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Can anyone tell me about VRE (Vancomycin resistant enterococci)?

I've looked at websites, and they're mostly geared to treatment of it in hospital. I need to know how to take care of someone with a VRE when they're at home (it's just for a couple of days).

All that the websites say is that VRE is spread by physical contact, so keep washing your hands with soap and water. But how long do these things live? Does freezing them kill them? If I touch a surface that has the gal's VRE germs on it, what are my chances of developing either a colony or an infection, just from transferring the germ to my skin? Do I have to wash my hands every time I touch anything she did?

Or do the germs die off on someone's skin (assuming they aren't washed off with soap&water)? Or do they live for a while on the skin, but only colonize/infect the person if the person gets a cut there, or rubs their eyes, or touches their tongue, etc? How does the germ get from a clean touch-contact point to well inside the body, where it can do real damage?

When I visited her in the hospital, I had to put on a sterile gown and latex gloves, and dispose of those into a contaminated-waste container as soon as I left the room. One day, she had to have a procedure done while I was there; when I left the room for that, I had to dispose of the stuff I was already wearing, disinfect my hands, and don a new set of gown-&-gloves when I went back in. Plus, the nurses were (probably quite rightly) snarky about visitors disinfecting hands before and after visits to patients.

And yet I can't find info about "how clean is clean enough" for dealing with someone who has this, when they're at home. I can't disinfect her whole house! Help anyone?

1 Answer

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  • Anonymous
    1 decade ago
    Favorite Answer

    I am going to speak from personal experience from visiting my aunt 4 years ago in hospital who was diagnosed with Vancomycin Resistant Enterococci among other things....

    She was an HIV positive patient and susceptible to any other infections as a result, since her immune system was weak, ancomycin resistant enterococci was one of the infections she had when she died.

    The doctors at the hospital warned me not to touch her. I did anyway. The poor woman had no human contact in months except for medical personnel. I didn't really care what they told me. I really just wanted to hug her and touch her arm and hand and knew that they were just being careful since there are a lot of legal issues involved with hospital protocol.

    I did hug her and held her hand while everyone else just stayed several feet away. It seemed to really comfort her and calm her, and I hope it did.

    I just made sure I didn't touch my eyes or mouth and washed my hands thoroughly with antibacterial soap after my visit.

    Perhaps needless to say I never contracted any diseases and truly hope I offered her some comfort and support before she left this world.

    I think you will be fine if you are healthy and stay clean.

    Source(s): Hello- I am deleting my yahoo account- if you would like to keep in touch my e-mail address is evidenceremains@mail.com
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