Reporting: Dr. Holly Phillips
 
Nearly two million people are affected by a hospital-acquired infection every year. Despite stringent hand-washing policies and the use of gloves by healthcare workers, patients can still become sick in the hospital.

Now, there's an effective new weapon against the deadly bacteria: copper.

Maureen Daly's mother was admitted to a hospital for surgery on a broken shoulder. Three months later, she was dead.

"My mom died because something that could have been prevented. Maybe the doctor touched something that was contaminated, maybe there was MRSA on the door knob," Daly says. "I don't know. I don't know how it got into her, but I know it got in because of something that could have been prevented."

Now, six years later, a trial is underway to do just that – to reduce the spread of potentially deadly bacteria. They're using copper. It's been recognized as a bacteria-fighting material for thousands of years, and for this study, it's been installed in high-touch areas in hospitals.

"Once we put the copper in, we were really pleasantly surprised at how well copper worked and how quickly it brought the levels down. The data were really very convincing," Dr. Michael Schmidt, of the Medical University of South Carolina, says. "We were really shocked, at first, at how many microbes were on surfaces like bed rails, even in spite of the best efforts of our cleaning crews."

Copper surfaces reduced the bacteria in the intensive care unit by more than 90 percent, but will that translate into fewer hospital-acquired infections?

"It should follow that it, indeed, does," Dr. Schmidt says. "We're studying this issue in the intensive care unit because, while the infection rate in a hospital is one in 20, the infection rate in an ICU room is three out of 10."

"In the hospital setting, if we can do something, if we can do anything to prevent infections before they occur, then our patients will be safer [and] our patients will be healthier," Dr. Bruce Hirsch, of North Shore University Hospital, says.

At North Shore, Dr. Hirsh also uses a custom copper stethoscope and patient chairs fitted with copper trays.

In other hospital rooms, there are copper bedside trays, a copper-covered computer mouse and keyboard, door handles and push plates, and copper tubing to replace stainless steel IV poles and bed rails. There's even copper on the arms of a guest chair – another surface with a surprisingly high bacteria count.

"These materials have been tested in the lab and shown to kill more than 99.9 percent of bacteria," Wilton Moran, project engineer with the Cooper Development Association, says.

"You don't expect people to die from lack of cleanliness, from people not washing their hands, from things that can be prevented – you just don't," Daly says.

Copper does not kill bacteria on contact – it can take from five minutes up to two hours, depending on the concentration of bacteria on the surface. It is, however, proving effective in at least slowing the spread of the bugs.