More and more hospital infections

Number of hospital infections has doubled within five years

05/22/2013

Frightening: More and more people get sick with infections during their hospital stay. The number of hospital infections has doubled within the last five years, according to a recent study by the Bremen Institute for Occupational Safety and Health Promotion (BIAG), which conducted its investigation on behalf of the health insurance „hkk“ for the health report. The number of infections with so-called multi-resistant germs has increased dramatically.

Hospital infections due to multi-resistant germs
If you come to the hospital, you should be aware of the risk of infection. For in the past five years has information from the health insurance „hkk“ According to the number of hospital infections doubled. In 2007, 3.1 percent of those insured were „hkk“ affected by such an infection. In 2011, it was already 6.3 percent. This emerges from the health report of the health insurance, for which the Bremen Institute for Occupational Safety and Health Promotion (BIAG) was commissioned.

Even more serious was the increase in hospital infection with so-called multidrug-resistant germs (MRE), which are resistant to most antibiotics and therefore can cause particularly severe disease courses. Especially people with weakened immune systems such as the chronically ill or the elderly can easily become infected with MRE. For healthy people, however, the germs pose no danger. While MRE were detected in 271 hospital cases in 2007, there were already 619 cases in 2011. „This means that the proportion of MRE infections in all hospital cases has more than doubled in five years from 0.465 to 0.941 percent“, states in a press release the „hkk“.

The group of multidrug-resistant pathogens also includes the dreaded methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA), which is resistant to virtually every antibiotic. Normally a pathogen is killed by antibiotics. The mutations of some germs, however, can develop a resistance to the antibiotic. The resistant bacteria then multiply and pass on the resistance via the resistance-conferring genes to other types of bacteria, so that more and more resistant pathogens arise. the „hkk“-According to the health report, the number of hospital infections has risen from just under 0.3 percent to just over 0.5 percent. 49 percent of those affected were older patients between 70 and 89 years.

How alarming the situation in Germany is, the view abroad shows: While in this country, the proportion of MRSA in all proven Staphylococcus Aureus samples accounts for more than 20 percent, it is not even 5 percent in Scandinavia, Estonia and the Netherlands. Even in the much-criticized UK healthcare sector, the proportion was within five
Years from 44 percent to less than 22 percent. Experts therefore assume that in Germany 20 to 30 percent of all hospital infections with multidrug-resistant pathogens would be avoidable by appropriate hygiene measures.

High follow-up costs due to hospital infections
Hospital infections caused by multidrug-resistant bacteria cause high follow-up costs, for example for prolonging treatment, insulation, qualified hygiene personnel and protective clothing. Paradoxically, the proportion of these follow-up treatments fell from 58 to about 42 percent over the same period. A similar development was seen in the complex treatments of MRSA-induced infections. The number dropped from 73 to 58 percent. „We can only speculate about the reasons“, explained Dr. Bernard Braun, head of BIAG. „Either the severity of cases has decreased, so that complex measures from the perspective of the hospitals are not necessary. Or many hospitals are neither personnel nor structurally and infrastructurally able to provide such services.“ The expert sees an urgent need for action, „to achieve a significant reduction in MRE and MRSA quotas in Germany. First approaches can indeed be recognized. What we need, however, is a structured approach involving experts from nursing, medicine, biology, hospitals and meat-producing agriculture“, demands brown. (ag)

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Picture: Gerd Altmann