[Pilot hospitals: hope for improving the control of nosocomial infections]

Nosocomial infections are both poorly studied and quantified (between 3.68% to 21% depending on the author). Not only do they seriously affect patients but they are also extremely expensive both in direct and indirect costs as shown by actual cases. To prevent these infections efficiently, hospitals have to continuously monitor nosocomial infections within their departments, thus providing at any time, information about the primordial factors and enabling early stage intervention and the interruption of the "contamination-infection" chain. The Recommendations of the Council of Europe, in particular Recommendation R(84)20, have enabled this to be put into practice: the departments of 35 pilot hospitals have decided to declare their nosocomial infections, recording and processing their data with the same software; global processing is provided free of charge by the International Association for Hospital Hygiene Research. Six months after the start of the operation, the first conclusions are highly positive with 2794 notification forms received (a very good answer rate) showing in particular that more than 50% of nosocomial infections are due to three main entry points [urinary catheter (26%), intubation (13.3%), natural cavities (11.2%)] and three predominant germs [Staphylococcus aureus (22%), Escherichia coli (18.9%), Pseudomonas aeruginosa (11.9%)].