We monitored trends of severe COVID-19 morbidity in Slovenia during weeks 13 to 37 2021. National weekly rates of severe acute respiratory infections (SARI) cases testing positive for SARS-CoV-2 at ...admission in all hospitals varied between 0.2 and 16.3 cases per 100,000 population. Of those without previous COVID-19 diagnosis, SARI COVID-19 admission rates ranged between 0.3 and 17.5 per 100,000 unvaccinated, and 0.0 and 7.3 per 100,000 fully vaccinated individuals. National SARI COVID-19 surveillance is essential in informing COVID-19 response.
In the second Slovenian national healthcare-associated infections (HAIs) prevalence survey, conducted within the European point prevalence survey of HAIs and antimicrobial use in acute-care ...hospitals, we estimated the prevalence of all types of HAIs and identified risk factors.
Patients from acute-care hospitals were enrolled into a one-day cross-sectional study in October 2011. Descriptive analyses were performed to describe the characteristics of patients, their exposure to invasive procedures and the prevalence of different types of HAIs. Univariate and multivariate analyses of association of having at least one HAI with possible risk factors were performed to identify risk factors.
Among 5628 patients, 3.8% had at least one HAI and additional 2.6% were still being treated for HAIs on the day of the survey; the prevalence of HAIs was 6.4%. The prevalence of urinary tract infections was the highest (1.4%), followed by pneumoniae (1.3%) and surgical site infections (1.2%). In intensive care units (ICUs), the prevalence of patients with at least one HAI was 35.7%. Risk factors for HAIs included central vascular catheter (adjusted odds ratio (aOR) 4.0; 95% confidence intervals (CI): 2.9-5.7), peripheral vascular catheter (aOR 2.0; 95% CI: 1.5-2.6), intubation (aOR 2.3; 95% CI: 1.4-3.5) and rapidly fatal underlying condition (aOR 2.1; 95% CI: 1.4-3.3).
The prevalence of HAIs in Slovenian acute-care hospitals in 2011 was substantial, especially in ICUs. HAIs prevention and control is an important public health priority. National surveillance of HAIs in ICUs should be developed to support evidence-based prevention and control.
Two commercial real-time PCR assays for the detection of Clostridium difficile, BD GeneOhm Cdiff assay (BD Diagnostics) and Xpert C. difficile assay (Cepheid), were compared to each other and to ...toxigenic culture, which was used as a gold standard, on a set of 194 clinical stools submitted for routine diagnostic analysis. Of 28 (14.4 %) toxigenic culture positive samples 23 were positive with both assays, the BD and the Cepheid real-time PCR assays, 4 were positive only by Cepheid Xpert C. difficile assay and 1 sample was negative by both PCR assays, resulting in sensitivity, specificity, positive predictive value and negative predictive value of 82.1, 98.2, 88.5 and 97.0 %, respectively, for the BD GeneOhm Cdiff assay, and 96.4, 97.3, 87.1 and 99.3 %, respectively, for the Cepheid Xpert C. difficile assay. Altogether 26 out of 194 (13.4 %) samples were reported invalid by Cepheid. Toxigenic C. difficile positive samples contained 15 different PCR ribotypes distributed into toxinotype 0 and 2 different variant toxinotypes (III, IV). Clinical data were available for 24 out of 28 (85.7 %) toxigenic C. difficile positive patients and 18 (75.0 %) of them were diagnosed with diarrhoea, while others had other symptoms or risk factors related to possible C. difficile infection (antibiotics, bloody stool, peritonitis, Crohn's disease).
