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Showing results for tags 'Infection control'.
Found 641 results
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Content ArticleThe Covid-19 pandemic has resulted in dental treatments having to be planned and carried out with extreme caution, with dental facilities and staff adapting to put in place appropriate infection control measures and safety precautions. This article, published in Patient safety in surgery, provides a summary of precautionary and prophylactic measures in preventing the cross-infection and the nosocomial spread of the infection in a dental setting.
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Neonatal herpes is a rare, and potentially fatal, disease which usually occurs in the first four weeks of a baby's life. It is caused by the same virus that causes cold sores and genital infections – the herpes simplex virus (HSV). In this blog, Sarah de Malplaquet, Chief Executive and Founder of the Kit Tarka Foundation, draws on her own devastating experience of her son dying to illustrate why healthcare staff with cold sores must stay away from new babies. Sarah highlights the lack of awareness of the dangers and calls for a widespread review of policy in order to prevent future deaths. -
Content ArticleThis article, published by freethink, tells the story of an Iowa teenager Dasia Taylor who has developed a concept of colour-changing sutures to warn of infection. Skin pH levels typically hover around 5, but an infection can cause pH to spike. When it does, Taylor's colour-changing sutures, dyed with beet juice, go from red to purple. inspired by the concept of 'smart sutures' Taylor wanted to look at doing something that would be more accessible to developing countries. The hope is that hopes the sutures will help spot infections early, when antibiotics can treat them, instead of more invasive measures.
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Content ArticleThis research investigates whether providing patients with leaflets and oral information will influence patient satisfaction, recall of information and SSI opinion.
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Content Article
Approximately 1,000[1] UK health and care workers have died from Covid-19. Many were working with Covid-positive patients and with substandard Personal Protective Equipment (PPE). It is estimated that a further 122,000 health service workers who contracted Covid-19 are struggling with prolonged symptoms, often referred to as Long Covid. It has also become clear that a significant number of inpatients who had Covid-19, acquired the virus whilst in hospital.[2][3] In this opinion piece, Dr David Tomlinson argues that current PPE guidance still fails to adequately protect staff and patients against the airborne nature of the Covid-19 virus. David highlights the attempts made by many to raise their related safety concerns; arguing that the response to date has been inadequate, unsafe and unlawful. -
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NHS Wales. COVID-19 and Workplaces: Information and guidance
Patient Safety Learning posted an article in Guidance
This page from NHS Wales signposts employers and employees to key information and guidance for workplaces which will assist in taking appropriate action upon returning to the workplace, to prevent transmission of COVID-19 and provide relevant sector specific guidance. Documents found on this page will also be particularly useful for employers experiencing clusters of cases that may be associated with their workplace. -
Content ArticleThis qualitative study in Research in Social and Administrative Pharmacy examined how staff working in UK community pharmacy during the first waves of the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020 responded and adapted to new pressures on their services to maintain patient safety. From responses gathered from 23 community pharmacy staff in England and Scotland, the authors identified five themes: Covid-19, an impending threat to system Patient safety stressors during the first waves of Covid-19 Altering the system, responding to system stressors Monitoring and adjusting Learning for the future. They found that pharmacy staff responded and adapted to the evolving situation, monitoring the success of measures and protocols adopted in response to the pressures of the pandemic.
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Content ArticleThis systematic analysis in The Lancet used data covering 471 million individual records from systematic literature reviews, hospital systems, surveillance systems and other sources. The authors, an international research collective called the Antimicrobial Resistance Collaborators, used this data to estimate deaths and disability-adjusted life-years (DALYs) that have come about as a result of bacterial antimicrobial resistance (AMR). They estimated that, in 2019, 1.27 million deaths were directly attributable to AMR, with the three primary infections involved being lower respiratory and thorax infections, bloodstream infections and intra-abdominal infections. Their analysis shows that AMR death rates were highest in some lower- and middle-income countries, making AMR not only a major health problem globally, but a particularly serious problem for some of the poorest countries in the world.
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Content ArticleIn this article for the Patient Safety Network, the authors highlight ways in which the Covid-19 pandemic initiated drastic modifications to the way in which health services are delivered across care settings, in particular in hospital emergency departments and inpatient units. They examine particular challenges highlighted by patient safety organisations (PSOs), including increases in safety incidents relating to pressure sores, sepsis, infections and communication issues. The article also highlights innovations to support safety that have been developed during the pandemic.
