Abstract
We must take precautions against nosocomial infections, which may induce an additional infection on patients and spread multi-drug-resistant bacteria. Their prevention is to be dependent on the correct understanding the sources and infection routes of the pathogens. Hair could be a candidate for the sources and/or routes, because its surface has about 3.7 times more as broad area as the whole body, and is often touched by hands. Therefore, we investigated here the adhesion rates of the opportunistic pathogens such as Staphylococcus aureus, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, and Escherichia coli to heir.We found very high adhesion rates of the bacteria. Forty to 60% of the bound ones still remained on the hair even after washing with various kinds of shampoo.Within 3 min, 1 to 10% of shampoo solution killed most of Staphylococcus aureus, but not any portion of majority strains of Pseudomonas aeruginosa and Escherichia coli. This fact indicated that the bound Pseudomonas and Escherichia remained alive on the hair, suggesting that the hair could be a course of the sources and routes of the pathogens of nosocomial infections.
