Portugal is the EU country with the highest incidence of hospital infections | Health

Around 94 thousand patients contracted at least one infection in Portuguese hospitals and health units per year, corresponding to an estimated incidence of 8.9% of the total number of hospitalized patients per year, the highest among the countries included in the most recent survey by the European Center for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC), which was released this Monday.

Next are Italy (with an estimated incidence of 8.2%), Belgium (7%) and Sweden (6.8%), according to data for 2022 and 2023 provided by ECDC. Every year, 4.3 million patients admitted to hospitals in European Union (EU) and European Economic Area (EEA) countries contract at least one healthcare-associated infection during their stay, the ECDC specifies.

Despite this, Portugal, Ireland, Luxembourg, and Slovenia are the countries where healthcare professionals most adhere to hand hygiene in hospitals, according to data from the third point prevalence survey of Healthcare-Associated Infections (HAI) and of antimicrobials in acute care hospitals 2022-2023, coordinated by ECDC.

Data on the number of hand hygiene opportunities observed, which reflects the intensity of monitoring of hand hygiene compliance during the most recent year, was reported by 1022 hospitals from 23 countries in the European Union and the European Economic Area.

“The average number of hand hygiene opportunities observed in the previous year was 3.6 opportunities per 1000 patient-days, with 23.3% of hospitals not reporting any hand hygiene observations, and 3.9% of hospitals reporting more than 100 opportunities per 1000 patient-days, mainly in Ireland, Italy and Portugal”the report reads.

Results by country are presented as the percentage of hospitals with a number of observed hand hygiene opportunities per 1000 patient-days greater than the median.

“The percentage of hospitals with above-median hand hygiene opportunities ranged from 0% in Cyprus, Iceland, Kosovo and Montenegro to 80% or more in Ireland, Luxembourg, Portugal and Slovenia”highlights the document.

The report also highlights that the number of beds with an alcohol-based hand sanitizer dispenser at the point of care was reported by 24 EU/EEA countries, either at hospital level by 685 hospitals or at ward level by 771.

The median percentage of beds with an alcohol gel dispenser in the place of care increased from 52.8% in the 2016-2017 survey to 63% in the 2022-2023 study.

According to the data, “the percentage ranged from less than 10% in Bulgaria, Romania, Kosovo and Serbia to more than 90% in Hungary, Luxembourg, Portugal and Spain”.

The percentage of antimicrobial agents administered parenterally (80%) was higher than in the previous survey (73%).

“Promoting an earlier switch from parenteral to oral administration of antimicrobial agents appears to be a priority in several Eastern European countries and in Portugal.”underlines the document.

Another conclusion of the survey points out that “specificity for detecting and reporting HAI was, on average, 98.4% and varied between 95.2% in Portugal and 100% in Lithuania”.

An increase in the use of antimicrobials was also observed compared to previous surveys. In the 2022-2023 study, 35.5% of patients received at least one antimicrobial agent, compared to 32.9% in the previous study (2016-2017).

On any given day, around 390,000 hospitalized patients in the EU/EEA receive at least one antimicrobial agent, says ECDC. At least 20% of these infections are considered preventable through sustained and multifaceted prevention and control programs.