Introduction
This topic covers the hygienic requirements to special hospitals (clinics) with high epidemiological risk, namely infectious diseases hospitals and tuberculosis hospitals, and the prevention of hospital-acquired (nosocomial) infections.
Nosocomial infections
According to WHO (2002) a nosocomial infection, also called “hospital-acquired infection”, can be defined as:
An infection acquired in 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 health care 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 staff of the facility.
Nosocomial infections, known also as hospital-associated infections and hospital infections, are infections that are not present in the patient at the time of admission to hospital but develop during the course of the stay in hospital. These infections first appear between 48 hours and four days after a patient is admitted to a hospital or other health-care facility.
Despite progress in public health and hospital care, infections continue to develop in hospitalized patients, and may also affect hospital staff. Many factors promote infection among hospitalized patients:
- decreased immunity among patients;
- the increasing variety of medical procedures and invasive techniques creating potential routes of infection;
- the transmission of drug-resistant bacteria among crowded hospital populations, where poor infection control practices may facilitate transmission.