5AMMAN (Petra) - Jordan on Thursday joined a World Alliance for Patient Safety programme, which was launched by the World Health Organisation (WHO) under the slogan “Clean care is safer care”.

The programme seeks to raise awareness of the impact of healthcare-associated infections. It also requires countries’ commitment to give priority to reducing healthcare-associated infections.

Every year, the treatment and care of hundreds of millions of patients worldwide is complicated by infections acquired during healthcare, according to the WHO website.

As a result, some patients become more seriously ill than they would otherwise have been. Some of these infections prolong patients’ stays in hospital while other patients experience long-term disability and some die, the website indicated.

Minister of Public Sector Reform and State Minister for Parliamentary Affairs Mohammad Thneibat, who is also acting health minister, signed the programme yesterday.

He said Jordan lacks exact figures on healthcare- associated infection, but the ministry, in cooperation with WHO, has conducted a study on patients’ safety in seven public hospitals.

The results of study, which is examining 800 medical files at each facility, will be announced in September, Thneibat added.

The ministry has also formed a national committee, comprising experts representing health and other concerned sectors, to prevent the occurrence of infections.

The committee has prepared posters that focus on maintaining hygiene standards.

According to WHO, several projects in both developed and developing countries have shown that use of available interventions and strategies can dramatically reduce the disease burden of healthcare-associated infections.

Scale and cost of healthcare-acquired infections

• At any time, over 1.4 million people worldwide are suffering from infections acquired in hospital.

• Between 5 per cent and 10 per cent of patients admitted to modern hospitals in the developed world acquire one or more infections.

• The risk of healthcare-associated infection in developing countries is two to 20 times higher than in developed countries. In some developing countries, the proportion of patients affected by a healthcare-acquired infection can exceed 25 per cent.

• In the United States, one out of every 136 hospital patients becomes seriously ill as a result of acquiring an infection in hospital; this is equivalent to two million cases and about 80,000 deaths a year.

• In England, more than 100,000 cases of healthcare-associated infection lead to over 5,000 deaths directly attributed to infection each year.

• In Mexico, an estimated 450,000 cases of healthcare-associated infection cause 32 deaths per 100,000 inhabitants each year.

• Healthcare-associated infections in England are estimated to cost £1 billion a year. In the United States, the estimate is between $4.5 billion and $5.7 billion per year. In Mexico, the annual cost approaches $1.5 billion.