Research shows infection-prevention evidence is lacking in low-income countries

Glasgow Caledonian University health research, funded and commissioned by the World Health Organisation (WHO), shows that evidence of infection prevention in low-income countries is lacking.

The study Effectiveness of national and subnational interventions for prevention and control of health-care-associated infections in acute hospitals in high-income and upper-middle-income counties: a systematic review update has been published in prestigious journal - The Lancet Infectious Diseases.

Authors were researchers from the School of Health and Life Sciences’ Research Centre for Health (ReaCH) Safeguarding Health through Infection Prevention (SHIP) Research Group - Professors Lesley Price and Jacqui Reilly, Dr Lucyna Gozdzielewska, Katie Hendry and Agi McFarland.

Dr Lucyna Gozdzielewska explained: “Healthcare-associated infections remain a threat to patient safety worldwide. However, many of these infections can be prevented by the implementation of effective infection prevention and control measures.

“Our review showed that the evidence from low-income countries was lacking. These countries often face challenges to the development and implementation of infection prevention measures, such as the lack of appropriately trained staff or limited resources.

“As the recent COVID-19 pandemic showed, infections can spread quickly between countries, therefore, supporting low-income countries in the development of infection-prevention programmes to reduce the threat of healthcare-associated infections worldwide is important.

“The strongest evidence was found for the effectiveness of care bundles, which are sets of infection-prevention measures that are applied together to prevent a specific infection in a specific group of patients, supported by additional strategies for successful implementation in practice such as provision of education to staff, support and guidance, reminders or enhancing teamwork and communication. This highlights the importance of these care bundles for prevention of healthcare associated infections.

“Our recent work provides evidence on the effective infection-prevention measures that could be applied by the countries as part of their national infection-prevention programmes.

“Such programmes influence care that patients receive, therefore, development and implementation of effective, evidence-based national strategies will help to prevent healthcare-associated infections and improve patient safety.”

In 2016, the SHIP team conducted a systematic review on the effectiveness of national infection prevention and control interventions, which was also commissioned and funded by WHO.

This research and the findings were used by WHO to inform the development of the guidelines of infection prevention and control programmes’ core components. The aim of the guidelines was to support countries to develop and implement effective strategies for preventing healthcare-associated infections and improve patient safety.

Read Dr Gozdzielewska’s blog on the latest research -https://www.caledonianblogs.net/ship/2023/04/24/reviewing-the-evidence-national-infection-prevention-and-control-interventions/