Authors
Mahesh Sharma
Abstract
In current scenario, Nosocomial infections are caused by different factors such as inappropriate hygiene. Patients in hospital can easily get infections of diseases like methicillin resistant staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) from hospital staff who do not practice basic hygienic measures. Nosocomial infection may also be result of contaminated use of injections, inappropriately bandaged incisions during surgeries, contaminated surgical equipment’s, catheters, organ transplant and etc. However, frequency of these type of cases have become less in number today due to advanced technology but still it’s the primary role of hospital staff to cure their patients from any suspected nosocomial infection. Here in this paper an effort has been done to understand the nosocomial infection and preventive measure taken to reduce the risk given by World Health Organization. Keywords: Nosocomial Infections, World Health Organization, Preventive Measures
Introduction
World Health Organization reported that around 109 people are hospitalized yearly for different reasons and 10 million people are infected with nosocomial infection. “Nosocomial” comes from Greek word nosokomos, means nosos=disease and komien= to care for (Mourud, 2010). Nosocomial Infection or Hospital Acquired Infection or Health Care-associated Infections can be defined as “An infection acquired in the hospital by a patient who was admitted for a reason other than that infection. An infection occurring in a patient in a hospital or other healthcare facility in whom the infection was not present or incubating at the time of admission. This includes infections acquired in the hospital but appearing after discharge, and also occupational infections among the staff of the facility” (http://apps.who.int). As per the survey, it was found that the patients in intensive care unit (ICU) are more prone to acquire the nosocomial infection in comparison to other ward patients (Özer, et al., 2015; Patel, et al., 2013).
Microorganisms such as a virus, bacteria, fungus etc. cause nosocomial infections. Different factors which are responsible for nosocomial infections are high density of pathogens and population in hospital, immunity of patients, poor hygiene, inadequate cleaning, increased number of medical procedures, etc. (Fang, 2012).
Robert A Weinstein, in his research paper, represents a complete research addressing to the changes in the medical science with respect to nosocomial infections in either of the way. Further, in his study, he also showed the noteworthy impact of progression in technology in medical and healthcare in relation to nosocomial infections. Jessica Lietz concluded in her research article by giving the general overview about the nosocomial infections focusing more on the general arguments. National Center for Infectious Diseases carried out a comprehensive research on the nosocomial infections in the United States discussing the key components of the infections, further comparing the rate of infections in the urban and rural setting. Toni Rizzo highlights on the common routes of infections in hospital i.e. respiratory procedures, intravenous (IV) procedures, surgery and wound and urinary bladder catheterization.
References
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| APA Style | Sharma, M. (2019). A Study on Nosocomial Infections. Academic Journal of Microbiological Studies, 1(1), 22-27 |
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