Where should one search when confronted with outbreaks of nosocomial infection?
The outbreak database (http://www.outbreak-database.com), containing 1561 records of nosocomial outbreaks published in the medical literature in a systematic format, was used to identify the most frequent outbreak sources for the entire database as well as for specific outbreak pathogens. Overall, in 37.1%, no source was identified. The main sources identified were index patients (40.3%), followed by equipment and devices (21.1%), environment (19.8%), and personnel (15.8%).
Gastmeier
Petra
P
Institute for Medical Microbiology and Hospital Epidemiology, Medical School Hannover, Hannover, Germany.
Stamm-Balderjahn
Sabine
S
Hansen
Sonja
S
Zuschneid
Irina
I
Sohr
Dorit
D
Behnke
Michael
M
Vonberg
Ralf-Peter
RP
Rüden
Henning
H
D003428:Cross Infection / Q000453:epidemiology* / Q000382:microbiology / Q000517:prevention & control; D016206:Databases, Bibliographic; D004196:Disease Outbreaks / Q000517:prevention & control / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D006801:Humans; D017053:Infection Control / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D012307:Risk Factors