How countries with more resources can help

Countries with more resources have more experience of hospital-associated infections than countries with fewer resource. The value of infection control programmes based on incidence or prevalence studies is understood. Helping countries with fewer resources means sharing experience as well as resources. Documentation of the magnitude of hospital-associated infections has been used in many countries to create interest and generate funds from authorities, hospital managers and within the hospital world. Sharing resources could be in the form of financial support for participation of experts in training courses. Attendance at such training courses could be based upon local surveys of hospital-associated infections and could result in the production of local guidelines for surveillance and control of hospital-associated infections. Knowledge of the local situation is a sine qua non for this type of help to be useful.