A need for a global alert system for rapid recall of contaminated products to prevent ongoing hospital outbreaks

• Published in: Infection control and hospital epidemiology 2024-10, Vol.45 (10), p.1259-1260
• Main Authors: Somani, Jyoti, Fauzi, Nazira, Sridhar, Revathi, Chan, Hwang Ching, Low, Isaac Taoyang, Lum, Yvonne Luh Ping, Agrawal, Rohit, Chew, Ka Lip, Yan, Gabriel, Lee, Vernon, Ang, Michelle, Fisher, Dale
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Defective products; Hospitals; Intensive care; Letter to the Editor; Manufacturers; Manufacturing; Outbreaks; Pathogens; Product recalls; Quality control; Regulatory agencies; Surveillance
• ISSN: 0899-823X; 1559-6834; 1559-6834
• DOI: 10.1017/ice.2024.87

On May 9, PROMED reported on a 6-month-long outbreak of PA in multiple hospitals in Norway linked to contaminated wet wipes, published in Eurosurveillance on May 5.5 We read this email on May 11, and realized the wet wipes described were from the same manufacturer as those recently introduced at our hospital in Singapore, but under a different brand name. Manufacturing and supply chains are global and so diverse that recipient countries’ oversight of manufacturing and safety processes is not practicable, emphasizing the importance of rapid communications between manufacturers, distributors, and regulatory agencies. [...]proper oversight of manufacturing quality control of culture results for specific pathogens should preempt potential outbreaks. In Norway, the wipes were first banned on March 23, 2022 but they persisted in Singapore hospital inventories until May 13, 2022 despite a passive recall notice on the manufacturer’s website dated April 21, 2022.5,6,10 This outbreak could have been shortened had a system for the rapid dissemination of product recall information existed between countries.