Death cases of HAI affected patients rise up to 38 %: HAI Surveillance Reports

First-ever, year-long surveillance of Hospital-acquired infections (HAIs) was done in 120 ICUs across the country. The result reveals a victory of superbugs over medicines. According to the newly formed Healthcare Associated Infection Surveillance-India drug-resistant micro-organisms, were found in 792 urine samples along with 3,080 blood samples.

HAI is an infection that affects those patients who stay in a hospital for a long period like — a patient with an invasive ventilator or urinary catheter. According to doctors the ICU patients in who stay for longer periods are attacked by gram-negative micro-organisms, and their treatment is difficult as compared to gram-positive organisms which are found in ICUs of western countries.

As the superbugs are resistant to older antibiotics the strongest antibiotics such as carbapenem and colistin are required. However these are highly expensive and require IV infusions. The HAI-Surveillance India is conducted with the collaboration of All India Institutes of Medical Sciences (AIIMS-Delhi), the Indian Council for Medical Research (ICMR) and the US Centre for Diseases Control under the guidance of the central government.

Head of AIIMS microbiology department Dr Purva Mathur is leading the project. He stated “The findings confirmed the extent of these gram-negative infections. It was found that the virus accounts for 73.3% of all blood infections cases and 53.1% of UTI cases in ICUs of India. It were also reported that 38.1% of the patients with bloodstream infections and another 27.9% with urinary tract infections died within a 14-day period.

ICMR scientist Dr Kamini Walia is the in charge of the entire antimicrobial resistance studies in India. 

She informed that “ICUs are hotbeds for healthcare-acquired infections. The results underline that we need to put in place better hospital infection control practices and adopt stewardship practices that will reduce the irrational use of antibiotics’’. 

However Dr Wali reported about finding evidence of drug-resistant fungal infections. Dr Lancelot Pinto from Hinduja Hospital expressed a need to keep an eye on the emergence of new bugs and said: “We could have an audit on the use of higher antibiotics among hospitals that will reveal how many hospitals follow the rules”.