Hospital-acquired infections- Study

How common?
About one in seven hospital patients in Singapore picks up an infection in the ward, said a study published last year.

How serious can they be?
They can sometimes be fatal, according to the study led by Dr Hsu Li Yang, director of the Centre for Infectious Disease Epidemiology and Research at the Saw Swee Hock School of Public Health.

Between January 2007 and July 2009, it found 675 patients with blood infected by hospital-acquired bugs. One in six of these patients died.

How does it happen?
Hospital-acquired infections can be caused by bacteria, viruses, fungi or parasites.

These may already be present in the patient’s body or may come from the hospital environment.

Hospital-acquired infections first appear three days after admission to a hospital or other health-care facility.

Who’s at greatest risk?
Young children, the elderly and those with compromised immune systems are among those at greater risk, but all hospitalised patients are susceptible.

Any type of invasive procedure, such as catheters, intubations, surgery and intravenous procedures, can expose a patient to infection. Other risk factors are long hospital stays, failure of health-care workers to wash their hands and overuse of antibiotics.

What other issues are there?
Patients with such infections usually need extra treatment or longer stays, say doctors.

And about half of those with severe hospital-acquired infections catch strains that can resist multiple drugs, the study showed. This means patients could end up paying between $150 and $200 a day for medication, or thousands of dollars more for their treatment.

The study was carried out at the Singapore General Hospital and Tan Tock Seng Hospital.

Category: Education