Copper sinks and faucets may stem hospital infections

Installing copper equipment in hospital rooms may be a good way to reduce infections, a new study reports. Researchers equipped nine rooms in a small rural hospital with copper faucet handles, toilet flush levers, door handles, light switches and other commonly touched equipment. They left nine other rooms with traditional plastic, porcelain and metal surfaces. Then they measured bacterial contamination in each of the rooms by taking swabs and culturing them in petri dishes to see if bacteria would grow.