Projektleder: Lektor Denis Verwilghen, 

Complete project title:

Infection Control in Veterinary Medicine. Clean Hands Safe Animals: Hand-Hygiene in veterinary medicine

Health Care Associated Infections (HAI) are an important burden to the medical field, both human and veterinary. Particularly surgical site and other nosocomial infections are sources of increased health care cost due to delayed wound healing, increased use of antibiotics, increased hospital stay and potential death.

These complications often create emotional and financial distress for animal owners and drastically affect animal welfare. Moreover, many HAI are zoonotic and caretakers of affected animals are at risk of infection and may function as a bridge of disease entry within the human population. Over the past decade, there has been considerable focus on the prevention of HAI, including those caused by multi-resistant bacteria. Despite efforts to reduce and adapt the use of antibiotics, reports on veterinary hospitals affected with multi-resistant bacteria are increasing.

Our focus therefore needs to move to better preventive control methods. Hand-hygiene has been recognized as the most effective measure in decreasing HAI in human hospitals. Hence the World Health’s Organizations slogan: “Clean hands safe lives”.

This statement is believed valid in the veterinary field. However, hand-hygiene methods and products used in human medicine have not been validated in veterinary settings where different bacterial contamination is expected due to the nature of the patients. Further, hand-hygiene compliance amongst veterinary staff is known to be low.

The aim of this project is to investigate the efficacy of hand-hygiene methods and products in a veterinary hospital environment and to develop methods that allow for increased compliance to proper hand-hygiene in these settings.

Perspectives of the research

The expected outcome is to provide evidence-based data of correct hand-hygiene protocols usable in veterinary settings. This will allow for increased awareness of proper hand-hygiene, contributing to cleaner and safer healthcare for animal patients under the One Health motto by avoiding HAI and decreasing the need for therapeutic use of antimicrobials.

Partners on the project