Ethiopia National Healthcare Associated Infections (HAIs) Surveillance Guideline is intended to serve as a guide for health care professionals in general, and for IPC professionals in particular, to ensure that the critical elements and methods of surveillance for health care-associated infections (HAIs) are incorporated into their practice. It provides guidance for each of the surveillance system’s building blocks, including planning, data collection, interpretation, analysis, and communication, in order to inform infection prevention and control practices that will result in effective infection control in healthcare settings.
The principles and practices outlined in this document are based on a review of the best available scientific evidence as well as the expert opinions of experts in infectious diseases, infection prevention and control, public health, and epidemiology. This document’s recommendations will be reviewed and updated as new information becomes available.
The types of health care settings to which this document’s guidance applies are hospitals (tertiary care, community care, mental health, rehabilitation, etc.) practicing healthcare services in the country.
The document focuses on the surveillance of infections that occur during health-care delivery rather than the processes that contribute to changes in the risk of acquiring health-care-associated infections. Process monitoring, such as hand hygiene and sterilization techniques, is addressed through practice audits in the health care setting, rather than through the outcome surveillance systems described in this guide.
The document neither does specify how much surveillance should be conducted in individual facilities nor include specific surveillance recommendations for antibiotic-resistant microorganisms or organisms like clostridium difficile.
Any healthcare facility that plans to design and conduct HAI control surveillance work based on the recommendations of this guidelines needs to have established facility level infection prevention and control program in compliance with national recommendations.
