New Delhi: At a time when India has been witnessing high mortality in the second wave of the pandemic, a study conducted by the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) said that hospital infections and secondary infections are causing more deaths among Covid-19 patients.
"The mortality among patients who developed secondary infections was 56.7 percent against an overall mortality of 10.6 percent in total admitted Covid-19 patients," the study said.
The study was done across 10 hospitals in India which was led by Dr Kamini Walia, a senior scientist at India’s apex medical research institute.
According to the findings of the study, half of the Covid-19 patients who were admitted to ICU had developed secondary infections and died. Many Covid-19 patients developed a secondary bacterial or fungal infection during treatment who later died. Cases of hospital-acquired infections and Mucormycosis infections were recorded in the study.
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States across India have been reporting about black fungus. Aware of the situation, the Union Health Ministry has also asked the state governments to notify Black Fungus under the "Epidemic Disease Act."
Out of the 17,534 patients included in the study, 3.6 percent developed a secondary bacterial or fungal infection and the mortality among these patients was at 56.7 percent.
"Blood and respiratory tracks were the most common sites of secondary infection in Covid-19 patients. Gram-negative pathogens were predominant in respiratory infections, with a significant proportion of Gram-positive pathogens isolated from bloodstream infections," the study observed.
The ICMR study has also indicated that there is growing drug resistance which has a major role to play in the patients developing secondary infections. "Drug-resistant variants of Klebsiella pneumonia, Acinetobacter Baumannii and Pseudomonas Aeruginosa were among the most common bacterial infections," the study said.
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"As most of the secondary infections in our study were nosocomial in origin, and that too with highly drug-resistant pathogens, it highlighted poor infection control practices and irrational antibiotic prescription practices," the ICMR study observed.
"Hand hygiene practices are most affected during the Covid-19 pandemic as all health personnel use gloves as part of PPE and do not feel the need to perform hand hygiene, and there is a lack of concern for inter-patient transmission of infections in patients.
Gloves are known to get colonized by pathogens and can lead to cross-contamination, and glove hygiene practices of performing hand hygiene before and after putting on gloves, removal of gloves after treatment of a single patient, and not using hand rubs over gloves and compliance to device care bundles need to be re-enforced in all health care settings," the study observed.
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