Surge of Healthcare associated infections in COVID intensive care units

• Sarumathi Dhandapani,  
• Bharathikumar S,  
• Benedict Vinothini A,  
• Stessy Ann Punnen,  
• Ketan Priyadarshi,*  
• Apurba S Sastry

Abstract

Aim and objective: The aim of the study was to compare the HAI rates in COVID and non COVID ICUs with the baseline HAI rates in pre COVID era. Background: Healthcare-associated infection played a vital role in determining the patient’s outcome during the COVID pandemic. However, the data on HAI rates is largely unavailable in COVID locations. This is because conducting HAI surveillance inside COVID ICUs is a big challenge. Therefore, we conducted this unique quality improvement study which aims at comparing the trends of HAI rates in COVID and non-COVID ICUs during the ongoing pandemic. Materials and methods: The HAI surveillance was carried out during April 2020-December 2020 in the COVID ICUs (test group) and non-COVID ICUs (control group) and compared with ICUs from January 2019 to March 2020 (pre COVID baseline group). Then HAI data was analysed and the HAI rates were calculated based on national healthcare safety network guidelines. Results: Overall, the HAI rates were higher in COVID time in comparison to pre COVID time. During the COVID period, higher HAI rates were seen in the COVID ICUs than in the non COVID ICUs. CLABSI rate had the highest occurrence followed by VAE, CAUTI, and SSI. Conclusion: Higher HAI rates in COVID time indicates that there is need of serious infection control intervention thereby reducing the HAIs associated in COVID patients. Strict compliance to hand hygiene and other transmission-based precautions are to be followed in order to enhance the overall safety of patients. Keywords: HAI, CLABSI, VAE, CAUT, SSI , COVID

Keywords

HAI, CLABSI, VAE, CAUT, SSI , COVID