AIIMS-led study finds infections contracted in hospital due to catheter use prevalent across India

Bloodstream infections acquired throughout a hospital keep resulting from using a catheter are prevalent throughout ICUs in India and are sometimes attributable to microbes having a excessive stage of antibiotic resistance, based on a research led by the All India Institute of Medical Sciences, New Delhi.

Bloodstream infections

Antibiotic resistance — through which antibiotic medicine are rendered ineffective because disease-causing microbes have develop into resistant to them — can prolong one’s hospital keep and therapy prices, including stress to a public healthcare system.

Estimates revealed in The Lancet International Well being journal show that on common, round 9 bloodstream infection events happen each 1,000 days {that a} central line — a catheter inserted in a affected person’s giant vein as a substitute of an intravenous line — was in place within the intensive care items (ICUs) of Indian hospitals.

‘Central line-associated bloodstream infections’, or CLABSI, are preventable infections — often acquired from a hospital environment — and considerably contribute to sickness and dying in low- and middle-income nations, together with India.

The researchers mentioned that monitoring charges of bloodstream infections in ICUs might help nations develop preventive measures suited to a healthcare system. Nonetheless, establishing a surveillance that systematically tracks infections resulting from catheter use or different hospital-acquired infections requires a big quantity of assets and is a problem in low- and middle-income nations, together with India, they mentioned.

Research highlights

The staff analysed knowledge from 200 intensive care items acquired by the Indian Healthcare-Related Infections (HAI) surveillance community from 54 hospitals throughout the nation over a interval of seven years.

“Throughout the surveillance interval from Might 1, 2017, to April 30, 2024, 8,629 laboratory-confirmed CLABSI occasions, 3,054,124 patient-days and 977,052 central line-days have been recorded. The general pooled CLABSI fee was 8.83 per 1,000 central line-days,” the authors wrote.

Highest charges of bloodstream infections linked to central line catheter use have been seen to happen throughout 2020-21, coinciding with the COVID-19 pandemic, which the researchers mentioned could also be resulting from overwhelmed ICUs, employees scarcity and compromised an infection prevention measures.

The research — first large-scale observational one, offering a standardised surveillance report of CLABSI in India — gives a useful alternative for a top quality improvement-based strategy for the discount of CLABSI, the authors mentioned.