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Ambulances and clinicians contaminated with pathogens

Service Ready Ambulance Surfaces and Emergency Medical Services Clinicians are Routinely Contaminated with Clinically Important Pathogens
Prehospital Emergency Care · Added 1 June 2026

This study found that ambulance surfaces and clinicians remain contaminated with clinically important pathogens even after routine cleaning, suggesting current disinfection protocols may be inadequate to prevent healthcare-associated infections during patient transport.

Study type

Cross-sectional

Design

Prospective observational study with pre- and post-shift sampling

Participants

20 ambulances and 27 EMS clinicians, 941 samples

Main finding

18.5% of samples harboured ≥1 clinically important pathogen (MSSA 12.8%, MRSA 4.6%, VRE 3.0%); when service ready, 60% of ambulances and 63.1% of clinicians had ≥1 pathogen, similar post-shift (60% and 67.6%).

Caveat

Small sample from only two US EMS agencies

Bottom line

Hypothesis-generating

Learning goal

Recognise the infection risks from ambulance surface contamination and strengthen my approach to vehicle cleaning and hand hygiene.

More

• Topic: Sepsis & infection
• Daily scan: 1 June 2026

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