Week 10
2.34813: Medical Microbiology I
2.34903: Pharmaceutical Med Micro I
BOH/BDS: 3
Host and Parasite Relationships:
Lecture 14: Infection Control
ANLangarap-Kilepak
Medical Lab Science
SMHS-UPNG
Semester 01-2023
Objectives
At the end of these lecture you should be able to know:
• Infection control prevents and stops the spread of infection;
• Understanding the disease; includes source of infection,
transmission, risk factors of and carry out Control measures
and guidelines for protection
• involves means of eliminating potentially harmful microbes
using Physical/chemical agents for controlling unwanted
microbes
• Guidelines to protection; Protective Personal equipment
(PPE) at work place
• Preventing Infections: Vaccination and chemotherapeutic
therapy
How do we protect ourselves and our
environment from detrimental microbes?
• By controlling the pathogens that threatened our health
to the environmental organisms that damage our
products and foul our water supplies
• Protection Procedures and guidelines - used in hospitals,
laboratories, pharmaceutical agents, homes for safe
preparation of food, water, cosmetics and other products
to use in or on the human body
• Use Means of Physical and chemical control procedures
to reduce and eliminate microorganisms
Infection control
Revisit the principles of Disease
For a microbe to cause disease it must:
Gain entry
Attach and multiply
Evade host defences
Cause damage to cells, tissues and organ system -
disease
Infection Control
Prevention and Control;
• Parasite Control
• Host Control
Control and Prevention of Nosocomial Infections
Three main strategies
1. Excluding the source of infection from hospital
environment
2. Preventing transmission from source to susceptible
host
3. Enhancing the host’s ability to resist infection
1. Exclusion of sources of infection
2. Transmission: Breaking the chain of
infection from source to susceptible host
• Hand washing – between patients with different procedures ie,
controlling infections
• Strict isolation of highly contagious disease eg, smallpox,
pneumonic plague, measles,, H. influenzae, N. meningitidis
• Isolation for patients infected with multi-drug resistant bacteria
• Enteric precautions for diseases such as amoeba dysentry,
Salmonella spp., Shigella spp
• Preventing airborne transmission; eg, AFB isolation for patients
with M. tuberculosis
• Blood and body fluid precautions for individuals with AIDS
3. Enhancing the host’s ability to resist
infections
Prevent microbes from gaining entry by:
1. Reducing reservoir of infection
- Physical reduction in microbe population
2. Preventing Transmission
- Behavioral
- Barrier protection- portal of entry and exit
- Hygiene – disposal of waste
3. Preventing microbes establishing infection
- Immunization
- Reducing the human reservoir of infection by
preventing infection through equipping immune response
4. Chemotherapeutics – treatment
- Clearing infection/prophylactics
Prevention and Control
• Workplace Standard control measures in place
• Nosocomial pathogens have;
– Reservoirs
– Predictable route of infection
– Required susceptible hosts
• Break the chain of Transmission (Life-cycle)
– Microorganism
– Source
– Exit point
– Method of spread
– Entry point
– Person at risk
How infections continue to spread
• Direct contact – touching, shaking hands, patient and
staff etc
• Indirect contact – e.g. formites contact to hospital beds,
tables, environment, food
• Air – air condition
• Faecal-Oral route
• Blood and bodily fluid exposure
• Hospital Acquired “Nosocomial”
Transmission based Precautions
Patient known or suspected to be infected with important or
highly transmissible pathogens
• E.g. C. difficille
• Resistant bacteria, MRSA
• Infestation e.g. scabies
Hand wash
• PPE
• Patient isolation
Transmission based Precautions
Droplet precautions
• Large particle droplets, coughing, sneezing
• E.g. RSV, meningococcus
• Hand wash
• PPE including mask
• Isolation
Air-borne precautions
• E.g. TB, measles, chickenpox
• Hand wash, PPE, mask, isolation in ventilated rooms
Reducing Reservoir of infection
Common Physical and Chemical means of controlling
infection
• Cleaning
– Microbes require organic compounds and water to
reproduce
• Sterilization – Killing microbes from a particular
environment
• Complete elimination of life
• Disinfection – Reducing numbers to an acceptable level
• Refrigeration – Creating an environment where growth
is retarded by changing temperature; e.g. at – 4°C slows
growth, halts growth, however does not kill microbes
Standard and Universal Precautions
• Work-place safety practices for basic level of infection control
• Applied to all Medical workers
– Hand wash
– Use of personal protective equipment (PPE) as
appropriate:
• Gloves (sterile)
• Plastic aprons and gowns
• Masks
• Eye protection
– Safe handling and disposal of infectious wastes and
sharps
– Routine environmental cleaning
• Surface, shared equipment, decontamination of spills
Prevention – Hand wash
• Single most effective means of preventing transmission
of microorganisms; patients contact, samples, medical
devices, lab equipment etc
• Treated alcohol rubs, wipes
• Recommended at all levels of hospital from admission
registry to treatment rooms
Hand hygiene
My five moments of hand wash WHO 2009