On Wednesday, two days after a Virginia high school senior infected with a drug-resistant strain of bacteria died, an e-mail circulated to all the principals and custodial staff of the 11,000-student Bedford County Public School District from Victor Gosnell, the district’s director of technology. The e-mail included a reminder: It’s OK to lightly spray or wipe a keyboard and mouse.
As long as liquid isn’t dripping into the spaces around the keys, “you are not going hurt anything,” said Gosnell. The county closed its schools Wednesday (PDF format) for cleaning after the student was diagnosed with MRSA, which is short for methicillin-resistant staphylococcus aureus — a so-called superbug.
If a keyboard breaks because of a cleaning, that’s OK as well, said Gosnell. “We would rather replace one or two” keyboards instead of “have them ignore the keyboards and mice because they are electronic equipment and are afraid to put anything on them,” he said. The district has 3,500 PCs.
<P The Bedford County school district is doing many other things, including instructing students and staff on proper hand-washing techniques and buying antimicrobial hand sanitizers "in huge quantity," with hand pumps on every teacher's desk and at entrances to cafeterias, said Gosnell.
A report this week in the Journal of the American Medical Association sharpened attention on this issue, after finding that MRSA caused nearly 19,000 deaths and some 94,000 infections in 2005. MRSA has been an issue for hospitals and nursing homes for some time, and it’s now getting attention in schools. The increase in MRSA has also given rise to washable keyboards and equipment with antimicrobial nanocoating.