A cluster of hospital-acquired Burkholderia cepacia complex infections was found to be attributed to contaminated extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO) water heaters. These findings were published in Clinical Infectious Diseases.

In December of 2020, an outbreak B cepacia occurred among patients in the cardiothoracic surgery intensive care unit (CTICU) at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in the United States. A retrospective review of patient records between October 2019 and February 2021 was performed to evaluate the epidemiology of the outbreak.

Among all patients (n=26) who tested positive for B cepacia infection during the study period, 6 infections were confirmed and 2 as probably related with the CTICU cluster, 5 were unrelated with the cluster but treated in the CTICU, and 13 were neither related with to the cluster nor did they receive treatment in the CTICU.