Zeitschrift für Molekulare Pharmazeutik und organische Prozessforschung

Abstrakt

Relationship between Aseptic Procedures Observed by Health Care Personnels and Transmission of Hospital Acquired Infections (HAIs) within National Ear Centre, Kaduna, Nigeria

Onwuliri EA

ABSTRACT
Hospital acquired infection is an infection that
occurs between 48-72 hours of admittance to a health
facility and/or 3-10 days after dismissal from the
facility. Those patients must not present with
obvious/incubatory infections on arrival at the
hospital. These infections are transmitted easily by
hospital staff inadequately sterilized instruments,
aerosol droplets from other ill patients, food and water
provided at hospitals. Most hospital staff have
acceptable knowledge about infections and hygiene,
use of gloves and taking appropriates action after
being injured by a sharp object, but they have poor
knowledge about use of sanitizing gel and disinfecting
procedures. Many HAIs disclose antimicrobial
resistance which can complicate treatment, increase
the severity of a patient’s illness, compromises his/her
health and length of stay in the hospital.
Deaths due to HAIs are usually attributed to
suboptimal practice by health workers, particularly
poor hand hygiene. For each and everyincident of
nocosomical infection, the integrity of the health care
sector is being compromised, the ugly trend if not
checked can lead to higher incidences of morbidity
and mortality in patients, hospital workers and health
care givers.
A total of 90 meat samples were collected in UV
irradiated zip bags from local and supermarket of
Lahore. These included chicken meat (n=15), fish
meat (n=15) and beef from local market. The
supermarket meat is also same in number chicken
meat (n=15), fish meat (n=15) and beef (n=15) all
samples are without bones. From each stores and
outlets not more than one sample of each meat type
was collected on the same day from both local and
supermarket. The sample population was selected by
simple random sampling. All cadres of the hospital
health care personnel were involved, except for those
who declined to be included. Data was collected using
questionnaires. The first part of the questionnaire was
demographic, on work specification of participants. The
second part was on knowledge of HAIs and practice of
aseptic procedures to prevent HAIs, this part was rated
on 3 scales: Yes- regularly, Yes-not regularly and No.
Three selective media, Cetrimide agar, MacConkey
agar and Mannitol salt agar were prepared according to
Manufacturers instruction and poured into petri dishes to
gel. To each of these were added 0.1 ml of the specimen
broth and spread evenly. All plates were incubated at
32°C for 24 hours. Gram staining and other Biochemical
tests which include Oxidase, Coagulase, Indole, catalase
and Voges proskers test were carried out for
confirmation of pathogens selectively isolated.
The results obtained showed that 83.3% of the health
workers had good knowledge of HAIs, while 16.7% did
not. There was a relationship between profession and an
understanding of what HAI’s meant. This work also
showed shoes as a major source of spread of HAIs, and
the poor awareness of this by 83.3% of the hospital staff.
Training on prevention/control of HAIs would help
inspire better awareness of HAIs amongst hospital staff.
Selective media like MacConkey agar, Cetrimide agar
and Mannitol agar were used to isolate pathogens like
Escherichia coli (20%), Pseudomonas aeruginosa (20%)
and Staphylococcus aureus (60%) respectively from
various hospital fomites like chairs, tables, door handles,
bed and surfaces of infusion bottles.
From results of this study it was deduced that most of
the health workers were aware of HAIs, as stated by
83.3% of the respondentsLike the work carried out by
[6] where more than 90% of intensive care unit staff had
knowledge of infection control, 6tD ؤ of National Ear
Care Centre, Kaduna were also very aware of infections
control, as demonstrated by all health workers wearing
protective clothingdisinfecting their hands before and
after work and in-between seeing patients.Most health workers of National Ear Care Centre Kaduna had a
good knowledge of hospital acquired infections, but
they were not very aware of their role(s) in spread of
these infections, especially through personal fomites
like their shoes. Continuous training on infectious
diseases prevention and control is suggested to help
curb the menace of HAIs.