Hospital acquired infections
Hospital-acquired infections are a major challenge to patient safety in the Indian hospitals and other hospitals across the world. It is estimated that in 2002, a total of 1.7 million hospital-acquired infections occurred (4.5 per 100 admissions), and almost 99,000 deaths resulted from or were associated with a hospital-acquired infection, making hospital-acquired infections the sixth leading cause of death in the United States; similar data have been reported from Europe.The estimated costs to the U.S. health care budget are $5 billion to $10 billion annually after spending similar amounts of money in the preventive measures in the developed nations. Approximately one third or more of hospital-acquired infections are preventable.We in India, should be very impressed by this fact that these are preventable to a large extent. On this World health day Apirl 2007, we are now asked to act to prevent the spread of resistant bacteria.
