Posted By Martin R. Bessant Hi Eddie, I am not aware of any research into this "problem" but you could try contacting the Hospital Infection Nurses Association or the Royal College of Nursing. Before retiring from the NHS, I used to insist on good personal hygiene in that all staff had to wash their hands in the wards/departments before using a keyboard. In addition the regular cleaning of keyboards with alcohol based wipes should reduce the risk of infection. This is an interesting potential problem which to my knowledge has not been identified as a hazard. Perhaps some of our more active colleagues can provide futher information for you. Regards, Martin Bessant, Project Officer - Healthcare Specialist Group.

Posted By Alison Dando We also tell our IT dept. before working with keyboards in clinical areas to use alcohol based wipes to clean them. I suspect although there is no published data most hospitals do this, as advice given either by health and safety or by control of infection depts.. As to what's contaminating the hardware in these environments, it shouldn't be surprising - any micro-organisms that people carry on their fingers could be transferred onto the keyboards and even if you wash your hands you will still have an individual's normal skin flora on the keys. Also hospital environments tend to have a "normal flora" that patients may acquire when they come into hospital and lose when they leave as they go into another environment with a different "normal flora", i.e. their home. Cross infection with a potential pathogen unfortunately creates other problems (in a hospital environment).