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"Cloud" health-care workers
R J Sherertz1, S Bassetti, B Bassetti-Wyss
1Wake Forest University School of Medicine, Winston-Salem, North Carolina 27157-1042, USA. sherertz@wfubmc.edu
Emerging Infectious Diseases
|April 11, 2001
Abstract:
Certain bacteria dispersed by health-care workers can cause hospital infections. Asymptomatic health-care workers colonized rectally, vaginally, or on the skin with group A streptococci have caused outbreaks of surgical site infection by airborne dispersal. Outbreaks have been associated with skin colonization or viral upper respiratory tract infection in a phenomenon of airborne dispersal of Staphylococcus aureus called the "cloud" phenomenon. This review summarizes the data supporting the existence of cloud health-care workers.