The role of environment in the transmission of infection

• Autor(a) principal: Pintado, Maria Manuela Estevez
• Data de Publicação: 2010
• Tipo de documento: Artigo
• Idioma: por
• Título da fonte: Repositório Científico de Acesso Aberto de Portugal (Repositórios Cientìficos)
• Texto Completo: https://doi.org/10.34632/cadernosdesaude.2010.2997

Nosocomial infections are a leading cause of morbidity and mortality among hospitalized patients. The environment can serve as a reservoir of pathogens causing nosocomial infections, but is most likely less of a contributing factor than contaminants transiently on hands of health care personnel, biofilms that form on indwelling devices, or invasion of endogenous flora present on the patient. Controversy over the relative importance of pathogens recovered from the hospital environment as a significant source of nosocomial infection has existed for decades; however the emergence of more virulent strains of pathogens, such as Clostridium difficile, and the persistence of familiar ones, such as methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus and vancomycin-resistant enterococci, have prompted a return to concerns about environmental infection control. Therefore, there is a continued need to focus hygiene-based interventions, not only on personnel and inanimate surfaces, but also, as new evidence suggests, for the patient as well. This paper reviews summarily the importance of environment, among other factors, as important reservoirs of pathogens causing nosocomial infection.