Yes, silver does kill bacteria, including the common pathogens found in healthcare settings such as MRSA and VRE.
Whether an antimicrobial material can prevent infections or not is a complicated question. A clinical study of Agion treated catheters has shown a reduction in infection, so in that context I can answer “yes”.
The primary reason why it is a complicated question is this: When a patient develops a hospital acquired infection - where did they get it?
Well, yes “at the hospital”, but was it from the counter? direct hand contact? a water faucet in the bathroom? from the privacy curtain or the bedrail?
Since we don’t have this information, we don’t have a clear way to say that changing one thing made the difference. And it’s most likely not going to be one change that does make a difference - it will be a systems approach to treating all or most of the high touch surfaces.
Two generally accepted aspects of infection control do suggest that a systems approach to using antimicrobial surfaces should have an impact on infection:
- studies show that when surface disinfection protocols are improved (or enforced) infections go down, which is attributed to reduced cross contamination through fomites (surfaces that can harbor pathogens).
- studies show that disinfection protocols are not followed strictly in most healthcare settings.
So reducing the survival time of pathogens on a surface causes a reduction in infection - but 24 hours between cleanings isn’t frequent enough, or protocols are not being followed. This suggests that using a complementary strategy of a constantly antimicrobial surface that doesn’t require human interaction with the existing periodic disinfection would have a positive impact.
