Professor Bill Keevil, Head of the Microbiology Group and Director of the Environmental Healthcare Unit at the University of Southampton, has presented research into the mechanism by which copper exerts its antimicrobial effect on antibiotic-resistant organisms at the World Health Organization’s first International Conference on Prevention and Infection Control (ICPIC). ‘New Insights into the Antimicrobial Mechanisms of Copper Touch Surfaces’ observes the survival of pathogens on conventional hospital touch surfaces contributes to increasing incidence and spread of antibiotic resistance and infections. Keevil proposes antimicrobial copper surfaces as one way to address this, since they achieve a rapid kill of significant bacterial, viral and fungal pathogens.
