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Expert warns of superbugs threat to UAE hospitals

While calling for more effective infection control measures in local hospitals, an expert has said the threat from superbugs is constant but in most cases it is either hospital or speciality specific.

Attributing the increase in the number of superbugs to abuse of antibiotics within hospitals, he said there was not enough compliance within the healthcare system.

“Doctors within hospitals are prescribing unnecessary antibiotics that is wiping out sensitivity and increasing resistance against bacteria,” said Dr Ashraf Mahmoud El Houfi, Chairman of the Infection Control Committee UAE. “If someone has a sore throat, he will take an antibiotic either over-the-counter or ask the doctor to prescribe it. This builds resistance,” he said.

A central Infection Control Programme set up under the Dubai Health Authority and implemented in Dubai’s main hospitals including Rashid Hospital, Al Wasl and Dubai Hospital have been seeing a constant increase in the number and percentage of infections over the past three years.

The expert also says that fear arising from reports of the new superbug New Delhi metallo-beta-lactamase (NDM-1) are largely unfounded. “This is not a new discovery since bacteria have been fighting for their survival since the 1950s when the first such discovery was made,” he said.

According to a study in theLancet Infectious Diseases Journal, the strain may have originated in India and spread to parts of the world. If it jumps between strains of bacteria then untreatable infections could spread from patient to patient, fear experts.

“We make antibiotics while organisms make enzymes that destroy antibiotics,” said Dr El Houfi who is also a consultant, ICU at Dubai Hospital. “They mutate to survive.”

“Due to such mutations, penicillin is hardly being used by healthcare professionals nowadays,” said the doctor.

An infection control report is also submitted to the committee head that details numbers of new drug resistant organisms in local hospitals each month and annually.

“However, the MRSA superbug is a real threat since it does not kill fast and is detected late,” he said. He said that more effective infection control measures were needed in local hospitals.

He said that despite the fact that hand hygiene was strictly being followed there is need to change the infection control system.

“If you have to wash your hands 20-30 times per hour, you tend to forget sometimes but this also means that compliance is only between 60-70 per cent,” said Dr El Houfi.

“We may soon ask visitors to follow strict hand hygiene measures once within the hospital to avoid spread of bacteria,” he said.

asmaalizain@khaleejtimes.com

• Dubai