The Sepsis Management Project (SMP), which has yielded good results at the District General Hospital (GH) by isolating highly resistant bacteria, will be extended to six other hospitals in the district. Sepsis is a potentially life-threatening complication of an infection. Most often, sepsis occurs in people who are hospitalised.
The malady occurs when bacteria develop antibiotic resistance by changing their structure in some way, reducing or eliminating the effectiveness of drugs that are designed to cure the disease and prevent further infections.
The project, designed to promote rational use of antibiotics, was started at the general hospital in 2015 as a pilot project of the State Health Services. As the three-year programme has helped the hospital in achieving optimal use of antibiotics, the programme is being introduced to six other hospitals.
The general hospital at Muvatttupuzha, the district hospital in Aluva, taluk hospitals at Thripunithura, Perumbavoor and Karuvelipady, and the Women and Child Hospital at Mattancherry would implement the Sepsis Management Project aimed at containing antibiotic resistance in the hospital environment. A training programme for implementing the SMP began at the Aluva district hospital last week. In another two months, all the six hospitals would start collecting cultures from seriously sick patients to get them tested in the GH laboratory as part of the second phase of the programme implementation.
The State policy to contain antibiotic resistance while treating very sick patients needs a strong microbiology laboratory support with facilities that detect the bacteria in a culture within six to eight hours. The GH has installed an automated blood culture facility to make the programme effective.
In the treatment regimen, a report by the microbiologist would help the doctor to decide whether the antibiotics dosage had to be stepped up or down, said Sivaprasad P.S., nodal officer for sepsis management. This would help in cutting down the unnecessary use of stronger antibiotics to treat the patient in anticipation of a more serous level of infection. Indiscriminate use of antibiotics raised the chances of resistance to lower-level antibiotics, Dr. Sivaprasad said.
Data collected under the SMP at the General Hospital indicated 9% detection rate of resistant bacteria, including Colistin-resistant bacteria. Colistin is among the last line of antibiotics in the broad spectrum to fight high-level infections. Resistant strains of Klebsiella pneumoniae, Staphylococcus aureus and Escherchia coli were among some of the bacteria that were identified at the hospital.
