Hospital-acquired infections on rise

Hyderabad: The number of Hospital-Acquired Infections (HAI) is increasing as per a study. Out of every 100 hospitalised patients, at any given time, seven in high income countries and 10 in low- and middle-income countries will acquire one or more health care associated infections (HAIs).

The President of the International Nosocomial Infection Control Consortium (INICC), Dr Victor D Rosenthal, presented his findings on the epidemiology and prevention of Blood Stream Infections (BSI).

According to the World Health Organisation, at any given time over 1.4 million people across the globe suffer from hospital-acquired infection (HAI). HAIs account for 2 million cases and about 80,000 deaths a year.

Dr PBN Gopal, Head of Critical Care Medicine at Continental Hospitals, said, "Hospitals use ten times more peripheral vascular catheters than central vascular catheters, the total number of bloodstream infections in patients with peripheral vascular catheters is five times more than the patients with central vascular catheters." The most common types of HAIs are bloodstream infections, pneumonia, urinary tract infection, and surgical site infections.

A study conducted by Dr Victor Rosenthal published in 2015 by INICC evaluated the rates of device-associated infections across 40 Indian hospitals compared to several other countries. The studies were conducted on patients in intensive care units (ICUs).

The findings specified that 7.92 central line-associated bloodstream infections occurred per 1,000 central line-days, 10.6 catheter-associated urinary tract infections per 1,000 urinary catheter-days and a ventilator-associated pneumonia rate of 10.4 per 1,000 mechanical ventilator-days.