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Occult Nosocomial Infections

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2015

Christiane Petignat ,
Dominique S. Blanc  and
Patrick Francioli
Christiane Petignat
Affiliation:
Centre Hospitalier Universitaire Vaudois, Division autonome de médecine préventive hospitalière, Lausanne, Switzerland
Dominique S. Blanc
Affiliation:
Centre Hospitalier Universitaire Vaudois, Division autonome de médecine préventive hospitalière, Lausanne, Switzerland
Patrick Francioli*
Affiliation:
Centre Hospitalier Universitaire Vaudois, Division autonome de médecine préventive hospitalière, Lausanne, Switzerland
*
Centre Hospitalier Universitaire Vaudois, Division autonome de médecine préventive hospitalière, CH-1011 Lausanne, Switzerland; e-mail, Patrick.Francioli@chuv.hospvd.ch
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Abstract

Even with a good surveillance program, nosocomial infections may be not recognized because of several reasons: absence of symptoms or prolonged incubation period (eg, viral bloodborne infections, tuberculosis); problems with the microbiological diagnosis, because adequate specimens may be difficult to obtain or special methods should be used (eg, fungal infections, virus, new agents); shorter hospital stays (eg, surgical-site infections); difficulty in distinguishing between nosocomial and community-acquired infections (eg, influenza); and failure to detect clinically relevant colonization (eg, multiresistant microorganisms). Because of the important potential consequences of occult nosocomial infections, specific surveillance programs should be designed to address these problems.

Type
From the Fifth International Conference on the Prevention of Infection
Information
Infection Control & Hospital Epidemiology , Volume 19 , Issue 8 , August 1998 , pp. 593 - 596
Copyright
Copyright © The Society for Healthcare Epidemiology of America 1998

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