WDGMC
5.4.2022 08:47:12 CEST | Business Wire | Press release
Wits University Donald Gordon Medical Centre announced novel study results indicating for the first time that Ultraviolet (UV) room decontamination technology paired with manual cleaning protocols decreased the transmission of Carbapenem-resistant Enterobacterales (CRE) by 23% in a hospital setting. The study results have been published in the March 2022 issue of The Journal of Hospital Infection.
The team of researchers at Wits Donald Gordon Medical Centre (WDGMC), the first private teaching hospital in South Africa, demonstrated the reduction in CRE transmission following a 26-month study and the sustained use of a UV room decontamination device (UVDI-360 Room Sanitizer, provided by US-based manufacturer UVDI and eHealthGroup Infection Control) as an adjunct to standard cleaning, including the use of bleach and quaternary ammonium disinfectants, across the 210-bed hospital. The intervention included broad UV room decontamination across five high-risk patient units (including critical care, oncology, transplant and gastrointestinal surgery rooms) during a 12-month period following a 12-month baseline and two-month, wash-in period.
“Our team’s study indicated that enhanced environmental hygiene utilizing UV room decontamination technology in the hospital can help prevent the transmission of Carbapenem-resistant Enterobacterales , an especially challenging set of multidrug-resistant organisms,” stated lead investigator Dr. Warren Lowman, Clinical Microbiologist & Infection Prevention and Control Specialist, Wits Donald Gordon Medical Centre.
The UV room decontamination device was implemented in three usage scenarios: terminal cleaning following patient discharge, terminal cleaning following patient transfer and, in a novel treatment, occupied rooms where the patient had an existing MDRO infection and was moved during device use. For each scenario, the UV device was operated with five-minute treatment cycles, the number of which varied per room setting and size.
CRE refers to a broader set of microorganisms that demonstrate resistance to at least one of the Carbapenem antibiotics.1 Recent published surveillance studies in South Africa have indicated a CRE infection crude mortality rate of nearly 40%.2
“This research underlines WDGMC’s steadfast commitment to patient and staff safety through the use of novel infection prevention protocols,” said Dr. Sue Tager, Chief Executive Officer, Wits Donald Gordon Medical Centre. “In the ongoing fight to prevent the transmission of superbugs, both in and beyond Africa, these results provide hope and concrete proof that effective solutions exist.”
About Wits Donald Gordon Medical Centre
Wits Donald Gordon Medical Centre (WDGMC) is the first and only private teaching hospital in South Africa. It was established in 2002 when the University of the Witwatersrand (Wits University) bought the Kenridge Hospital with a founding donation from the Donald Gordon Foundation. The institution was then renamed the Wits Donald Gordon Medical Centre. The 210-bed facility’s main specialties are transplant surgery, oncology (paediatric and adult), gastroenterology (medical and surgical), geriatric medicine, interventional radiology ophthalmology, ear-nose and throat, urology, nephrology, cardiology, women’s health and orthopaedics.
___________
1
https://www.cdc.gov/hai/organisms/cre/technical-info.html
2
Perovic O, Ismail H, Quan V, Bamford C, Nana T, Chibabhai V, Bhola P, Ramjathan P, Swe Swe-Han K, Wadula J, Whitelaw A, Smith M, Mbelle N, Singh-Moodley A; for GERMS-SA. Carbapenem-resistant Enterobacteriaceae in patients with bacteraemia at tertiary hospitals in South Africa, 2015 to 2018. Eur J Clin Microbiol Infect Dis. 2020 Jul;39(7):1287-1294. doi: 10.1007/s10096-020-03845-4. Epub 2020 Mar 2. PMID: 32124106.
View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20220404006042/en/
Link:
About Business Wire
Subscribe to releases from Business Wire
Subscribe to all the latest releases from Business Wire by registering your e-mail address below. You can unsubscribe at any time.
