The Potential Effectiveness of Probiotic-Based Sanitation Procedures in Nosocomial Infection Control: A Review Article

Abstract

The sanitation of the hospital environment for the purpose of preventing the transmission of nosocomial infections has a major role in reducing the infection of hospitalized patients with the bacteria living on hospital surfaces. The excessive use of chemical detergents in recent decades has led to microbial resistance in nosocomial infectious bacteria. Researchers’ attention has therefore been drawn to the use of probiotics for disinfecting hospital surfaces. The present study was conducted to assess the potential effectiveness of probiotic products in controlling the contamination of inert surfaces in the environment and medical instruments in health centers and investigate the claim that the antagonistic property of probiotic microorganisms offers an effective method for controlling nosocomial infections and a suitable alternative to conventional disinfection methods. A search was carried out for relevant articles published from 2000 to 2018 in databases including ISI, PubMed, Scopus, EMBASE, and Google Scholar, using the keywords “nosocomial infections”, “disinfection”, “sanitation”, “probiotics” and “infected surfaces”. The articles published from 2000 to 2018 confirmed the greater effectiveness of probiotic disinfection (by up to 90%) compared to conventional chemical disinfection in controlling nosocomial infections. Nevertheless, more extensive studies are needed on probiotics to determine the possibility of replacing good bacteria with bad bacteria in future decades.