Intensive care unit is a place where a lot of antibiotics are used. Also most of the patients transferred for intensive care have already been treated with most of the potent antibiotics available. The therapeutic interventions such as mechanical ventilation also favor this matter. All these factors contribute for the acquisition of resistant bacteria. This has been a major problem because treating such infections is very hard.
The most common resistant bacteria found are,
1. Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA)
2. vancomycin-resistant enterococcus (VRE)
They colonize in,
1. mucous membranes
2. skin
3. wounds
4. gastrointestinal tract
How do patients acquire these infections?
1. Through the hands of health care providers
2. Through contaminated fomites and environmental surfaces
3. By direct transmission from colonized health care providers.
Standard interventions to prevent the transmission of such infections are,
1. Hand hygiene – Health care personnel and everybody who touch the patients in the intensive care are advised to wash their hands before handling the patients. They are also advised to clean their hands in between patients.
2. Use of gloves and gowns
3. Isolation of patients with resistant bacterial infection.
4. Active surveillance — some patients may have acquired the infection but still could be asymptomatic. They are silent carriers. It is very important to find these carriers as they can harbor bacteria and spread them to other patients. Therefore, there should be an effective surveillance system to identify such asymptomatically colonized patients.
5. Topical antimicrobial treatments
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