Latest releases from Business Wire
Lattice and NXP Deliver Flexible, Secure Computing Solution for the Industrial Edge10.11.2026 22:00:00 CET | Press release
Lattice Semiconductor (NASDAQ: LSCC), the low power programmable and platform firmware leader, today announced the Lattice NXP PCIe® Companion solution, jointly enabled and promoted with NXP® Semiconductors. Pairing NXP’s i.MX 95 applications processor with Lattice Nexus™-based FPGAs over PCIe, the solution addresses the real-time connectivity, deterministic I/O, and security challenges in industrial automation, robotics, and intelligent edge applications. The joint solution is available in Lattice CertusPro™-NX or Lattice Certus™-NX configurations as companion chips to NXP i.MX 95 SoC compute processors, deepening a long-standing collaboration between Lattice and NXP spanning industrial, data center, and networking applications. The Lattice FPGA adds low latency, deterministic I/O alongside the NXP applications processor, delivering combined capabilities across real-time processing, AI, and custom I/O to help customers modernize aging designs for new interface standards. It supports e
FDA Approves PIMJETMI® (pimicotinib) for Patients with Tenosynovial Giant Cell Tumor10.11.2026 19:14:00 CET | Press release
PIMJETMI is a new once-daily oral systemic treatment option for certain U.S. patients with symptomatic tenosynovial giant cell tumor (TGCT)In the Phase 3 MANEUVER trial, PIMJETMI demonstrated early1 and durable2 tumor response with clinically meaningful improvements in all clinical outcome assessments, including physical function and painPIMJETMI has shown high objective response rate (ORR) with a manageable safety profileNot intended for Canada-, UK- or US-based media Merck, a leading science and technology company, announced today that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved PIMJETMI® (pimicotinib), a once-daily oral colony stimulating factor-1 receptor (CSF-1R) inhibitor, as a systemic treatment for adults with symptomatic tenosynovial giant cell tumor (TGCT) for which surgical resection may cause worsening functional limitation or severe morbidity. “People living with TGCT have long faced difficult treatment decisions as they navigate a disease that can significant
Smartsheet Integrates With Claude Sheets, Making It Easy to Start Projects in Claude and Launch Workflows Across Teams with Smartsheet10.11.2026 18:57:00 CET | Press release
New Send to Smartsheet feature moves work started in Claude into Smartsheet, where the Execution Graph connects it to the people, plans and goals that see it through Smartsheet, the AI-powered enterprise work management platform, today announced a new integration with Claude Sheets, the new spreadsheet artifact in Claude from Anthropic, now in beta. With the new Send to Smartsheet feature, people who build a tracker or plan in Claude can move it into Smartsheet in a few clicks. There they can put it to work with their team, connected to the plans, projects, people and systems their organization already runs on. This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20261110763156/en/ With the new Send to Smartsheet feature, people who build a tracker or plan in Claude can move it into Smartsheet in a few clicks. More and more work now begins in a conversation with Claude, and the Smartsheet MCP connector for Claude puts the entire pow
InterSystems Joins Google Cloud as Launch Partner for Gemini for Healthcare10.11.2026 18:00:00 CET | Press release
Integration with InterSystems IRIS FHIR MCP will help healthcare organizations securely connect Gemini to trusted, standards-based health data InterSystems, a creative data technology provider powering more than one billion health records globally, today announced that it will serve as a launch partner for Google Cloud’s Gemini for healthcare. Through the collaboration, Gemini for healthcare will connect to the InterSystems IRIS FHIR Model Context Protocol (MCP) server, enabling healthcare organizations to give AI assistants and agents governed access to FHIR data. The integration will bring together Google Cloud’s Gemini capabilities and the standards-based data access provided by InterSystems IRIS FHIR MCP. InterSystems FHIR MCP serves the open Model Context Protocol directly from a FHIR endpoint, allowing MCP-enabled clients to discover and use FHIR tools for searching, reading, creating, updating, and managing healthcare data. “Healthcare organizations are looking for practical way
Coherent Solutions Launches AKTIV, a Dedicated Fitness and Wellness Technology Business Unit10.11.2026 16:34:00 CET | Press release
Coherent Solutions officially launches AKTIV, a dedicated business unit focused exclusively on fitness and wellness technology. AKTIV brings together over 15 years of fitness industry experience, dedicated leadership, and global engineering capabilities to help fitness and wellness operators and equipment manufacturers compete through technology. This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20261110242555/en/ Coherent Solutions officially launches AKTIV “We know the fitness and wellness industry and the challenges operators and manufacturers face. With AKTIV, we spend less time defining what needs to be built and more time delivering solutions that improve operations, member experiences, and business performance,” said Vadim Bartlov, Managing Director of AKTIV. AKTIV builds on Coherent Solutions' established work with leading fitness companies, including Life Time, Planet Fitness, Anytime Fitness, Orangetheory, and BowFlex,
In our pressroom you can read all our latest releases, find our press contacts, images, documents and other relevant information about us.
Visit our pressroom