Preface

Health Care associated infection (HAI) is an emerging problem worldwide. HAI causes in‐ creased morbidity and mortality and average length of stay of the patient in the hospital. HAI also imposes economic burden on the patient, health care set up and also State and National Health care system. Infection control in health care set up is a team work. It is the responsibility of all the persons associated with patient care.

I still remember how much I felt desperate, when I found that Pseudomonas aeruginosa and Candida albicans were isolated from Endotracheal aspirate of my mother who was admitted in OTICU and was having Ventilator Associated Pneumonia (VAP).

It has been estimated that 5 – 10 % of all hospital admission suffers from HAI even in devel‐ oped countries. But 30% of HAI are preventable, if we follow the infection control practices properly especially hand hygiene while giving patient care. Hence, in this book importance has been given to Infection Control practices along with emerging trends of HAI.

> **Dr. Silpi Basak, M.B.B.S., M.D.** Department of Microbiology, Jawaharlal Nehru Medical College, Sawangi (M) Wardha, India

**Section 1**

**Facets of Infection Control Practices in Health**

**Care Set Up**

**Facets of Infection Control Practices in Health Care Set Up**

**Chapter 1**

**Infection Control Practices in Health Care Set-Up**

In India, Egypt, Palestine and Greece, the concept of hospital with hygienic practices was present as early as 500 BC. Later, hospitals became overcrowded as it were only meant for military personnel [1]. From 18th Century onwards new hospitals were established for civilians also. The transmission of infections in the hospital were also known to mankind since the sick were housed together for treatment. But no epidemiological data or surveillance system was available. But the enormity of the problem of Hospital Acquired Infections in pre-Lister era can be best understood by the writing of John Bell in 1801 who described the concept of "Hospital Gangrene" [2]. Lord Joseph Lister first used carbolic acid as an antiseptic in 1865 and published his work in 1867 which started the antiseptic era and he has been remembered

Louis Pasture in his celebrated lecture to Academic de Medicine on 30th April, 1873 said, "If I had the honour of being a surgeon…. not only would I use absolutely clean instruments (free from germs) but after cleaning my hands with great care would only use sponges previously

So with progressive awareness in later part of 16th century, regarding the transmission of infection among hospitalized patients continued to be a great concern for everyone related to hospitals but still hospital acquired infections remain a problem worldwide even today. World

and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

F. I would still have to fear germs suspended in air and surrounding

© 2013 Basak et al.; licensee InTech. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use,

© 2013 The Author(s). Licensee InTech. This chapter is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution,

distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Silpi Basak, Monali N. Rajurkar, Sanjay K. Mallick and

Additional information is available at the end of the chapter

*"…… the very first requirement in a hospital is that it should do the sick no harm"*

Ruchita O. Attal

**1. Introduction**


http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/55029

as "Father of Antiseptic Surgery".

raised to a heat of 130-1500

of the patient" [2].
