German doctors' endoscopes "may harbour harmful bacteria"
This article was originally published in Clinica
Executive Summary
Almost half the endoscopes used to carry out stomach and intestinal examinations in Germany may be infected with harmful bacteria, claims a recent German study. The report, entitled "Flaws in endoscope cleaning", published by the German medical weekly journal (DMW), stresses that this is not because doctors do not clean the devices, but rather because mistakes are made in the mechanical cleansing of the devices. The study was carried out on 30 professional doctors' clinics in Munich.