Nosocomial Infections

Nosocomial infections also known as hospital acquired infections are infections not present and without evidence of incubation at the time of admission to a healthcare setting. They become evident 48 hours after admission or 48 hours after patient is discharged.

The most common types of nosocomial infections are respiratory, surgical, genitourinary, gastrointestinal and surgical infections. They are usually caused by breaches of infection control practices and procedures, non-sterile and unclean environment and also ill staff.

PREVENTION

 * maintaining proper personal hygiene and hand washing
 * sterilisation of hospital equipment
 * providing clean and sanitary environment
 * existence of infection control team
 * regular,close observation of high-risk units .e.g intensive care
 * development of policies on areas such as isolation,disinfection and antibiotic usage

TREATMENT:

 * remove source of microorganism e.g. catheter or iv line
 * some microorganisms involved are-S.aureus,P.aeruginosa,E.coli,Legionella,C.difficile,Klebsiella etc
 * broad spectrum antibiotics such as penicillins are the drugs of choice in most cases except multiresistant infections caused by multiresistant gram negative bacilli (e.g Pseudomonas,Acinetobacter)-sensitive to synergistic action of a combination of beta lactams and aminoglycosides.MRSA- sensitive to co-trimoxazole,tetracyclines,clindamycin.Vancomycin-resistant enterococci- streptogrammins are effective