Characterization of the environment of patients colonized with carbapenemase-producing organisms: role of air and surfaces in the dissemination of key resistance genes
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Background Hospital-acquired infections (HAIs) caused by Carbapenemase-Producing Organisms (CPOs) pose a significant health concern. Healthcare settings implement measures to control CPO spread and prevent outbreaks, but the role of air in disseminating carbapenemase genes remains unclear. This study assesses three genes carbapenemase-associated ( bla KPC , bla OXA-48 , bla NDM ) in the environment of CPO-colonized patients. Methods A prospective observational study was conducted in four hospitals in the province of Quebec, in rooms of CPO-colonized patients. Air was collected actively inside the rooms along with floor and no-touch samples with pre-moistened swabs and sponges, and compared with control room ( i.e. hosting non–CPO colonized patients) located on the same floor. Additional floor samples were collected in adjacent hallways to estimate potential dissemination within the settings. The presence and abundance of carbapenemase-producing genes ( bla KPC , bla NDM and bla OXA-48 ) was evaluated using qPCR. Results Carbapenemase-encoding genes were frequently detected in CPO-colonized patient environments, notably on floors (97% of detection frequency), door frames (52%), and no-touch surfaces (42%). Conversely, only one air sample tested positive for bla KPC . These genes were also detected in adjacent hallways (92%), control rooms (100%), and their hallways (78%), with abundance decreasing with distance from CPO-colonized rooms. Conclusion These findings suggest that carbapenem resistance can spread within healthcare settings and that air may play a role in gene dissemination. Additional measures should be considered to limit resistance gene transfer, particularly via floors and air.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame distilled prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. Learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and 10,348 direct Gemma labels. Candidate is the union of thresholded teacher heads; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels or direct frontier model labels.
Codex and Gemma teacher scores by category
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one teacher head, not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".