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Content ArticleThere is no longer any scientific doubt about how Covid spreads through the air. Covid spreads like any other airborne respiratory disease. The virus is carried in tiny particles called aerosols, which we breathe out constantly — especially when speaking loudly or singing. The particles stay in the room air like smoke, and if someone has Covid, their exhaled aerosols contain the virus and can infect someone who breathes them in. We stop the disease spreading by stopping people inhaling infected aerosol. In this article for the Guardian, Dr Adam Squires and Prof Christina Pagel detail what we can do to protect ourselves from the airborne spread of Covid. “Filtering facepiece respirator” masks, social distancing and opening windows are short term solutions. Additionally, much can be done by cleaning the air in the room, removing infectious aerosol before it can be inhaled through ventilation and supplement the clean air by filtering out the respiratory aerosol particles using small portable HEPA (“High Efficiency Particle Air”) filter unit.. Longer term, new developments in ultraviolet (UV) technology can safely and efficiently kill airborne pathogens in large spaces such as canteens, gyms or theatre. Infrastructure upgrades and new builds, necessary for zero carbon targets, can combine more energy-efficient ventilation with filtration to lower pollution. In the classroom and the workplace, clean fresh air has wider benefits on health and wellbeing far beyond our current airborne pandemic.
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Content ArticleThe evidence for preventing COVID-19 is lost in translation, writes Dancer et al. in a BMJ Editorial. The world is finally coming to terms with the realisation that transmission of SARS-CoV-2 is airborne. While keeping your distance, wearing a mask, and getting vaccinated have provided much protection, one intervention that would have a significant impact is adequate indoor ventilation. Healthcare, homes, schools, and workplaces should have been encouraged to improve ventilation at the very beginning of the pandemic, but tardy recognition of the airborne route by leading authorities in 2020 stalled any progress that could have been made at that stage.This was compounded by controversies over the terms “droplet” and “aerosol,” as the definition of these dictates different infection prevention strategies, including type of mask. Inserting the term “ventilation” into a COVID-19 policy document might appease readers, but ensuring people get enough fresh air in indoor environments seems to have fallen by the wayside. Why is this? Can we establish the reasons for this seemingly lethargic response to improving indoor air quality?
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Content ArticleIn this article for The BMJ, Ingrid Torjesen looks at new data from Japan that suggest patients with the omicron variant of Covid-19 shed virus for longer after symptoms emerge, than with other Covid-19 variants. This has a potentially significant impact on hopes of shortening the period of isolation for people testing positive. The article examines new evidence from Japan that suggests that with omicron, the peak of virus shedding may be two or three days later than with other variants. It also looks at the relative value of self-isolation in the UK while omicron is circulating so widely in the community, with up to two-thirds of cases now undetected by testing.
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Content ArticleIn this article for The Conversation, the authors discuss their latest research findings regarding Covid-19 transmission, outlining the likelihood of catching Covid-19 in different indoor and outdoor scenarios. They demonstrate that speaking, shouting, singing and heavy exercise all increase the likelihood of transmission, and illustrate the impact of ventilation, face coverings and number of people on the risk of catching the virus. The article includes an table summarising their findings and a link to the Covid-19 Aerosol Transmission Estimator developed by the authors. View the full research paper
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Content ArticleThis poster from the Royal College of Midwives (RCM) provides information for midwives and midwife support workers on appropriate PPE for different scenarios in maternity care. It covers what to wear in different stages of care in both hospital and community settings if a patient has, or does not have, confirmed or suspected Covid-19.
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Content ArticleThis toolkit published by the Royal College of Nursing (RCN) aims to support healthcare professionals to consider and manage risks associated with the transmission of respiratory infections, specifically Covid-19. It is designed to aid local decision making about the level of personal protective equipment (PPE) required to protect healthcare professionals while at work.
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Content ArticleIn this opinion piece in The Guardian, Gabriel Scally, professor of public health and member of the Independent Sage committee, argues that the government's response to Covid-19 relies on personal responsibility rather than public health measures. He highlights that this will not be adequate to get the pandemic under control. The author states that a public health-focused response should have three pillars: prevention, vaccination and control, but at the moment the government is using just one of these. He draws attention to the issue of resources being wasted on handwashing and sanitisation, when Covid-19 is primarily airborne, and argues that funding should be redirected to investing in ventilation improvements and promoting the use of more effective face coverings. He also highlights the failure of contact tracing in the UK, and calls for renewed efforts to develop a comprehensive public health response in light of the new Omicron strain.
