Principles of Infection Prevention and Control in ICU

Sahu, Sandeep; Paul, Mekhala; Chatterjee, Arindam

Prevention of infection in ICU setting is very difficult and needs multidisciplinary approach to monitor and control it. The major infections of concern are central line associated blood-stream infection, ventilator-associated pneumonia, catheter-associated urinary tract infection, clostridium-difficile induced colitis, surgical site infection or infected decubitus ulcer, etc. increasing resistant micro-organisms due to prolonged unnecessary use of broad-spectrum antibiotics without dose adjustment, lack of following the protocols of isolation and hand hygiene with general preventive measures, failure to maintain surveillance strategies are major factors for failure to control infections in ICU. There is urgent need of teaching and training of health care workers regarding various type of infections, its mode of transmissions and effective way of its prevention in ICU like WHO hand hygine guidelines and other recomended bundle cares.Besides this environmental control including safe designing and manintence of ICU, antibiotics stewardship, effective teamwork and good communication are the key to success of infection prevention in ICU.