Unintended consequences of infection prevention and control measures during COVID-19 pandemic, American Journal of Infection Control

The impact of a multimodal infection control strategy originally designed for containment of COVID-19 on the rates of other hospital-acquired-infections (HAIs) was evaluated over a 7-month period across the largest healthcare system in Singapore. • During the COVID-19 pandemic, methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus acquisition rates declined significantly, together with central-line-associated-bloodstream infection rates; likely due to increased compliance with standard precautions. • Enhanced infection control measures resulted in the unintended positive consequences of containing health care-associated respiratory viral infections, with a significant and sustained decline for both enveloped and nonenveloped respiratory viruses. • The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic provided the impetus to demonstrate the potential benefit of he ightened infection control measures in controlling HAIs and acquisition of multidrug-resistant-organisms. In the current COVID-19 pandemic, aggressive Infection Prevention and Control (IPC) measures have been adopted to prevent health care-associated transmission of COVID-19. We evaluated the impact of a multimodal IPC strategy originally designed for the containment of COVID-19 on the rates of other hospital-acquired-infections (HAIs). From February-August 2020, a multimodal IPC strategy was implemented across a large health care campus in Singapore, comprising improved segregation of patient s with respiratory symptoms, universal masking and ...
Source: Current Awareness Service for Health (CASH) - Category: Consumer Health News Source Type: news