Stan(Petre )Marilena AMF II A

Five methods of preventing nasocomial infections:

Nosocomial infections are those infections that a patient develops during hospitalization. They are
also called intrahospital infections.

Some of the general measures to control the spread of these types of infections are:

- Analysis of the intensive care unit, to see if people with a hospital-acquired infection should be
isolated from other patients;

- Identifying the type of isolation needed for that patient, because this measure helps protect other
patients and reduces the risk of infection;

- Observing hand hygiene, which involves washing hands before and after touching people in the
hospital;

- Medical personnel must wear appropriate equipment, such as gloves, gowns and medical masks;

- Proper cleaning of surfaces, at the recommended time interval;

- Patient rooms must be well ventilated.

It is important to know the transmission pathways of these microorganisms. Bacteria, fungi and
viruses spread mainly through direct contact, from one person to another. This means that bacteria
are transmitted through dirty hands and medical instruments (catheters, devices that help patients
breathe and other tools used in hospitals).

Nosocomial pathogens can be transmitted from one person to another, from the environment or
from contaminated water or contaminated food, from infected people, from the contaminated skin
of hospital medical staff or through contact with shared objects and surfaces used by the same
people.

The number of hospital-acquired infections can increase when there are situations when antibiotics
are overused or misused. For this reason, some bacteria become resistant to several types of
antibiotics.