Rates of hospital-acquired infection rising in Canada.
A new study, based on a survey of Canadian hospitals, has revealed that hospital-acquired infection rates continue to rise and that for want of funding, infection-control programs continue to fall well short of expert recommendations. The study, conducted by Canadian researchers, found significant increases in the rates of major communicable bacterial infections—including methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA), vancomycin-resistant Enterococcus (VRE) and Clostridium difficile (C. difficile)—over a seven year period from 1999 to 2005. The study, published in the December issue of the American Journal of Infection Control, targeted acute care hospitals and demonstrated that the rates of MRSA more than doubled in the period from 1999 to 2005. C. difficile infections also tended to rise over the same period, while the number of hospitals reporting new cases of infection with VRE climbed 77 per cent.
