Diagnostic issues and capabilities in 48 isolation facilities in 16 European countries: data from EuroNHID surveys

BMC Research Notes

Philippe Brouqui³  Giuseppe Ippolito⁷  Vincenzo Puro⁷  Barbara Bannister²  Reinhard H Brodt⁶  Rene Gottschalk¹  Helen C Maltezou⁴  Gail Thomson⁵  Francesco Maria Fusco⁷  Giuseppina De Iaco⁷  Stefan Schilling⁶  Simon-Djamel Thiberville³ 

[1] Health Protection Authority, Frankfurt am Main, Germany;Royal Free Hospital, London, UK;Infectious Disease and Tropical Medicine, AP-HM CHU Nord, University Hospital Institute for Infectious Disease and Tropical Medicine, Marseille, France;Department for Interventions in Health-Care Facilities, Hellenic Center for Disease Control and Prevention, Athens, Greece;Health Protection Agency, Porton Down, Salisbury, UK;Department for Infectious Diseases, Goethe University Hospital, Frankfurt, Germany;National Institute for Infectious Diseases "L. Spallanzani", Epidemiology and Pre-clinical Research Department, Rome, Italy

关键词: Critical pathway;    Patient isolation;    Infection control;    Communicable diseases;    European Union;    Diagnostic techniques and procedures;   

Others  :  1165601
DOI  :  10.1186/1756-0500-5-527

 received in 2012-05-09, accepted in 2012-09-13,  发布年份 2012

【 摘 要 】

Background

Highly infectious diseases (HIDs) are defined as being transmissible from person to person, causing life-threatening illnesses and presenting a serious public health hazard. The sampling, handling and transport of specimens from patients with HIDs present specific bio-safety concerns.

Findings

The European Network for HID project aimed to record, in a cross-sectional study, the infection control capabilities of referral centers for HIDs across Europe and assesses the level of achievement to previously published guidelines. In this paper, we report the current diagnostic capabilities and bio-safety measures applied to diagnostic procedures in these referral centers. Overall, 48 isolation facilities in 16 European countries were evaluated. Although 81% of these referral centers are located near a biosafety level 3 laboratory, 11% and 31% of them still performed their microbiological and routine diagnostic analyses, respectively, without bio-safety measures.

Conclusions

The discrepancies among the referral centers surveyed between the level of practices and the European Network of Infectious Diseases (EUNID) recommendations have multiple reasons of which the interest of the individuals in charge and the investment they put in preparedness to emerging outbreaks. Despite the fact that the less prepared centers can improve by just updating their practice and policies any support to help them to achieve an acceptable level of biosecurity is welcome.

【 授权许可】

   
2012 Thiberville et al.; licensee BioMed Central Ltd.

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