Control of hospital acquired infections and antimicrobial resistance in Europe: the way to go.

One of the major challenges for modern medicine is our ageing society and an increased level of immunocompromised hosts. More invasive and intensive medical interventions will increase the number of healthcare-associated infections (HCAI), which means infection that occur because of or in concomitance, but in any case, during or after healthcare interventions. