Again, the 5th annual International Conference on Prevention & Infection Control offered a wide range of lectures. About 1,000 participants from all over the world took the opportunity for exchange and further education on topics such as “Social aspects in infection control implementation” or “Outbreaks and late breakers”.
One lecture offered the chance to compare international programs: numerous countries presented their national activity plans. These included Mexico, Puerto Rico, Brazil and Singapore. What is striking: All of them are working according to the WHO guidelines and trying to implement the multimodal approach, which is leadership, train the trainer, feedback loops, advertising, social initiatives, identifying supporters, involving and informing patients as well as measuring success.
Hand hygiene
Since Semmelweis’ time hand hygiene has been a hot topic again and again. Many questions are still not or not sufficiently researched. For example, any plausible clinical requirements for antimicrobial efficiency are still missing.
At least there are first scientific data, which show that 15 seconds disinfection with ABHR (alcohol-based hand rub, thus approx. 70 % alcohol) has no disadvantage compared to 30 seconds duration of the hand disinfection. However, compliance is increasing. Even if you disinfect your hands in six or only in three steps does not seem to make much difference. It is only important that the hands are sufficiently wetted, so 3 ml ABHR are better than 1.5 ml.
The use of alcohol spray on the hands also has a comparatively good effect, but only if it is rubbed. The mere spraying of the hands has a much worse effect. In any case, one thing has been completely clarified: Despite rumors to the contrary, alcohol is also effective against resistant and rare germs.
Social media
One more major topic was the possibility of using social media. It is currently being investigated whether the outbreaks of various germs (e.g. influenza, MRSA, etc.) can be identified and recorded earlier by interpreting corresponding data from social media. Preliminary tests show that it will be possible to detect outbreaks 14 days before the national reference centers.
You can also download detailed information about the lectures. Find the presentations and abstracts here: aricjournal.biomedcentral.com/
