The mutated, drug-resistant “superbugs” that cause an increasing number of hospital infections and deaths can live for weeks on bed linens, computer keyboard covers and under acrylic fingernails, U.S. researchers reported on Monday.The study supports other research that shows super-strict hygiene is needed to battle the bacteria, some of which are now nearly impossible to kill even with the strongest antibiotics.A team at sanitation-services company Ecolab Inc. dabbed methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus onto samples of bed linen, keyboard covers and acrylic fingernails.MRSA could be detected eight weeks later on acrylic fingernails, six weeks later on computer keyboard covers and five days later on bed linens, the researchers told a meeting in Atlanta of the American Society for Microbiology.
