Infection prevention and control measures during the pandemic did their job to lower many healthcare-associated infections (HAIs) and respiratory viral infections (RVIs).
A new study published Thursday in the American Journal of Infection Control (AJIC), shows interventions reduced healthcare-associated infection rates among vulnerable patient populations. These populations include people at long-term care communities who are more prone to infections and may have other health ailments that affect their immune systems. Long-term care facilities also implemented infection prevention and control measures during the pandemic.
“Previous, large-scale studies revealed an alarming increase in some HAIs during the pandemic, which may be partly attributed to the necessary, dramatic shift in institutional infection prevention and control priorities,” Roy F. Chemaly, MD, chair of infectious diseases, infection control and employee health at MD Anderson, and the lead author, said in a statement. “Our findings suggest that enhanced and targeted IPC measures enabled our facility to avoid these increases and, in several cases, significantly reduce the incidence of HAIs among our patient population during the pandemic.”
In March 2020, the MD Anderson Cancer Center started using improved infection control and prevention practices — masking, visitor restrictions, personal protective equipment, disinfection — to stop the spread of the SARS-CoV-2.
Chemaly’s team assessed incident rates of six healthcare-associated infections among about 30,000 people admitted at the center between 2016 and 2022. The researchers compared the incident rates for all infections for 42 months before the pandemic to the 25 months after the pandemic began in March 2020. The researchers also evaluated times during COVID-19 surges and in areas of the facility housing people with COVID-19.
C. difficile infection (C. diff), respiratory viral infections (RVIs) and central line-associated bloodstream infections (CLABSI) declined significantly.
Laboratory-identified C. diff (Li-CDI) significantly dropped after the pandemic, declining from 6.58 cases per 10,000 patient days to 4.31. Rates were similar between surge and non-surge periods of time. RVIs significantly went down from the pre-pandemic to the pandemic period, from 5.24 to 1.90 per 1,000 admissions. RVI rates didn’t change much between surges and non-surges. Like the other viruses mentioned, rates of CLABSI went down during the pandemic, from 0.51 per 1,000 catheter days to 0.32.
