detectable reduction to 0.45 log10 and varied by disinfectant. Percentage reductions in total bacterial counts generally were larger (albeit still modest) for AHP and QUAT disinfectants (range 37–45%) and smallest for the PHENOLIC (no detectable reduction).
Conclusions and Clinical Importance
In general, use of disinfectant footmats was associated with significant reductions in viable bacteria on overboots—albeit with variable efficacy. Footmats may be useful adjuncts to cleaning and disinfection programs for decreasing trafficking of microorganisms throughout VTHs but should not be considered as a sole prevention method.
Summary
Reasons for performing study
Effective decontamination of animal holding environments is critical for providing high quality patient care and maintaining a safe working environment. ...Disinfection of animal holding environments is a significant challenge during times of epidemic disease.
Objectives
The purpose of this study was to evaluate the disinfectant efficacy of 3 strategies for high‐volume directed mist application of accelerated hydrogen peroxide and peroxymonosulfate disinfectants; 4.25% accelerated hydrogen peroxide (Accel®; AHP) at a 1:16 dilution and single and double applications of 2% peroxymonosulfate solution (Virkon‐S®; VIR‐1 and VIR‐2) for decontamination of a large animal hospital environment.
Study design
Experiment.
Methods
After cleaning and disinfection of the hospital environment, transparencies experimentally contaminated with known concentrations of Staphylococcus aureus, Salmonella enterica and Pseudomonas aeruginosa were placed on vertical surfaces. Disinfectant solution was applied by directed mist application and, after 30 min of contact time, transparencies were collected and individually placed into tubes containing 10 ml Dey‐Engley broth. The process was repeated for each disinfectant. Tenfold dilutions of each sample were plated onto tryptic soy blood agar with 5% sheep blood. Bacterial counts from transparencies exposed to disinfectants were compared with counts from control transparencies (unexposed to disinfectants) to evaluate reduction in colony forming units.
Results
The least squares mean reduction (log10) in colony forming units (CFUs) for S. aureus and P. aeruginosa was 1.5–2.5 logs and approximately 0.8–1.0 logs for S. enterica. Reductions were generally largest for VIR‐2 and smallest for AHP, although these differences were not all statistically significant and the magnitude of differences may not be clinically relevant.
Conclusions
For the organisms evaluated, all 3 disinfectants applied as a directed mist were effective at reducing CFUs in a veterinary hospital environment. Effective disinfection using this method of application is dependent on adequate cleaning prior to application, and use of adequate volumes of disinfectant.
Introduction
Equine herpesvirus type 1 (EHV‐1) is a highly contagious agent for horses, able to cause outbreaks of respiratory disease, myelopathy and/or abortion. Horizontal transmission is directly ...through nasopharyngeal droplet transmission or, indirectly, through fomite transmission. Once in the environment viral maintenance of infectivity will depend on a variety of factors associated with viral envelope integrity. Adsorptive and surface tension forces, temperature fluctuations and UV‐light exposure have been shown to affect envelope integrity in other herpesviridae.
Aims
We hypothesised that viral survival will be different if placed on various surfaces or materials, and if placed in different environmental conditions.
Methods
An EHV‐1 suspension was placed on surfaces or materials: plastic, fabric, leather and stall bedding materials: shavings and straw. Materials were placed in different environments: constant 4°C, ‘barn’ and ‘outdoor environment’. Samples of each material and environment were collected at time points 0, 3, 12, 24, 36 and 48 h followed by viral titration and quantitative PCR analysis. Statistical analysis used generalised linear models with random‐effects mixed models controlling for repeated measures. Statistical significance was assumed when P<0.05.
Results
Results showed significant differences upon contact (t = 0) of the viral suspension with materials, most noticeable with shavings and leather. Most materials and in environmental conditions other than 4°C showed a rapid decrease in viral survival, especially during the first 3 h. While results show significant reduction on some surfaces and materials over others, it is important to realise that viral maintenance of infectivity was still significant under simulated ‘barn conditions’ following the 3 h time point.
Conclusions and practical significance
These results emphasise the importance of the prudent use of biosecurity protocols when mitigating an EHV‐1 outbreak.
Ethical animal research
Not applicable. Sources of funding: 1) Student was funded from an internal grant (DVM student grant) at CSU. 2) CSU Equine Neurology Research Fund. Competing interests: None.
Tuberculosis (TB) is endemic in Eurasian wild boar (Sus scrofa) and red deer (Cervus elaphus) in south central Spain, where evidence suggests transmission to domestic cattle. Known risk factors for ...TB at the interface between livestock and wild ungulate species include density and spatial overlap, particularly around waterholes during summer. We evaluated the effectiveness of selective exclusion measures for reducing direct and indirect interaction between extensive beef cattle and wild ungulates at waterholes as an alternative for the integrated control of TB. We first monitored 6 water points (WP) with infrared-triggered cameras at a TB positive cattle farm to quantify interactions. We then assigned 3 WP to be “cattle-only” and 3 to be “wildlife-only”. Cattle-only WP were surrounded with a wildlife-proof fence (2.5m high) and an original design of cattle-specific gate. Wildlife-only WP were surrounded by a fence that wild ungulates could breach but cattle could not (1.2m high). Red deer, roe deer (Capreolus capreolus) and wild boar easily jumped or undercrossed this fence. Wildlife-only fences were 100% effective in preventing cattle access to WP and did not impede wildlife use. Many cows learned to operate the cattle-specific gate quickly and others followed and learned from them. Within 2 weeks, around 70% of cows actively entered and exited through the cattle-specific gate. We demonstrate how simple, low-cost fencing strategies can serve as biosecurity measures to substantially reduce direct and indirect contact between cattle and wild ungulates, serving to reduce the potential for TB transmission. Our designs can be used in the context of integral plans to mitigate disease transmission between cattle and wildlife, and have potential for protecting or segregating the use of a variety of resources in different contexts.
PDF
