Bolikas, E. orcid.org/0000-0001-7135-3258, Astrinaki, E., Panagiotaki, E. et al. (8 more authors) (2023) Impact of SARS-CoV-2 preventive measures against healthcare-associated infections from antibiotic-resistant ESKAPEE pathogens: a two-center, natural quasi-experimental study in Greece. Antibiotics, 12 (7). 1088. ISSN 2079-6382
Abstract
The COVID-19 pandemic led to unprecedented stress on healthcare systems worldwide, forming settings of concern for increasing antimicrobial resistance. We investigated the impact of SARS-CoV-2 preventive measures against healthcare-associated infections (HAIs) from antibiotic-resistant bacteria in two tertiary-care hospitals. We compared infection rates between March 2019 and February 2020 (pre-intervention period) and March 2020 and February 2021 (COVID-19 intervention period) from drug-resistant ESKAPEE bacteria (methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus; vancomycin-resistant Enterococci; carbapenem-resistant Klebsiella pneumoniae, Acinetobacter baumannii, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Enterobacter species and Escherichia coli). Over 24 months, 586 drug-resistant ESKAPEE HAIs occurred in 439 patients (0.3% of 179,629 inpatients) with a mean age of 63 years, with 43% being treated in intensive care units (ICUs), and having a 45% inpatient mortality rate. Interrupted time series analysis revealed increasing infection rates before the intervention that were sharply interrupted by abrupt drops for most pathogens and henceforth remained stable in the ICUs but progressively increased in ordinary wards. In the ICUs, the pooled infection rate was 44% lower over the intervention period compared to the pre-intervention period (incidence rate ratio (IRR) 0.56, 95%CI 0.41–0.75, p < 0.001). Pooled infection rates in the wards were slightly higher over the COVID-19 period (IRR 1.12, 95%CI 0.87–1.45, p = 0.368). The findings confirmed the ancillary beneficial impact of the enhanced bundle of transmission-based precautions adopted against SARS-CoV-2 in rapidly constraining antimicrobial-resistant HAIs in two Greek hospitals.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
---|---|
Authors/Creators: |
|
Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © 2023 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). |
Keywords: | SARS-CoV-2; antibiotic resistance; epidemiology; healthcare-associated infection; infection control; multidrug resistance |
Dates: |
|
Institution: | The University of Sheffield |
Academic Units: | The University of Sheffield > Faculty of Medicine, Dentistry and Health (Sheffield) > School of Health and Related Research (Sheffield) > ScHARR - Sheffield Centre for Health and Related Research |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Sheffield |
Date Deposited: | 09 Aug 2023 15:09 |
Last Modified: | 09 Aug 2023 15:10 |
Status: | Published |
Publisher: | MDPI AG |
Refereed: | Yes |
Identification Number: | 10.3390/antibiotics12071088 |
Related URLs: | |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:202303 |