scholarly journals Infectious Disease: Protecting Workers and Organizations-The Role of Compensation & Benefits

2020 ◽  
Vol 53 (1) ◽  
pp. 43-55
Author(s):  
William Marty Martin ◽  
Yvette Lopez ◽  
Thomas P. Flannery ◽  
Bill Dixon

Infectious diseases at work can be endemic such as seasonal influenza and emerging such as the novel coronavirus 2019. Infectious diseases have an impact on employees and other types of workers. Compensation and benefits professionals are often at the forefront of preventing workplace infections, addressing workplace infections, and ensuring the continuity of talent when workplace outbreaks and business shutdowns occur. This article provides an overview of pertinent laws, key compensation decisions, and ways to refocus existing benefit programs to meet the challenge of not only just safety, health, and wellness but also infection prevention and control.

PLoS ONE ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 16 (6) ◽  
pp. e0253068
Author(s):  
Angela Sloan ◽  
Todd Cutts ◽  
Bryan D. Griffin ◽  
Samantha Kasloff ◽  
Zachary Schiffman ◽  
...  

The novel coronavirus, SARS-CoV-2, has spread into a pandemic since its emergence in Wuhan, China in December of 2019. This has been facilitated by its high transmissibility within the human population and its ability to remain viable on inanimate surfaces for an extended period. To address the latter, we examined the effect of simulated sunlight on the viability of SARS-CoV-2 spiked into tissue culture medium or mucus. The study revealed that inactivation took 37 minutes in medium and 107 minutes in mucus. These times-to-inactivation were unexpected since they are longer than have been observed in other studies. From this work, we demonstrate that sunlight represents an effective decontamination method but the speed of decontamination is variable based on the underlying matrix. This information has an important impact on the development of infection prevention and control protocols to reduce the spread of this deadly pathogen.


Author(s):  
Nizam Damani

The Manual of Infection Prevention and Control provides practical guidance on all aspects of healthcare-associated infections (HAIs). It outlines the basic concepts of infection prevention and control (IPC), modes of transmission, surveillance, control of outbreaks, epidemiology, and biostatistics. The book provides up-to-date advice on the triage and isolation of patients and on new and emerging infectious diseases, and with the use of illustrations, it provides a step-by-step approach on how to perform hand hygiene and how to don and take off personal protective equipment correctly. In addition, this section also outlines how to minimize cross-infection by healthcare building design and prevent the transmission of various infectious diseases from infected patients after death. The disinfection and sterilization section reviews how to risk assess, disinfect and/or sterilize medical items and equipment, antimicrobial activities, and the use of various chemical disinfectants and antiseptics, and how to decontaminate endoscopes. The section on the prevention of HAIs reviews and updates IPC guidance on the prevention of the most common HAIs, i.e. surgical site infections, infections associated with intravascular and urinary catheters, and hospital- and ventilator-acquired pneumonias. In view of the global emergence of antimicrobial resistance to the various pathogens, the book examines and provides practical advice on how to implement an antibiotic stewardship programme and prevent cross-infection against various multi-drug resistant pathogens. Amongst other pathogens, the book also reviews IPC precautions against various haemorrhagic and bloodborne viral infections. The section on support services discusses the protection of healthcare workers, kitchen, environmental cleaning, catering, laundry services, and clinical waste disposal services.


2019 ◽  
Vol 20 (3) ◽  
pp. 116-121
Author(s):  
Martyn AC Wilkinson ◽  
Evonne T Curran ◽  
Christina R Bradley

Choosing which disinfectant(s) to use in any particular healthcare environment is a far from trivial task and one that is undertaken by Infection Prevention and Control (IPC) professionals on a regular basis. The recent proliferation in the number and type of products designed to disinfect healthcare surfaces makes for a seemingly bewildering range of options. The primary factor to consider is whether the disinfectant is capable of killing the likely (but unknown) microbial challenge. For reusable non-invasive care equipment, standardised testing provides objective evidence for IPC teams. This second paper seeks to explain these tests and the conditions under which they are performed to aid in the IPC teams’ disinfection selection.


2001 ◽  
Vol 22 (7) ◽  
pp. 459-463 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrew E. Simor

AbstractHospital infection prevention and control programs rely extensively on diagnostic microbiology laboratory testing. However, specimens for microbiological evaluation are less likely to be obtained from elderly residents of long-term–care facilities (LTCFs). In this article, issues regarding laboratory utilization and the potential role of the microbiology laboratory in infection prevention and control programs in LTCFs are reviewed. The role of the laboratory in infection surveillance, in the management of antimicrobial resistance, and in outbreak investigation are highlighted.


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