Bacteria Are Hard to Avoid in Public Bathrooms

Tandas awam, tidak kira di mana sama ada di pejabat, restoran, hospital, stesen minyak, perpustakaan awam atau tempat-tempat awam yang lain, memang menjadi tempat pembiakan dan berkumpulnya pelbagai jenis bakteria yang bahaya kepada kepada kesihatan. Bakteria ini menjadi penyebab pelbagai infeksi penyakit, dari cirit birit sehinggalah infeksi yang lebih serius melalui luka atau sebagainya. Bakteria paling bahaya yang sering ditemui ialah E. coli yang banyak terdapat dalam najis manusia kerana ia boleh menyebabkan infeksi salur kencing dan lain-lain.

Oleh itu, sebagai langkah pencegahan cuba elakkan masuk ke tandas awam, melainkan jika terpaksa. Jika menggunakan tandas awan, Pastikan basuh tangan dengan sabun dengan bersih selepas buang air. Lebih baik bawa kertas tisu sendiri daripada menggunakan tisu dalam tandas awam kerana ditakuti kertas tisu tersebut sudah dikontaminasi oleh bakteria bahaya. Selain itu, bawa pembersih tangan (sanitizer) ke mana saja anda pergi supaya tangan sentiasa dalam keadaan bersih.

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Bacteria Are Hard to Avoid in Public Bathrooms

Study Shows Public Restrooms Are Often Hot Spots for Infection-Causing Bacteria

By Charlene Laino

Reviewed by Laura J. Martin, MD

Frequent hand washing will keep those nasty bugs at bay, right? Not if you’re using a public bathroom. Paper dispensers, hand dryers, door handles — all the things you touch after scrubbing — are contaminated with all sorts of menacing microbes, sometimes too many to count.

“We documented extensive bacterial contamination of high‐touch environmental sites in 22 public restrooms and aircraft,” says researcher Lennox Archibald, MD, PhD, of the College of Medicine, University of Florida, in Gainesville.

Translation: Bathrooms in restaurants, resorts, hospitals, and even libraries are crawling with bugs that can cause everything from diarrhea to wound infections.

“You can go paranoid thinking about it,” Archibald tells the author.

Variety of Bacteria in Public Restrooms

There’s been virtually no research into how many bacteria, and how many different types of bacteria, lie in wait in public restrooms, he says.

So from December 2010 through February 2011, his team descended on restrooms inside four commercial aircraft and 18 public places, including a mall, a hospital, offices, a lecture hall, a conference center, department stores, restaurants, an airport, and a resort.

They swabbed and cultured what Archibald calls “high-touch” areas — faucets, paper dispenser levers, and doorknobs and handles.

The researchers hit the microorganism jackpot. They recovered staph, which can cause everything from boils to antibiotic-resistant infections. They found E. coli. They cultured Enterococcus, a fecal bug that can cause urinary tract infections and wound infections. And more.

Cultures of high‐touch sites in three hospital restrooms yielded seven bugs that are responsible for two‐thirds of hospital‐associated infections.

The findings were presented at the annual meeting of the Infectious Diseases Society of America (IDSA) in Boston.

Keeping Away From Bacteria

For Archibald, one solution is to hold it in. “I only use bathrooms on very long-distance ,” he says.

For those times when you have to go, carry paper towels or tissues to protect your hands after washing, he says.

William Schaffner, MD, chair of IDSA’s immunization work group and head of preventive medicine at Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville, has a more bug-friendly viewpoint.

Some bacteria boost our immune system, he tells the author.

“We don’t live in a sterile world,” Schaffner says. “You don’t want to obsess. On the other hand, you want to be hygienic,” he says.

Tip: Carry a little vial of hand sanitizer where ever you go.

findings were presented at a medical conference. They should be considered preliminary as they have not yet undergone the “peer review” process, in which outside experts scrutinize the data prior to publication in a medical journal.

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