• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to footer
Zippy Facts Logo

Zippy Facts

Interesting Random Facts

  • Animals
  • Culture
  • Firsts
  • Food
  • Geography
  • Health
  • History
  • Inventions
  • Language
  • Mythology
  • Odds
  • People
  • Religion
  • Science
  • Space
  • Universe
  • World
You are here: Home / Health / What types of germs and diseases can you get at a Nail Salon?

What types of germs and diseases can you get at a Nail Salon?

June 9, 2020 by Karen Hill

Ever get your nails done at a nail salon?

A lot of people do: nail care is a $6 billion a year industry in the United States, and there are tens of thousands of nail salons all across the country, 7,500 in California alone.

One day in 2001 a dermatologist called the health department and reported that he had five patients with infections of the feet and legs that weren’t responding to antibiotics.

All of them had been customers of the same nail salon in Watsonville, California. The health department was a bit concerned, so officials paid a visit to the salon in question. Before long, they’d found the problem.

Seems the footbath in which people were soaking their feet for 10 or 15 minutes per session was contaminated with Mycobacterium fortuitum, a bacterium closely related to the one that causes tuberculosis. One hundred ten customers, all but one of them women, were infected in this way after soaking their feet, and one of the women had 37 boils on her feet and legs.

Some of the women got so badly scarred they needed skin grafts, and medical costs ran as high as $10,000. M. fortuitum is ubiquitous, and it sometimes causes human infections, but this was the first time it had ever caused such a widespread outbreak of disease.

The salon owner said he hadn’t cleaned or disinfected his footbaths since he installed them a year before, and the result was a buildup near an inlet screen of hair, grease, and clipped nails that formed a perfect culture medium for the bacteria. The New York Times quoted Dr. Kevin L. Winthrop, who did the investigation: “There was enough hair to make a toupee.”

Doxycycline and ciproflaxin are usually effective in combating Mycobacterium infections, but some of these women had been on antibiotics for months without having the problem clear up.

California health officials immediately began preparing to issue regulations about cleaning and disinfection of footbaths.

Related Facts

  • Where do Germs, Bacteria, and Viruses come from and How do they make us sick?
  • Why does adding Baking Soda to the water when soaking Garbanzo Beans help soften them?
  • 15 Inventions You Wish You Invented
  • What types of Diseases, Germs, and Bacteria do Cockroaches Carry and Spread?
  • Top 25 Inventions That Changed the World
  • Where does the idiom “on the nail” come from and What does it mean?

Filed Under: Health

About Karen Hill

Karen Hill is a freelance writer, editor, and columnist. Born in New York, her work has appeared in the Examiner, Yahoo News, Buzzfeed, among others.

Previous Post: « How do infectious diseases spread in Hospitals and How are outbreaks prevented?
Next Post: What are the Risks of getting a contagious Disease at the Gym? »

Footer

Follow

  • Facebook
  • Flickr
  • GitHub
  • Google+
  • Instagram
  • LinkedIn
  • Medium
  • Pinterest
  • StumbleUpon
  • Tumblr
  • Twitter
  • YouTube

Categories

Accomplishments Animals Culture Firsts Food Geography Health History Inventions Language Mythology Odds People Religion Science Space Universe World Your Body

About

Zippy Facts empowers the world by serving educational content that is accessible to everyone.

A tribute to growing up, zippyfacts.com showcases interesting and unusual facts about the world.

Our mission is to use technology to facilitate knowledge transfer and sharing.

Copyright © 2020 Zippy Facts

  • About Us
  • Contact
  • Privacy Policy