Department of Internal Medicine I, St. Vincenz-Hospital, Rottstr. 11, Datteln, 45711, Germany.
Institute of Medical Microbiology, University Hospital Münster, Münster, Germany.
BMC Infect Dis. 2024 Aug 26;24(1):859. doi: 10.1186/s12879-024-09641-1.
Hospital infections with SARS-CoV-2 continued during the initial waves of the pandemic worldwide. So far, Data on the dynamics of these infections and the economic burden of outbreaks are rare.
We retrospectively analysed SARS-CoV-2 infections in patients, hospital employees and nosocomial infections resulting in outbreaks in two hospitals of a secondary care hospital network in Germany during the initial 3 pandemic waves (03/2020-06/2021). In addition to hospital infections, we evaluated infection prevention strategies and the economic burden of hospital outbreaks.
A total of 396 patients with SARS-CoV-2 infection were hospitalized in both hospitals. The risk factors for severe disease and death increased with age, male sex and a CRB-65 score > 0. The most frequent symptom was dyspnoea (30.1%). Sixty-five patients died, most of whom were in the 2nd wave. A total of 182 (12.5%) hospital employees were infected, 63 (34.6%) of whom were involved in outbreaks. An occupational risk of infection during outbreaks was particularly common among nurses and HCWs working on regular wards. Eleven hospital outbreaks led to high economic impact on both hospitals through the loss of manpower as result of infected employees, temporary locked wards, blocked beds, a reduced number of total hospitalized patients and increased personnel costs.
Continuously adaptation of infection prevention strategies is a valuable tool to keep hospitals safe places for patients and employees. We do need more analyses of the different pandemic waves and applied infection prevention strategies to learn from weak points.
This research was conducted in accordance with the Declaration of Helsinki and national standards. The study protocol was approved by the relevant ethics committee of the Chamber of Physicians Westphalia-Lippe and University of Münster (no. 2021-475-f-S). The study was registered on 25th August 2021 at the German Clinical Trials Register (DRKS00025865).
在全球大流行的最初几波中，医院内发生了 SARS-CoV-2 感染。迄今为止，有关这些感染的动态和暴发的经济负担的数据很少。
我们回顾性分析了德国一家二级保健医院网络中的两家医院在大流行的最初 3 波期间（2020 年 3 月至 2021 年 6 月）发生的患者、医院员工和医院内感染导致的暴发的 SARS-CoV-2 感染。除了医院感染，我们还评估了感染预防策略和医院暴发的经济负担。
两家医院共有 396 例 SARS-CoV-2 感染患者住院。严重疾病和死亡的风险因素随年龄、男性和 CRB-65 评分>0 而增加。最常见的症状是呼吸困难（30.1%）。共有 65 例患者死亡，其中大多数死于第 2 波。共有 182 名（12.5%）医院员工感染，其中 63 名（34.6%）参与了暴发。暴发期间感染的职业风险在护士和在普通病房工作的 HCW 中尤为常见。11 次医院暴发对两家医院都造成了巨大的经济影响，原因是感染员工导致人力损失、临时封锁病房、床位阻塞、住院患者总数减少以及人员成本增加。
不断调整感染预防策略是确保医院成为患者和员工安全场所的宝贵工具。我们确实需要对不同的大流行波次和应用的感染预防策略进行更多分析，以吸取薄弱环节的教训。
本研究符合赫尔辛基宣言和国家标准。该研究方案得到了威斯特法伦-利珀医师协会和明斯特大学相关伦理委员会的批准（编号 2021-475-f-S）。该研究于 2021 年 8 月 25 日在德国临床试验注册处（DRKS00025865）注册。
