A study reveals that 95 percent of infections associated with healthcare are linked to medical devices.

A study led by AIIMS reveals that a staggering 95 percent of healthcare-associated infections, including those associated with the bloodstream, ventilator-related pneumonia, and urinary tract, are linked to medical devices. This extensive surveillance effort, carried out in collaboration with 121 hospitals nationwide by the Pan-India Network on Healthcare Associated Infections and Infection Control, also sheds light on the alarming prevalence of antimicrobial resistance in these infections, as emphasized by Dr. Purva Mathur, Professor of Microbiology at AIIMS Trauma Centre.

The Jai Prakash Narayan Apex Trauma Center at AIIMS, with technical support from ICMR at AIIMS, New Delhi and in partnership with the National Centre for Disease Control (NCDC), spearheads this surveillance network. The initiative receives partial funding and technical support from the Centre for Disease Control (CDC).

The study pinpointed E. coli as the most common culprit behind bloodstream infections, pneumonia, urinary tract infections, followed by Klebsiella pneumoniae, pseudomonas aeruginosa, Acinetobacter baumannii, and Staphylococcus aureus.

Dr. Mathur shared a concerning trend from the study, noting that Imipenem susceptibility of E. coli has steadily declined from 81 percent in 2017 to 66 percent in 2022, and that of Klebsiella pneumoniae dropped from 59 percent in 2017 to 42 percent in 2022.