Cleanzine: your weekly cleaning and hygiene industry newsletter 18th April 2024 Issue no. 1110
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ECDC reviews risk posed by carbapenem-resistant Enterobacteriaceae in healthcare settings
Carbapenem-resistant Enterobacteriaceae - the subject of an updated rapid risk assessment published by the European Centre for Disease Prevention & Control - represent a risk to patients and healthcare systems, causing infections associated with high mortality due to the limited treatment options available.
Outbreaks in healthcare settings have been reported by several EU/EEA countries including the Czech Republic, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, Spain and the UK.
The new risk assessment, updating ECDC's first report in April 2016, provides a comprehensive review of the state of knowledge about carbapenem-resistant Enterobacteriaceae (CRE) including:
* the various and complex - usually enzyme-mediated - mechanisms involved in the spread of resistance
* the extent of proliferation across the EU/EEA of the 2 resistant strains that are currently of greatest concern
A series of control actions are put forward covering:
* prevention and control of spread within healthcare systems, including pre-emptive infection prevention and control measures for patients at high risk
* prevention of spread via the food chain
* prevention of cross-border spread
* long-term, world-wide measures to improve the capacity for resistance detection and surveillance in low-resource countries
The report includes graphical presentation of data and maps - from the ECDC EARS-Net annual report - that indicates, in some cases, a high variance in the national rates of carbapenem resistance in invasive disease isolates across the continent.
Image courtesy of Antibiotic Research UK
21st June 2018