• Guangming Ye, Hualiang Lin, Song Chen, Shichan Wang, Zhikun Zeng, Wei Wang, Shiyu Zhang, Terri Rebmann, Yirong Li, Zhenyu Pan, Zhonghua Yang, Ying Wang, Fubing Wang, Zhengmin Qian, and Xinghuan Wang.
• Department of Laboratory Medicine, Zhongnan Hospital of Wuhan University, Wuhan, China.
• J. Infect. 2020 Aug 1; 81 (2): e1-e5.

ObjectivesA large number of healthcare workers (HCWs) were infected by SARS-CoV-2 during the ongoing outbreak of COVID-19 in Wuhan, China. Hospitals are significant epicenters for the human-to-human transmission of the SARS-CoV-2 for HCWs, patients, and visitors. No data has been reported on the details of hospital environmental contamination status in the epicenter of Wuhan.MethodsWe collected 626 surface swabs within the Zhongnan Medical Center in Wuhan in the mist of the COVID-19 outbreak between February 7 - February 27, 2020. Dacron swabs were aseptically collected from the surfaces of 13 hospital function zones, five major objects, and three major PPE. The SARS-CoV-2 RNAs were detected by reverse transcription-PCR.ResultsThe most contaminated zones were the intensive care unit specialized for taking care of novel coronavirus pneumonia (NCP) (31.9%), Obstetric Isolation Ward specialized for pregnant women with NCP (28.1%), and Isolation Ward for NCP (19.6%). We classified the 13 zones into four contamination levels. The most contaminated objects were self-service printers (20.0%), desktop/keyboard (16.8%), and doorknob (16.0%). Both hand sanitizer dispensers (20.3%) and gloves (15.4%) were the most contaminated PPE.ConclusionOur findings emphasize the urgent need to ensure adequate environmental cleaning, strengthen infection prevention training, and improve infection prevention among HCWs during the outbreak of COVID-19.Copyright © 2020. Published by Elsevier Ltd.

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