Hospitals to get rules for drug-resistant germs
Public hospitals across the city are adopting for the first time a unified set of guidelines on treating drug- resistant superbugs, as a top doctor warned that some bacteria were developing greater resistance.
The guidelines, which specify how medical workers should treat patients when they are infected with different types of antibiotic-resistant bacteria, will be adopted across the Hospital Authority's seven groups of hospitals around the city.
Dr Dominic Tsang Ngai-chong, the authority's infection control officer, said the guidelines were undergoing a final review and could come into force in one or two weeks.
The guidelines list the seven types of drug-resistant bacteria most common in a hospital setting.
Tsang said some bacteria were slowly becoming more drug-resistant than before. For example, among all Acinetobacter infections in public hospitals last year, nearly 40 per cent were resistant to a type of antibiotic called carbapenems, and 4 per cent were resistant to more than one type of antibiotic.
Tsang said although drug-resistant Acinetobacter was not as virulent as methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, it was gradually being found among more patients, partly because they were staying longer in hospital and being exposed to it.
But he said most cases involved only colonisation, not infection - meaning that the patients would not fall sick because of the presence of the bacteria.
Under the new guidelines, a dedicated set of equipment - for example a stethoscope, blood pressure meter and thermometer - would be used with a patient colonised or infected with drug-resistant bacteria and would be sanitised after the patient's release from hospital.
Medical workers would also wear disposable gloves, masks and gowns when they took care of these patients. Signs would be posted near the patients' beds to remind hospital staff of the drug-resistant bacterial infection.
A patient infected with the more virulent and less common bacteria would be isolated in a single room.
