Difficulty in removing biofilm from dry surfaces.

Cleaning is fundamental to infection control. This report demonstrates that a Staphylococcus aureus biofilm is significantly more difficult to remove than dried planktonic bacteria. A single wiping action removed >99.9% (>3 log10 ) of dried planktonic bacteria, whereas only 1.4 log10 of biofilm (96.66%) was removed by 50 wiping actions with a standardized wiping process.