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Content ArticleWhen Addenbrooke’s Hospital in Cambridge upgraded its face masks for staff working on COVID-19 wards to filtering face piece 3 (FFP3) respirators, it saw a dramatic fall – up to 100% – in hospital-acquired SARS-CoV-2 infections among these staff. Healthcare workers – particularly those working on COVID-19 wards – are much more likely to be exposed to coronavirus, so it’s important we understand the best ways of keeping them safe The findings are reported by a team at the University of Cambridge and Cambridge University Hospitals (CUH) NHS Foundation Trust. The research has not yet been peer-reviewed, but is being released early because of the urgent need to share information relating to the pandemic.
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Content ArticleA post on Doctors in Unite website argue that COVID-19 guidelines are fundamentally flawed and not fit for purpose, putting health care workers and patients at serious risk. IPC authorities are increasingly isolated in their view that COVID-19 is spread by droplets and not through the air, a position which is directly contradicted now by official government policy. This article takes a more detailed look at the issues, which demonstrates how unscientific, out of touch and indeed hazardous the guidelines are for health workers and patients.
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Content ArticleIn this BMJ paper, Jin-Ling Tang and Li-Ming Li argue that despite the lure of vaccines and new drugs, established public health measures will remain our best tool to control COVID-19 and future epidemics
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Content ArticleThe emergence of the omicron variant has raised concerns that the pandemic is not yet over. In this BMJ opinion piece, William et al. outline four key lessons that governments need to learn from to protect against future pandemics
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Content ArticleWearing face masks and maintaining social distance are familiar to many people around the world during the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. Evidence suggests that these are effective ways to reduce the risk of COVID-19 infection. However, it is not clear how exactly the risk of infection is affected by wearing a mask during close personal encounters or by social distancing without a mask. Results from a study by Bagheri et al. show that face masks significantly reduce the risk of COVID-19 infection compared to social distancing. We find a very low risk of infection when everyone wears a face mask, even if it doesn’t fit perfectly on the face.
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Content ArticleDuring the rapid rise in COVID-19 illnesses and deaths globally, and notwithstanding recommended precautions, questions are voiced about routes of transmission for this pandemic disease. Inhaling small airborne droplets is probable as a third route of infection, in addition to more widely recognised transmission via larger respiratory droplets and direct contact with infected people or contaminated surfaces. While uncertainties remain regarding the relative contributions of the different transmission pathways, Morawska et al. argue that existing evidence is sufficiently strong to warrant engineering controls targeting airborne transmission as part of an overall strategy to limit infection risk indoors. Appropriate building engineering controls include sufficient and effective ventilation, possibly enhanced by particle filtration and air disinfection, avoiding air recirculation and avoiding overcrowding. Often, such measures can be easily implemented and without much cost, but if only they are recognised as significant in contributing to infection control goals. The authors believe that the use of engineering controls in public buildings, including hospitals, shops, offices, schools, kindergartens, libraries, restaurants, cruise ships, elevators, conference rooms or public transport, in parallel with effective application of other controls (including isolation and quarantine, social distancing and hand hygiene), would be an additional important measure globally to reduce the likelihood of transmission and thereby protect healthcare workers, patients and the general public.
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Content ArticleAs public health teams respond to the Covid-19 pandemic, containment and understanding of the modes of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) transmission is of utmost importance for policy making. During this time, governmental agencies have been instructing the community on handwashing and physical distancing measures. However, there is no agreement on the role of aerosol transmission for SARS-CoV-2. Tang et al. aimed to review the evidence of aerosol transmission of SARS-CoV-2. Several studies support that aerosol transmission of SARS-CoV-2 is plausible, and the plausibility score (weight of combined evidence) is 8 out of 9. Precautionary control strategies should consider aerosol transmission for effective mitigation of SARS-CoV-2.
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Content ArticleAn author turned junior doctor’s account of the chaos at work and anguish at home as Covid-19 arrived in the UK.
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Content ArticleThis qualitative study in Antimicrobial Resistance & Infection Control aimed to identify institutional actions, strategies and policies related to healthcare workers’ safety perception during the early phase of the Covid-19 pandemic at a tertiary care centre in Switzerland. The authors interviewed healthcare workers from different clinics, professions, and positions. The study identified transparent communication as the most important factor affecting healthcare worker's safety perceptions during the first wave. This knowledge can be used to help hospitals better prepare for future infectious disease threats and outbreaks.
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