Another surgical patient at Washington's Seattle Children's has contracted an infection from the presence of Aspergillus mold, according to news reports.
Furthermore, the hospital is monitoring another patient who might have contracted aspergillosis — the disease caused by the mold.
Seattle Children's has struggled to contain the fungus. Three patients were sickened by Aspergillus earlier this year, and three patients were infected in 2018. One of those patients died this past spring, notes The Seattle Times. The hospital has attempted to address the issue by closing its operating and procedure rooms and run tests.
Following this latest incident, Seattle Children's issued a statement, noting that routine air test results revealed the presence of Aspergillus in three of its operating rooms and two procedural areas. The hospital states, "The rooms in which Aspergillus was detected have been closed and out of an abundance of caution, we are only performing emergent surgeries in the operating rooms that have advanced in-room filtration."
The hospital has postponed or diverted some of its surgical cases and indicated plans to close all of its operating rooms soon to perform an investigation into its air handling system.
Infection Control Consulting Services (ICCS) emphasizes the importance of ongoing maintenance for air handling systems in the hospital environment, including facilities that provide services to immunocompromised patients and those undergoing surgery. If facilities identify contamination of air being fed into the hospital, it must be addressed immediately as even a small problem can snowball quickly.