A health hazard evaluation at one Pennsylvania hospital, linked to a new disinfectant product, led the CDC's National Institute for Occupational Health to issue a report urging hospitals to take healthcare workers' health and safety into account when choosing a new disinfectant. The report was published in the CDC's Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report.
In March 2014, a Pennsylvania hospital introduced a new, Environmental Protection Agency-registered disinfection product that consisted of hydrogen peroxide, peroxyacetic acid and acetic acid. On Jan. 30, 2015, the NIOSH received a confidential complaint from an employee there, asking for a health hazard evaluation at the hospital because employees were reporting symptoms like eye and nose problems, asthma-like symptoms, skin problems, coughing and chest tightness.
NIOSH performed pilot air sampling and interviewed 68 environmental services staff members at the hospital who reported using the product. Of those 68, 30 workers reported at least one negative work-related health outcome. The most common was watery eyes (29 percent), followed by nasal problems (22 percent), and asthma-like symptoms (15 percent). Other work-related issues included skin problems (10 percent), shortness of breath (7 percent), wheezing (7 percent) chest tightness (3 percent) and cough and asthma attack (1 percent each).
Even though all of the air samples for hydrogen peroxide and acetic acid were below their occupational exposure limits, and no full-shift exposure limit has been established for peroxyacetic acid, the report speculates that because both hydrogen peroxide and peroxyacetic acid are strong oxidants, the presence of both contributed to the worker's symptoms.
"Consideration of the health and safety of workers is prudent when choosing disinfection products, and hospitals should be alert for respiratory, skin and eye symptoms in environmental services staff members," the report concludes.
The authors urged hospital management to implement a system for employees to report work-related symptoms and to put controls in place to reduce employee exposure to the harmful chemicals.
"In addition, physicians should be aware of the potential adverse health effects of occupational exposure to cleaning and disinfection products when evaluating patients with respiratory and skin symptoms," the authors added.