Bolnišnične okužbe (BO) so okužbe, povezane z zdravstveno oskrbo (OPZ), ki nastanejo v bolnišnici in predstavljajo najpogostejši zaplet zdravljenja v bolnišnici. Spremljanje njihove pogostosti se ...lahko uporablja kot kazalnik kakovosti za bolnišnice. K spremljanju spreminjanja pogostosti BO lahko pristopimo tudi s ponavljajočimi se presečnimi raziskavami BO. Evropski center za preprečevanje in obvladovanje bolezni (angl. European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control, ECDC) vsakih pet let koordinira izvedbo evropske presečne raziskave BO.Leta 2011 smo v Sloveniji opravili drugo Slovensko nacionalno presečno raziskavo BO (SNPRBO II), prevalenčno presečno raziskavo na dan (angl. point prevalence survey—PPS) v okviru evropske prevalenčne presečne raziskave BO. V raziskavi je sodeloval tudi Univerzitetni klinični center (UKC) Maribor. Visoko usposobljena zdravnica za obvladovanje in preprečevanje BO (ZOBO) je v UKC Maribor opravila vzporedno validacijo metode zbiranja podatkov, ki so jih zbrali anketarji v skladu s standardizirano metodologijo zbiranja podatkov, ki jo priporoča ECDC. Preverila je pravilnost zabeleženih podatkov za vse bolnike, pri katerih so anketarji prepoznali BO, in za vsakega petega bolnika, pri katerem anketarji niso prepoznali BO.Ob spremljanju širjenja mikroorganizmov znotraj bolnišnice in prepoznavanju izbruhov je pomembna tipizacija mikroorganizmov, ki so povzročili BO. V UKC Maribor smo se odločili za tipizacijo proti meticilinu odpornih zlatih stafilokokov (angl. Methicillin resistant Staphylococcus aureus, MRSA), saj je spremljanje MRSA obvezni kazalnik kakovosti v slovenskih bolnišnicah. Tipizirali smo tudi bakterijo Clostridium difficile (CD), saj marsikje v zdravstveno razvitih državah CD predstavlja kazalnik kakovosti in povzroča klinično pomembne okužbe. Za MRSA smo uporabili spa tipizacijo, za CD pa ribotipizacijo.Cilji doktorske naloge so vključevali: razvoj modificirane, delovno intenzivnejše metode za validacijo uporabljene »običajne ECDC metode« za prepoznavanje BO v presečni raziskavi (»modificirana ECDC metoda«); ocenili smo prevalence BO ob uporabi »običajne ECDC metode« in »modificirane ECDC metode«, razvite v okviru doktorske naloge; občutljivost in specifičnost »običajne ECDC metode« za prepoznavanje BO v primerjavi z »modificirano ECDC metodo« ter potrebo po nadomestitvi »običajne ECDC metodo« z našo »modificirano ECDC metodo«. Opisali smo značilnosti bolnikov, vključenih v presečno raziskavo, izpostavljenost invazivnim postopkom, BO, izolirane mikroorganizme in odpornost nekaterih mikroorganizmov na izbrane antibiotike ali skupine antibiotikov, ter uporabo antibiotikov. Spremljali smo dva izbrana povzročitelja BO, MRSA in CD, v časovnem obdobju enega leta in ocenili pomen molekularnih tipizacij za prepoznavanje in nadzor BO.V PPS smo vključili 991 bolnikov, to je vse bolnike, ki so bili hospitalizirani v UKC Maribor na dan raziskave. O vsakem smo zabeležili številne podatke, tudi o dejavnikih tveganja za BO, zdravljenju s protimikrobnimi sredstvi in BO. Z obema metodama smo prepoznali 52 bolnikov, ki so na dan raziskave imeli vsaj eno BO oziroma so bili na dan raziskave še vedno zdravljeni zaradi BO. Ustrezna ocena prevalence BO je bila 5,2 % (s 95 % intervalom zaupanja 3,9 % - 6,8 %). Največ BO so imeli bolniki v enotah za intenzivno zdravljenje (EIZ) 25,0 %, na kirurških oddelkih je imelo BO 6,2 % bolnikov, na ginekološkem in porodnem oddelku 4,4 %, na internih oddelkih 3,1 % bolnikov.Z univariatnimi in multivariatnimi analizami smo opredelili neodvisne dejavnike tveganja za BO: prisotnost vsadka v zadnjem letu, prisotnost urinskega katetra, operacija v zadnjih 30 dneh in intubacija.Skupno smo prepoznali 66 BO. Najpogostejše so bile okužbe spodnjih dihal (25 %), okužbe kirurške rane in okužbe sečil. 9 % BO je bilo prisotnih že ob sprejemu bolnika v UKC Maribor, 91 % BO pa je bilo pridobljenih v času aktualne hospitalizacije, največ v obdobju 4.–7. dne po sprejemu. V
A case of a false-positive result of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) confirmatory immunoblot-based assay is described. Repeatedly borderline reactive anti-HIV screening enzyme immunoassay result ...obtained in a local hospital resulted in directing the sample to the Slovenian HIV/AIDS Reference Laboratory. In the Reference Laboratory, both anti-HIV screening assays and confirmatory Western blot were negative, while a confirmatory test INNO-LIA HIV I/II Score (Innogenetics, Ghent, Belgium) was anti-HIV-1 positive due to sgp120 and gp41 reactivity. The results of serological testing of the second sample obtained three weeks later were completely identical, while in the third sample obtained 5 months later, seroreversion was observed. Due to a negative dynamics in anti-HIV serological profile and repeatedly negative results of the molecular tests for HIV-1 and HIV-2, HIV infection was excluded and the results of test INNO-LIA HIV I/II Score were finally interpreted as false positive.
