• Hiroki Kitagawa, Minako Mori, Toshinori Hara, Seiya Kashiyama, Norifumi Shigemoto, and Hiroki Ohge.
• Project Research Center for Nosocomial Infectious Diseases, Hiroshima University, Hiroshima, Japan; Department of Infectious Diseases, Hiroshima University Hospital, Hiroshima, Japan; Department of Surgery, Graduate School of Biomedical and Health Sciences, Hiroshima University, Hiroshima, Japan. Electronic address: hiroki054839@gmail.com.
• Am J Infect Control. 2021 Jan 1; 49 (1): 55-58.

BackgroundContaminated environmental surfaces are important sources of transmission for healthcare-associated pathogens, including Clostridioides (Clostridium) difficile. The effectiveness of manual bleach cleaning and pulsed xenon ultraviolet (PX-UV) disinfection on C. difficile contamination of hospital room high-touch surfaces in Japan was evaluated.MethodsThe environmental surfaces of 20 C. difficile infection (CDI) isolation rooms were sampled immediately after CDI patients were discharged or transferred. High-touch surfaces were sampled before and after either bleach cleaning or PX-UV disinfection in addition to nonbleach cleaning. Changes in the number of C. difficile-positive samples and bacterial counts for each cleaning method were assessed.ResultsOverall, 286 samples were collected (bleach cleaning, 144 samples; PX-UV disinfection, 142 samples). Before cleaning, the positive rates of C. difficile were 27.8% and 31.0% in bleach cleaning and PX-UV disinfection, respectively. Both bleach cleaning and PX-UV disinfection significantly reduced overall C. difficile-positive samples (P = .018 and P = .002, respectively) and C. difficile colony-forming unit counts (P = .002 and P = .001, respectively).ConclusionsPX-UV disinfection in addition to manual nonbleach cleaning effectively reduces C. difficile contamination from high-touch surfaces. Further studies are warranted to evaluate the effect of PX-UV disinfection on CDI rates in Japanese hospitals.Copyright © 2020 Association for Professionals in Infection Control and Epidemiology, Inc. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

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