A RESEARCH project led by a Scottish university has been hailed as having the potential to reduce the spread of infections in some African hospitals.
As well as helping to launch the hand hygiene study, Glasgow Caledonian University (GCU) has also managed to secure 1500 bottles of alcohol-based hand rub for a Cameroon hospital regularly hit by interruptions to its water supply.
Staff have been trained in hand hygiene and the best use of the hand rub and the study into its effects has now begun, backed by £9853 from the university’s Global Challenges Research Fund.
The research taking place in Banso Baptist Hospital is being carried out in collaboration with Infection Control Africa Network (ICAN) and supported by a donation of 1500 bottles of hand rub from Gama Healthcare. Lead researcher Professor Lesley Price said alcohol-based hand rub could be critical in promoting hand hygiene and reducing health care associated infections in low-resource settings.
She said Banso Baptist Hospital had been innovative in introducing its own hand rub, made locally according to World Health Organisation guidelines. As a result infections should reduce within the hospital but the trial could have a much wider effect as a result of the collaboration with ICAN, an infection prevention organisation that works in 34 countries across Africa.
“It could have a massive effect because ICAN can share the lessons learned with every country in Africa and encourage others to follow the same practice,” said Professor Price.
Although the study has only just started, Professor Price’s involvement began at a conference last September when she met ICAN members, together with Jacob Gobte of Banso Baptist Hospital.
“Jacob had already introduced hand rub by giving doctors and nurses a little bottle to keep in their pockets and that is very innovative as not many hospitals in Africa are doing it,” she said.
“One of the most important things we know about controlling infection is hand hygiene with clean water and soap or hand rub, but in situations where water is scarce, hand rub becomes even more relevant.”
WHO guidelines are that there should be a dispenser at every patient’s bedside but Banso Baptist Hospital could not afford to buy them.
Following a donation of the bottles from Gama, a pharmaceutical company, ICAN and GCU were able to train 34 staff from seven facilities in Cameroon in hand hygiene and the best use of the rub so that the study on its effects could go ahead.
Professor Price said she hoped the greater availability of hand rub would improve healthcare workers hand hygiene practices and reduce the number of infections acquired by patients while receiving healthcare.
“This project is important to the hospital as it provides their staff with expert training and supervision to enable them to implement a new healthcare-associated infection surveillance system in the hospital,” she said.
“Lessons learned from the implementation of alcohol-based hand rub at the point of care in the hospital will be shared with ICAN members to encourage its implementation across Africa.”
Estimated rates of healthcare associated infections in low and middle income countries vary but
are at least twice those in high income countries.
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