Strategies to Prevent and Interrupt Contagious Diseases in my Surgical Practice

Introduction
Contagious diseases are feared in veterinary hospitals and can be brought in by admittance of an animal suffering from a contagious disease, but probably the most common are hospital-acquired or hospital-associated infections (HAI). The group of contagious diseases concerned contains very different viral, bacterial, parasitic and fungal diseases and some of them are emerging or re-emerging, whereas some are old well established and endemic. They vary tremendously in clinical spectrum and contagiousness. Nevertheless, since hospitalized patients are often debilitated, contagious diseases can more easily spread through a hospital population with a possible bigger clinical impact than on healthy individuals. They can compromise the well being and health of the patient, cause longer hospitalization duration, increased medical costs, higher mortality, economic losses, fear and concern amongst owners, and in some cases temporary closure of the hospital. Moreover, due to close patient contact some diseases with zoonotic potential can even affect their caretakers.

Why should the veterinary world be much more focused on preventing instead of treating contagious diseases?

First of all, the contagion risk has substantially increased over the last decade mainly together with the exponential growth of international and intercontinental transportation of companion animals, horses and food animals. The intensification and scale increase of sport, sales, and breeding events allows a more intense interaction between transported animals and contagious diseases: traveling animals can spread contagious diseases but they can also come in contact with foreign infectious diseases and attract them due to absence of or poorer protective immunity. In addition, veterinary hospital structures have grown bigger and house larger numbers of patients, meaning increased risk and susceptibility for infectious diseases and their spread. Even though outbreaks in veterinary hospital settings are undoubtedly underreported, there seems to be an emerge and/or re-emerge of pathogens within veterinary hospitals. A survey amongst American veterinary teaching hospitals showed that 82% had identified at least one outbreak of hospital-associated disease in the last 5 years and that 32% of them even demanded closure of the hospital.  [...]