In the last year, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) published a loose-leaf manual, Guidelines for the Prevention and Control of Nosocomial Infections. One copy of the manual was sent to each hospital in the United States. Persons wanting additional copies were instructed to order them through the National Technical Information Service. In addition, the text of the manual was published in the March/April 1981, issue of INFECTION CONTROL.

The manual contained the first of several guidelines that CDC is to publish for prevention of nosocomial infections. CDC is not presently prepared to distribute these guidelines to all U.S. hospitals, but expects to be able to do so within the next 12 months.

A categorization scheme has been used to rank each of the recommendations in the guidelines. A full explanation of the scheme is in the manual and in the March/April 1981, issue of this journal.

Patients who undergo a surgical operation are at high risk of having one or more nosocomial infections. These infections develop in more surgical patients (8%) than in any other patient group, and about 70% of all nosocomial infections throughout the hospital develop in patients who have an operation. Most infections in surgical patients, however, are not related to the wound but to instrumentation of the urinary and respiratory tracts. Thus, personnel who take care of these patients should be aware of measures to prevent nosocomial infections at all sites. Moreover, to prevent surgical wound infections, personnel who perform the operation must take the lead in instituting prevention measures, because the most important measures involve use of good surgical technique and are not easily instituted simply by making changes in hospital policy.