| Hospital
infections mean infections acquired in the hospital due to the exposure to
the pathogen in the hospital. It sometimes called as nosocomial infections
or hospital-acquired infections (HAI). Not all the hospital infections are
caused by inadequate handwashing as I will explain it later.
Community-acquired infections are infections which exposure to the
pathogen occurred prior to the hospital admission. These two types of
infections can be distinguished by examining the latency period. The Centers
for Disease Control and Preventions defines hospital infections as
development of infections 48 hours after admission. Forty-eight-hour is a
cutoff point for screening hospital infections because latency period varies
among pathogens. |
