Patients and hospital staff must now place great emphasis on hand hygiene.
– No patient has developed a serious infection yet, but to prevent this from happening, we are implementing several measures to stop the spread of infection, infection control specialist Astri Lervik Larsen says in a press release.
Linezolid-resistant Enterococcus (LRE) is a bacterium that belongs to the normal intestinal microbiota. What sets it apart from other intestinal bacteria is not that it is more dangerous, but rather that it is more resistant to antibiotics and more demanding for treatment.
These bacteria thrive in hospitals where patients receive a lot of antibiotics.
– We have a growing LRE in Kalnes, and patients have been infected while in hospital with us. We have treatment against bacteria, but these are not bacteria we want in a hospital environment, says Lervik Larsen.
more difficult to treat
People who carry the bacteria do not necessarily get sick. But in the case of, for example, a urinary tract infection often caused by intestinal bacteria, the infection can become more difficult to treat because the bacteria are resistant to antibiotics.
– To treat infections caused by these bacteria, we have to resort to broad-spectrum antibiotics. These are the antibiotics that we initially want to use as little as possible, because high consumption of these antibiotics can lead to more antibiotic resistance.
Hand hygiene is important
Unclean hands spread infection. For healthy people, this is basically a harmless bacterium, but since there are so many vulnerable patients in the hospital, this is a bacterium that we want to get rid of as quickly as possible, says the infection control supervisor, in the news release.
Because these bacteria can survive for a long time in the environment, the hospital is now working to enhance the cleanliness of inpatient areas.
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