Nosocomial Infections in Sub-Saharan Africa | Chapter 09 | Recent Advances in Biological Research Vol. 3
The history of nosocomial infections
can be traced to the origin of hospitals themselves and have been defined by
the WHO as infections that develop in a patient during his/her stay in a
hospital or other types of clinical facilities which were not present at the
time of admission. Nosocomial infections are a major public health problem
globally and are on the increase despite efforts in hospital infection control
measures and contribute significantly to morbidity and mortality. Naturally,
any micro-organism has the potential to cause infection in hospitalized
patients however, only a few including Staphylococci, Escherichia coli,
Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Enterococci, fungi and to a lesser extent, viruses and
parasites are responsible for the majority of nosocomial infections. In sub-Saharan
Africa, data available show that the incidence of nosocomial infections ranges
from 2-49% with patients in intensive care units having the highest rate ranging from 21.2-35.6%. The
prevalence of nosocomial infections have
been reported to vary between 1.6%-28.7% in Burkina Faso, United
Republic of Tanzania, Ghana, Mali, Cameroon, Gabon, Uganda, Burundi, Democratic
republic of Congo and Senegal. In Nigeria and Ethiopia, the total accruing
occurrence in surgical wards has been reported to vary from 5.7%-45.8% with the
later having an incidence as high as 45.8% and an incidence density equal 26.7
infections per 1000 patient days in paediatric surgical patients. In addition,
3.4 -10.9% of hospital-associated infections often result to mortality in most developed
countries though these figures are suspected to be higher in developing
countries of sub-Saharan Africa including Nigeria. However, simple and
effective control programmes together with effective training of healthcare
workers will go a long way in reducing the endemic nature of nosocomial
infections in sub Saharan Africa. This paper highlights the natural history,
distribution, risk factors of nosocomial infections especially in sub Saharan
Africa as well as its contributory factors. Nosocomial infections are endemic
in sub Saharan Africa and are further enhanced by emerging and re- emerging
resistant agents. Simple and effective control programme together with
computer-based epidemiological surveillance carried out as a global project with
considerable inputs from developing countries for monitoring will enable the
development of nosocomial infections to be halted if not eliminated. In
addition, it is necessary to review the current infection control practices in
all hospitals particularly in developing countries including Nigeria so as to
incorporate molecular techniques which have been proven to be effective in
keeping the spread of nosocomial infections under check. The training and
re-training of health care givers on principles of infection control is
strongly recommended. Also, the principles of infection control should be
incorporated into student nurses, medical students, and other paramedical
curriculum as well as employment of adequately competent health workers to
avoid over labour which sometimes cause workers to be inefficient resulting in
disease outbreaks. Finally, hand washing and other standard infection control
practices should be adhered to so that nosocomial infections can be controlled
effectively.
Author Details:
Elizabeth N. Mbim
Department
of Microbiology, Faculty of Biological Sciences, University of Calabar, P.M.B.
1115, Calabar, Nigeria.
Clement I. Mboto
Department
of Microbiology, Faculty of Biological Sciences, University of Calabar, P.M.B.
1115, Calabar, Nigeria.
Bassey E. Agbo
Department
of Microbiology, Faculty of Biological Sciences, University of Calabar, P.M.B.
1115, Calabar, Nigeria.
View Volume: https://doi.org/10.9734/bpi/rabr/v3
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