Why Hands-Free Faucets May Be a Risk to Some Hospital Patien

Why Hands-Free Faucets 2 May Be a Risk to Some Hospital Patients

This is the VOA Special English Health Report.

这里是美国之音慢速英语健康报道。

Automatic faucets use an electronic sensor 3 to start and stop the flow of water when people wash their hands. These faucets save a lot of water, which is one reason they are found in busy public bathrooms. Another reason is because of concerns about the spread of infection by people touching 4 the handles on traditional faucets.

当人们洗手时，自动水龙头使用电子传感器开启和关闭水流。繁忙的公共洗手间都使用这种水龙头，原因之一是它能节约大量水。另外一个原因则是人们担心接触传统水龙头手柄会传播病菌。

Hospitals started using automatic faucets about ten years ago. But a new study at one hospital finds that these devices may not always be worth the savings 6 in water use.

Researcher took apart twenty automatic faucets at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, Maryland. They found that half contained Legionella bacteria, compared to fifteen percent of manual faucets.

大约十年前医院开始使用自动水龙头。但最近在一所医院进行一项研究发现，这种水龙头省水可能得不偿失。研究人员拆解了马里兰州巴尔的摩市约翰普金斯医院的20个自动水龙头，其中近一半携带军团菌，相比之下，只有15％手动水龙头携带这种病菌。

Healthy people rarely get sick from the bacteria. So the study should not concern most users of automatic faucets in public bathrooms.

健康的人很少会因这种细菌致病。因此这项研究并不担心公共洗手间自动水龙头的大部分用户。

But Legionella bacteria can cause a form of pneumonia 7 in people with weakened immune systems. These include patients with diseases like cancer and HIV/AIDS, and those who have recently had an organ transplant.

但军团菌在免疫力低下的人群中会导致一种肺炎。这类人群包括癌症或艾滋病毒患者，以及近期接受过器官移植的病人。

After their first tests, the researchers cleaned the water system with chlorine dioxide. But they found that twenty-nine percent of the automatic faucets were still contaminated with bacteria. That compared to seven percent of the manual faucets.

第一次测试后，研究人员使用二氧化氯清洗了供水系统。但他们发现29％的自动水龙头仍然携带军团菌，相比之下，携带病菌的手动水龙头只有7％。

The researchers have some theories. Dr. Emily Sydnor was the lead author of the study. She says the automatic faucets contain more parts, so there are more areas where bacteria could grow. Also, the reduced water pressure in low-flow faucets might not remove as much bacteria from surfaces.

对此，研究人员有一些理论。艾米莉·西德诺（Emily Sydnor）博士是这项研究的领导者。她表示，自动水龙头含有更多部件，因此也存在更多能滋生病菌的地方。此外，低流量龙头降低了水流压力，无法从水龙头表面冲走更多细菌。

EMILY SYDNOR: "We think that, one, the pieces and the parts inside are sort of providing places and surface area for bacteria to get trapped and probably promoting something called bio-film formation, which is essentially 8 just a colony of bacteria that can sort of coexist in a little slime and a little, almost a little colony of it that it’s hard to get rid of. And that, combined with the low water flow, is probably promoting the growth."

西德诺：“我们认为，一，水龙头零部件或多或少为病菌滞留提供了空间。并可能形成一种本质就是细菌菌群，和污垢共存的生物膜。很少量的这种菌群都很难去除。此外，它们与低流量水流一起作用，可能促进细菌增长。”

Six other studies have also found higher amounts of bacteria in automatic faucets. The latest study was presented Saturday at a meeting of the Society for Health Care Epidemiology in Dallas, Texas.

其它6项研究也在自动水龙头中发现大量细菌。最新的研究发表在周六达拉斯举行的一次卫生保健流行病学会会议上。

The study has not yet been published. But the results have persuaded Johns Hopkins Hospital to replace its automatic faucets with manual ones.

这项研究尚未公布。但研究结果却说服美国约翰霍普金斯医院用手动水龙头替换了自动水龙头。

The Chicago Faucet 1 Company supplies the hospital with automatic and manual faucets. Patrick Kimener, the senior vice 5 president of sales, said he had not seen the full study.

芝加哥水龙头公司向这家医院提供自动和手动水龙头。销售高级副总裁帕特里克（Patrick Kimener）表示，他还没有看到完整的研究报告。

PATRICK KIMENER: "Our company has been around for a hundred and ten years. We’ve been a long-term supplier for an awful lot of health care facilities in the U.S. and we're more than interested to find out what those findings would be."

帕特里克：“我们公司已有一百一十多年历史，我们是美国大部分医保设施的长期供应商。而我们不仅仅对找出这些研究结果感兴趣。”