The human body has more than 100 trillion microorganisms
living inside and outside the body.Sources of contamination in the hospital include
human epithelial cells shed by patients and
health care workers. Bacteria can survive on
hands for variable amounts of time. Enterococcus
and vancomycin-resistant enterococci (VREs) live
60 minutes on gloved and ungloved hands;
Escherichia coli lives 6 minutes; S. aureus,
methicillin-resistant S. aureus (MRSA), and
coagulase-negative staphylococci are known to
survive as skin flora