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Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) era hospital infection controls reduce other serious infections and must be continued after the COVID-19 tragedy is resolved

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 January 2021

Luke Curtis*
Affiliation:
Curtis Research, Hazelwood, Missouri
*
Author for correspondence: Luke Curtis, E-mail: LukeCurtis1328@gmail.com
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Abstract

Type
Letter to the Editor
Creative Commons
Creative Common License - CCCreative Common License - BY
This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution licence (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Copyright
© The Author(s), 2021. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of The Society for Healthcare Epidemiology of America

To the Editor—I read with great interest your 3 recent papers by Wong et alReference Wong, Lam and AuYeung1 Ponce-Alonso et alReference Ponce-Alonso, Sáez de la Fuente and Rincón-Carlavilla2, and Wee et al,Reference Wee, Conceicao, Sim, Aung and Venkatachalam3 who report that coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19)–era infection control bundles are associated in significant decreases in many nosocomial viral and bacterial infection rates such as influenza, respiratory syncytial virus, adenovirus, and Clostridium difficile. The Ponce-Alonso Spanish study reported a decrease of 69% in hospital-acquired Clostridium difficile infection rates following implementation of a hospital infection control bundle: incidence density was 8.54 per 10,000 patients day before and 2.68 per 100,000 days after the COVID-19 infection control bundle (P = .0002572).

Other studies have also reported that COVID-19–era infection controls such as hand washing, masking and gowning, better hospital cleaning, and isolation of COVID-19 patients can significantly reduce rates of many bacterial and viral infections. A study in a 1,785-bed Singapore hospital reported that the use of COVID-19–related infection control bundles was associated with significantly reduced rates of many hospital-acquired infections, including nosocomial respiratory infections (incidence rate, 0.08; 95% CI, 0.05–0.13), nosocomial MRSA (IR, 0.54; 95% CI, 0.46–0.64), and central-line bloodstream infections (IR, 0.24; 95% CI, 0.07–0.57).Reference Wee, Conceicao and Tan4 A California study involving 37,033 hospital patient days reported that following implementation of a COVID-19 infection control bundle, rates of many multidrug-resistant pathogens decreased significantly including a 41% decrease in methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA), a 21% decrease in (extended-spectrum β-lactamase bacteria (ESBL), and an 80% decrease in vancomycin-resistant enterococci (VRE).Reference Cole and Barnard5

Better hospital infection control bundles can also reduce rates of common nosocomial fungal infections,Reference Suleyman and Alangaden6 although I am not aware of any current studies that have reported on lower rates of Aspergillus or Candida in the COVID-19 era. Such studies of COVID-19–era nosocomial Aspergillus and Candida rates might yield useful data on how to prevent common life-threatening fungal infections.

Clearly, enhanced infection control procedures need to be followed long after the COVID-19 tragedy has resolved.Reference Cerulli Irelli, Morano and Di Bonaventura7 I hope that Infection Control and Hospital Epidemiology will continue to publish more good papers on COVID-19–era infection control.

Acknowledgments

Financial support

No financial support was provided relevant to this article.

Conflicts of interest

The author reports no conflicts of interest relevant to this article.

References

Wong, SC, Lam, GK, AuYeung, CH, et al. Absence of nosocomial influenza and respiratory syncytial virus infection in the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) era: Implication of universal masking in hospitals. Infect Control Hosp Epidemiol 2020. doi: 10.1017/ice.2020.425.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ponce-Alonso, M, Sáez de la Fuente, J, Rincón-Carlavilla, A, et al. Impact of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic on nosocomial Clostridioides difficile infection. Infect Control Hosp Epidemiol 2020. doi: 10.1017/ice.2020.454.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wee, LE, Conceicao, EP, Sim, JXY, Aung, MK, Venkatachalam, I. Impact of infection prevention precautions on adenoviral infections during the COVID-19 pandemic: experience of a tertiary hospital in Singapore. Infect Control Hosp Epidemiol 2020. doi: 10.1017/ice.2020.1365.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
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Suleyman, G, Alangaden, GJ. Nosocomial fungal infections: epidemiology, infection control, and prevention. Infect Dis Clin NA 2016;30:10231052.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cerulli Irelli, E, Morano, A, Di Bonaventura, C. Reduction in nosocomial infections during the COVID-19 era: a lesson to be learned. Updates Surg 2020. doi: 10.1007/s13304-020-00925-0.CrossRefGoogle Scholar