Hospitals may help spread flu pandemic

Hospitals may help spread flu pandemic

U.S. hospitals could contribute to the spread of influenza during a pandemic because most do not follow good hygiene practices, a group reported on Thursday.

Their report, combined with a Congressional Budget Office report showing a pandemic could cost the U.S. economy $675 billion, adds to an increasingly dire picture being painted of what a bird flu pandemic would look like in the United States...

Many reports have shown that hospitals can be a source for spreading such diseases, because health care workers fail to follow even basic hygiene practices such as washing their hands after touching any patient or piece of equipment.

A report from the National Center for Policy Analysis predicted that unless hospitals tighten procedures quickly, they could contribute to the spread of H5N1.

"Shoddy infection control is poor preparation for flu and poor homeland security as well," said Betsy McCaughey, a former lieutenant governor of New York who heads the Committee to Reduce Infection Deaths, a group that campaigns about hospital infections and which helped write the report...

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An important thing to remember, in case you didn't already know...

It kills me that hospitals in America would still be "dirty," given all we know about the spread of infectious disease.





[edit on 10-12-2005 by loam]

this is disturbing and i had heard about it but in the context of why super bugs have killed people in the hospital such as the flesh eatting virus..as for the flesh eatting virus i also read i think it was this past summer it was now out of the hospitals and showing up in gyms in new york city.

brian