Introduction
There are a lot of ways to tackle an existing or a relatively new disease and one of the most effective ones is by proper conduct of infection control procedures. Infections are most common in hospitals where even the health workers (what more the patients) could be affected. According to an article published by Medline (2011), a lot of people die inside hospitals simply because of poor infection control SOPs. A result of poor infection control often results in a spread of infection.
Objectives of Infection Control
Every individual is vulnerable to suffer from serious illnesses especially the ones that are contagious. One of the primary aims of infection control is to ensure that all individuals who are vulnerable to acquire infection, regardless whether they are living in a community or receiving a healthcare treatment in a hospital, to be protected (World Health Organization, 2011).
According to WHO (2011), Two of the most important principles that should be considered in planning an effective infection control strategy are proper hygiene and sanitation. As long as community and health institutions could remain well-maintained facilities in terms of these two factors, possible occurrences of spread of infections could be significantly minimized.
According to the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (2012), Infection Control has a lot of aspects that need to be dealt with. Miss one of those aspects and one could already be vulnerable for infections and other forms of communicable diseases. Some of the guidelines included in their list include use of different drugs such as antibiotics, use of medical supplies such as gloves and apron, all towards a common purpose of halting the spread of infection.
Common Procedures Experts Have Identified to Prevent Spread of Infection
Medical professionals, especially the ones that work in hospitals, where infectious diseases are commonly present are the ones who need to be experts in controlling the spread of infection, or the whole hospital population could get infected by a communicable, usually air-borne disease. Some steps that could be done by almost everyone to control spread of infection to other people include washing hands whenever necessary, using a handkerchief to cover coughs and sneezes, using protective clothing, gloves and medical masks whenever necessary, and most importantly, following hospital and authority guidelines when dealing with infected items.
Just follow these golden rules and there is a great change a single occurrence of infection spread will not even be necessary for a newly learned lesson. Diseases could spread quite fast and no one would surely want to witness an infectious disease spread even just across a small group of population. So, make sure to follow these steps at all costs.
Common Diseases that Need to Be Controlled
Perhaps the most common of all diseases out there is the common flu or what is also known as seasonal influenza according to CDC in their update article (2011). Some people usually ask why there are no vaccines present for us to obtain immunity from this common disease. The answer is quite complex but it has something to do with the mechanism how a vaccine works. The strains of this particular viral infection tend to change from time to time.
So, even if your body may recognize what caused the breakdown of immune system from the influenza strain that just caused a flu and you will be immune from such virus the next time it attacks your system, it won’t be enough for an individual to be invulnerable from infections because every season, the strain of this virus change and your body’s immunity will really be worthless once it tries to attack the system again. Tuberculosis is another common illness that needs to be controlled to prevent further spread of disease.
Tuberculosis is different from common flu because there are vaccines available for unvaccinated individuals to develop immunity against this killer illness. A lot of people have already died fighting tuberculosis, especially in the middle ages, where a frequent outbreak tend to occur every once in a while.
Progression
If an infection seems too tough to handle, a more advanced infection control procedure could be conducted to prevent further spread of diseases. This is usually done if the origins of a particular disease are unknown and it is known to be contagious and life-threatening. Isolation is usually done in such situations. In line with that, there are different forms of isolations but the main point about it is to try to avoid direct physical contact with non-infected individuals. That way, the virus, no matter what type of virus it is, could be contained and further cases of similar illness could not occur.
Conclusion
Proper infection control protocols are really necessary for a smoother and more manageable hospital and community healthcare programs. Infection control is not only necessary for existing diseases that are known to be contagious but also for new diseases whose origins, Pathology and mechanism of injury are unknown.
References
Medline. (2011). Infection Control. Medline Plus Health Topics. Accessed January 2012. Available at http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/infectioncontrol.html.
World Health Organization. (2011). Infection Control. WHO. Accessed January 2012. Available at http://www.who.int/topics/infection_control/en/.
National Instituite for Health and Clinical Excellence. (2012). Infection Control, Prevention of Healthcare-Associated Infection in Primary and Community Care. Accessed January 2012. Available at http://guidance.nice.org.uk/CG2.
CDC. (2011). Infection Control in Healthcare Facilities. CDC. Accessed January 2012. Available at http://www.cdc.gov/flu/professionals/infectioncontrol/.
