The authors conducted a prospective cohort study in Ethiopia at Ayder Comprehensive Specialized Hospital to determine the clinical and economic consequences of healthcare-associated infections (HAIs) in hospitalized patients. 204 patients who acquired HAIs during hospital stay were matched to 204 non-infected controls with similar age, sex, and length of stay. The study findings indicated that the HAIs group had significantly worse outcomes in all studied clinical and economic outcomes. Patients with HAIs had 8.3 more days of hospital stays, 14.7% in-hospital mortality compared to 7.8% for the non-infected group and spent 3,033 more Ethiopian birrs on direct medical costs than the controls. They identified HAI and ICU admission as mortality predictors in their multivariable analysis. This study adds to the global evidence on the HAI burden, and more importantly, it is from a low-resource setting. Therefore, the results of this study can be used in the argument of the need to develop and implement targeted measures to prevent HAIs, especially in ICUs.

Gidey, K., Gidey, M. T., Hailu, B. Y., Gebreamlak, Z. B., & Niriayo, Y. L. (2023). Clinical and economic burden of healthcare-associated infections: A prospective cohort study. PLOS ONE , 18 (2), e0282141. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0282141