Abstract:
With increasing use of antimicrobial agents and advance in lifesaving medical practices which expose the patients for invasive procedures, are associated with the ever
increasing of nosocomial infections. Despite an
effort in hospital infection control measures,
health care associated infections are associated
with significant morbidity and mortality adding
additional health care expenditure which may
leads to an economic crisis. The problem is further complicated with the emergence of difficult
to treat multidrug resistant (MDR) microorganism in the hospital environment. Virtually every
pathogen has the potential to cause infection in
hospitalized patients but only limited number of
both gram positive and gram negative bacteria
are responsible for the majority of nosocomial
infection. Among them Staphylococcus aureus,
Escherichia coli, Pseudomonas aeruginosa and
Enterococci takes the leading. Many intrinsic
and extrinsic factors predispose hospitalized
patients for these pathogens. Following simple
hospital hygienic practices and strictly following
standard medical procedures greatly reduces infection to a significant level although not all
nosocomial infections are avoidable. The clinical
spectrum caused by nosocomial pathogens depend on body site of infection, the involving
pathogen and the patient’s underlying condition. Structural and non structural virulence factors associated with the bacteria are responsible for the observed clinical manifestation. Bacteria isolation and characterization from appropriate clinical materials with antimicrobial susceptibility testing is the standard of laboratory
diagnosis.
