Patient Application

Bacterial resistance and hospital infections cause prolonged hospital stays, and a rise in the acquisition and spread of resistance strains. The Fact sheet of the National Institutes of Health for year 2000 gave an estimate of an annual cost of USD 30 billion for treating antibiotic resistant infections in the US alone. The greatest concern is the illness and death that result from such infections but the economic costs are also a raising concern.

An infection while in hospital for an operation for heart disease, for example, can extend the hospital stay by days, and sometimes by weeks, before the infection is cured. An infection in the bloodstream may lengthen the hospital stay by up to three weeks and cost more than USD 50 000 to treat. Hospitals can lose hundreds of thousands of dollars because insurance may not cover the costs of treating an infection acquired by a patient during treatment.

About two million patients a year get an infection while being treated for another illness or injury and almost 88 000 die because of their infections. According to the CDC (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention), 1.8 million of the infections occur in hospitals, almost 100 000 occur in long-term care centres and about 340 000 occur in home health care. Bloodstream infections could account for as many as 105 500 deaths per year, which would make them the fourth leading cause of death in the US.