Alert on the high number of hospital infections

Geneva. Out of every 100 patients receiving critical care in hospitals worldwide, a high percentage contract infections during their admission. As a result, one in ten die, warns the World Health Organization (WHO) today.

The rate of patients in critical care who contract these infections is 7% in developed countries and rises to 15% in developing nations, says the WHO, which calls for improved hygiene measures in these centers. According to the agency can reduce 70% of these infections.

The WHO warns that the risk of infection is incredibly high in patients in intensive care and newborns and points out in the report that one in four cases of sepsis (abnormal and potentially fatal response of the immune system to infection) is due to this type of intra-hospital infections.

Read more: Dominican Republic was placed on the list of “very high risk” countries by the U.S.

“The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted many challenges and gaps in infection prevention measures in all regions and countries of the world, including those with the most advanced prevention and control programs,” WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said in a statement.

The study assessed national infection prevention and control programs in 106 countries and found that only four of those examined met all the minimum requirements at the national level in the past year and a half.