Hospital-acquired infection (HAI) is becoming an important cause of mortality and morbidity in hospital. In the United States alone, HAI accounts for close to $10 billion in additional annual health care costs. In recent years, Hong Kong has seen several outbreaks of vancomycin-resistant <i>Enterococci</i> (VRE) in hospital and elderly healthcare settings. Decontaminating surfaces that are frequently touched could prevent HAI. The approach in this study is to employ a disinfection strategy based on Hi-NW light source for surface decontamination of multidrug-resistant microorganisms commonly found in hospital environments. The Hi-NW technique will employ advances in LED lighting to assemble a light array to target multiple sites within the microbe for rapid inactivation. Meanwhile, light exposure safety is carried out both in-vitro using mammalian cell lines and in-vivo using mouse model. Cell viability, inflammation and ROS generation are monitored for Hi-NW light exposure, whereas skin exposure damage in rat is compared to room light exposure.

Bactericidal activity and biosafety studies of high-intensity narrow-wavelength (Hi-NW) light

253rd National Meeting (2017)

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