A new article in Evolution, Medicine, and Public Health , published by Oxford University Press, indicates that antibiotic resistance may result from poor hygiene practices in hospitals or other medical facilities.
Proper hand hygiene in clinical work is the cornerstone of patient safety, but compliance remains poor. This is despite the fact that hand hygiene is simple, safe and affordable. Antibiotics save lives and make much of modern medicine possible. But bacteria that develop resistance so that antibiotics can no longer kill them threaten those medical achievements, particularly when they spread from patients in healthcare settings.
When a patient takes antibiotics, it inhibits any drug-sensitive bacteria in the body. If that patient carries antibiotic-resistant bacteria, that’s an environment in which they can thrive. Good hygiene, both in healthcare and in the community, is essential for infection control. This is well known. But what is less clear is how hygiene (or other transmission control measures) affects the evolution of antibiotic resistance.
The researchers here addressed whether hygiene weakens the effect of antibiotic pressure on the evolution of resistance. The authors first developed a mathematical model of resistance to predict how good or poor hygiene might affect how quickly resistant bacteria increase in abundance due to antibiotic treatment.
They then tested this model against antibiotic resistance data from the European Center for Disease Prevention and Control. Data collected from 691 long-term care facilities in 19 European countries in 2013 suggests this is the case. Countries where staff at such facilities made better use of alcohol-based hand sanitizers saw less enrichment of antibiotic-resistant bacteria, in this case resistant E. coli bacteria, for their antibiotic use.
This indicates that staff who keep hospitals and other facilities, such as nursing homes, clean, using training and procedures, will prevent patients from acquiring resistant bacteria from others and therefore prevent explosive amplifications that accelerate the spread of resistant diseases. to medications.
“Hygiene in healthcare is the cornerstone of good clinical practice,” said the paper’s lead author, Kristofer Wollein Waldetoft.
“It is also key to managing antibiotic resistance by protecting patients from acquiring resistant strains. The importance of hygiene, especially hand hygiene, is highly appreciated by healthcare professionals, but compliance has nonetheless been shown to be poor. “Therefore, there is an opportunity to improve this important, but simple, aspect of resistance management.”