The objective was to present the results of the Slovenian National surgical site infections (SSIs) surveillance system from 2013 to 2016 and to compare them to the reference data for the European ...Union (EU) and European Economic Area (EEA) countries.
Surveillance was conducted according to the Slovenian protocol consistent with the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control protocol. Descriptive analyses were performed.
Data were collected for 1080 patients of whom 57.4% were patients with cholecystectomy (from three hospitals), 29.0% with caesarean sections (from four hospitals) and 4.7%, 4.5% and 4.4% patients with hip prosthesis, knee prosthesis and colon surgery (each surgical category from one hospital). The pooled in-hospital SSI incidence density for caesarean section was 3.7 (95% CI: 1.4-8.1; inter-hospital range: 0.0-11.5) and for cholecystectomy 6.8 (95% CI: 3.5-11.9; inter-hospital range: 4.1-11.9) per 1000 post-operative patient-days. The in-hospital SSI incidence density for colon surgery was 24.8 (95% CI: 12.5-44.0) and for hip prosthesis 2.6 (95% CI: 0.1-14.2) per 1000 post-operative patient-days. No SSIs were reported among the 49 patients with knee prostheses.
The estimated SSIs incidence rates varied between different surgical categories and the different participating hospitals. In some of the participating hospitals and for some of the surgical procedures under surveillance they were rather high in comparison to the reference data for hospitals from EU/EEA countries. It is urgent to expand standardised SSIs surveillance to all Slovenian acute care hospitals with surgical wards to contribute to evidence-based SSIs prevention and control in Slovenia.
In the third Slovenian national healthcare-associated infections (HAIs) prevalence survey, conducted within the European point prevalence survey of HAIs and antimicrobial use in acute care hospitals, ...we estimated the prevalence of all types of HAIs and identified factors associated with them.
Patients were enrolled into a one-day cross-sectional study in November 2017. Descriptive analyses were performed to describe the characteristics of patients, their exposure to invasive procedures and the prevalence of different types of HAIs. Univariate and multivariate analyses of association of having at least one HAI with possible risk factors were performed to identify risk factors.
Among 5,743 patients, 4.4% had at least one HAI and an additional 2.2% were still treated for HAIs on the day of the survey, with a prevalence of HAIs of 6.6%. The prevalence of pneumoniae was the highest (1.8%), followed by surgical site infections (1.5%) and urinary tract infections (1.2%). Prevalence of blood stream infections was 0.3%. In intensive care units (ICUs), the prevalence of patients with at least one HAI was 30.6%. Factors associated with HAIs included central vascular catheter (adjusted odds ratio aOR 4.1; 95% confidence intervals CI: 3.1-5.4), peripheral vascular catheter (aOR 3.0; 95% CI: 2.3-3.9), urinary catheter (aOR 1.8; 95% CI: 1.4-2.3).
The prevalence of HAIs in Slovenian acute care hospitals in 2017 was substantial, especially in ICUs. HAIs prevention and control is an important public health priority. National surveillance of HAIs in ICUs should be developed to support evidence-based prevention and control.
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