Nosocomial Infections
Nosocomial infection or ‘Hospital Acquired Infections’ (HAI) appear in patients in the health care centers under observation. Health care centers or hospitals are one of the major causes of nosocomial infections. It is present in both developed and underdeveloped countries. Maybe the mortality rate is different in different countries according to their hygienic conditions in the hospitals but these infections are still present. According to WHO, 15% of the patients acquired these infections with the mortality rate of 5% in developed countries, and 10% in under-developed countries. It becomes an alarming situation in countries with poor hygienic conditions. Talking about Pakistan, nosocomial infections are one of the causes of death in Pakistan. Ministry of health must take steps to make these infections under control.
Hospital-acquired infections are now killing more people every year in the United State than die from AIDs or cancer and car accidents combined about 100,000.
Is our health care centers or hospitals are not properly cleaned or disinfected or maybe the microbes evolved with more power to spread disease or maybe our immune system is not strong enough to compete with these microbes? There are different questions that are rounding around the mind. I think the condition becomes normalize if a proper managing system is established in every hospital. These infections not only increase mortality rate but also cause disability, long-
term hospital stay, increase antimicrobial resistance, and also cause disturbances in socio-economic status.
Sometimes it happened that patients come to the hospital for getting care of a disease but probably get some other infection along with it, maybe some sort of respiratory infection, and it becomes difficult to identify the cause of the disease for the doctors. There are different types of nosocomial infections around the globe which are as follows.
Ventilator-Associated Pneumonia (VAP):
VAP is a type of pneumonia that occurs due to the mechanically assisted ventilator.
Almost 86% of the nosocomial pneumonia is due to ventilation. Some common symbols of VAP are fever, bronchial sound, and leucopenia.
Surgical Site Infections (SSIs):
Patients during any surgical operation acquired SSI. The cause of SSI is Staphylococcus aureus which cause long-term hospitalization and increases the risk of deaths. The prevalence of these types of infections is 26% depending upon the procedure criteria.
Central Line-Associated Blood Stream Infection (CABSIs):
These types of infections are one of the leading causes of increased mortality rates. Catheters are usually placed inside the central line to provide food and medicines to the patients but long term use of it can cause severe health problems related to bloodstreams.
Catheter-Associated Urinary Tract Infections (CAUTIs):
It is the usual type of hospital-acquired infection around the world. UTI cause 12% of the reported infections in hospitals. Catheters placed inside serve as a site for entry of pathogens which then lead to severe complications such as orchitis, epididymitis, and prostatitis in males and nephritis, meningitis, and pyelonephritis in almost all patients.
Nosocomial infections causes
Nosocomial infections are caused by different pathogens such as bacteria, viruses, and fungal parasites. The prevalence of these microorganisms is different depending upon the environment, medical facilities, and patient population. Unawareness is one of the risk factor of nosocomial infections like improper use of injection techniques, low knowledge of basic infection control measures, inappropriate use of invasive devices, and the lack of management policies.
Due to the increased burden of nosocomial infection and antimicrobial resistance, it has become a challenge for hospital administrations to eliminate these infections at intervals.
But by following proper control measures by infection control committees it can be minimized. Also by controlling the transmission of these infections using appropriate methods for antimicrobial use, resistance in antimicrobials can be decreased easily. By following the efficient surveillance method guided by WHO can help in controlling these infections.
