A SURVEY OF HOSPITAL ACQUIRED INFECTIONS IN OBAFEMI AWOLOWO UNIVERSITY TEACHING HOSPITAL, ILE-IFE

Abstract

A well-structured infection control programme plays a vital role in reducing mortality, morbidity and cost resulting from nosocomial infections in hospitalized patients. However infection-control activities in developing countries is severely constrained by lack of infection control infrastructure and lack of strong commitment by hospital clinicians and administrators as well as the level of socio-political and economic development prevalent in the developing world. The Infection Control Program (ICP) of Obafemi Awolowo University Teaching Hospital Complex (OAUTHC) was established in 1995. An analysis of data of a hospital wide surveillance obtained between January 1995 and December 1999 is hereby presented, highlighting our experience with the pattern of nosocomial infection seen in this hospital. From January 1995 to December 1999, a total of 19,471 patients were discharged during this period. Of this, 515 cases of infection were recorded while on admission, giving an annual prevalence rate of 2.7% for nosocomial infection per year. (X2 = 47.34, df = 4, p = 0.000). The highest infection rate was recorded from the orthopaedic ward (12.8%), followed by the intensive care unit (ICU)(8.4%) while the neonatal ward (NNW) and the paediatric ward (PW) recorded relatively low figures (0.5%) and (0.4%) respectively. Gram-negative rods (GNR) 491(78.8%) were commonly encountered as pathogens implicated in hospital-acquired infection (HAI) followed by Staphylococcus aureus and “other” organisms 17(2.7%). Current methods are inadequate because phenotypic typing alone has limited discriminatory power. DNA typing method is now the ‘gold' standard for epidemiological and routine investigation of HAI. African Journal Of Clinical And Experimental Microbiology Jan 2004 Vol.5 No.1 108-118