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Abstract

Hospital infections occur during hospital stay, and they cause prolonged stay, disability and economic burden. The infections in the healthcare facilities are multifactorial; they can be caused by breaches of infection control practices and procedures or contact with unclean and non-sterile environmental surfaces, and they can be associated with the devices used in medical procedures, such as catheters or ventilators. The most common type of hospital infections are surgical wound infections, respiratory infections and genitourinary infections.

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Further Reading

  • European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control. Point prevalence survey of healthcare-associated infections and antimicrobial use in European acute care hospitals. Stockholm: ECDC; 2013. ISBN 978-92-9193-485-0. https://doi.org/10.2900/86011.

  • European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control. Annual epidemiological report 2016 – surgical site infections. [Internet]. Stockholm: ECDC; 2016

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  • WHO Report on the burden of endemic health are-associated infection worldwide. A systematic review of the literature. Geneva: World Health Organization; 2011.

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Correspondence to Elisabeth Presterl or Magda Diab-El Schahawi .

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Presterl, E., Diab-El Schahawi, M., Lusignani, L.S., Paula, H., Reilly, J.S. (2019). Hospital Infections. In: Presterl, E., Diab-El Schahawi, M., Reilly, J. (eds) Basic Microbiology and Infection Control for Midwives. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-02026-2_9

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-02026-2_9

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-030-02025-5

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-030-02026-2

  • eBook Packages: MedicineMedicine (R0)

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