RFP Indian Journal of Hospital Infection

Knowledge of COVID-19 is changing almost daily through numerous scientific reports. We have been hearing new information regularly, sometimes contradictory due to constantly changing the scientific findings and results. At the commencement of the COVID-19 we were learnt that cough and fever were the unambiguous signs of COVID-19. Now we know that the disease can cause a wide variety of symptoms and even no symptoms at all. Many accurate facts about the disease remain unknown. Scientists do not have enough time to analyze the data and symptoms as they are busy in saving lives. Scientists are going too fast to understand the pandemic, causing more confusion to say whether Covid-19 is a killer disease.

Fungi are eukaryotic, non-photosynthetic organisms. Most of the fungal organisms are saprophytic or commensals but some are parasitic as well, causing a myriad of diseases in animals and humans. Some of the fungal organisms are of zoonotic significance and hence can be transmitted from animals to humans. Fungal infections are chronic in nature and only few antifungals are available till date. Risk of fungal infection increases if the indivisual is immunocompromised, suffering from metabolic diseases, old aged and is undergoing prolonged antibiotic therapy. Antifungals are drugs aimed to treat fungal infections. These target the fungal cell, cell membrane, metabolism, nucleic acid, growth and divisions. But as fungi are eukaryotic organisms, antifungals aimed to kill the fungal organism can also potentially harm the host cell.

Health care-associated infections are infections that occur while receiving health care, developed in a hospital or other health care facility that first appear 48 hours or more after hospital admission, or within 30 days after having received health care. Multiple studies indicate that during hospital stay patients get exposed to several hospitals associated infections such as pneumonias and catheter associated urinary tract infections .Simple infection control procedures, good sterilization techniques, use of combination antibiotics can prevent or minimize hospital associated infections. Recently Covid 19 pandemic caused a havoc in hospitals and became the most common infection that was spread among health care staff as well as patients leading to many hospitals suspending their surgical procedures and maternity care.

Bacterial sampling of air for microbes is very important in order to prevent airborne infections. Techniques for this air sampling can be divided into active and passive ones. With time new methods and techniques have been devised. Studying these methods and their relevance is very important and new methods are expected to appear in near future.