Noscomial infections - future perspectives?

Scientific, technical, and thus medical progresses as well as specialization in various distinct disciplines of veterinary medicine have over the past two decades accumulated into a new challenge: The issue of nosocomial (or: hospital-acquired) infections spreading in veterinary hospitals and practices. These infections involve both, the human host – both veterinary staff and animal owners - and the animal patient itself. This development mirrors exactly the complex challenges raised by hospital-acquired infections well known from human medicine, causing all the draw-backs for patients and enhancing health care costs.

Nosocomial infections are the outcome of a simple trias: a susceptible patient, a transmissible pathogen and an unavoidable selective pressure associated with any kind of clinical environment. These cornerstones provide the field for nosocomial infections, each of them being under constant progress: Among animals entering a veterinary clinic, those which suffer from a chronic disease (e.g. diabetes, Morbus Cushing, cancer etc.), from polytraumata or an overall critical state are constantly on the rise, not least because of enormous scientific improvements prolonging the animals ́ life span. Obviously these patients are at high risk for developing nosocomial infections due to their common immunosuppression. Furthermore, the size of many veterinary settings, especially clinics, has increased over time also increasing the risk for the development of a clinical microbial environment shaped by pressure on all inhabitant bacteria. That is exactly the ecological niche were the third component, the nosocomial pathogens might prosper due to their individual advantages (e.g. antibiotic resistance, resistance to dryness, biofilm formation etc.).  [...]