Hygiene campaign autumn 2009--fewer cases of infection at the emergency centre?

Prompted by the H1N1 influenza epidemic in autumn 2009, Norwegian health authorities launched a campaign for better hygiene. We wanted to investigate whether there was any change in the out-of-hours contact rate for infectious diseases during this campaign.

The material consisted of remuneration claims from all doctors doing out-of-hours work during the years 2006-2009. The contact rates for nine diagnoses of infectious illness in autumn 2009 were compared with a corresponding mean from the years 2006-2008.

The contact rate for influenza was ten times higher in autumn 2009 than in the three preceding years. During the same period there was a significant reduction in conjunctivitis (contact rate ratio 0.74), otitis (0.73), sinusitis (0.70), throat infections (0.79), pneumonia (0.70) and intestinal infections (0.82). There were small changes in the contact rates for acute upper respiratory tract infections and urinary tract infections, but in December there was also a clear reduction in acute upper respiratory tract infections (0.61).

The reduced contact rates for infectious diseases may be ascribed to an effect of the campaign, but other factors may also have contributed to this result.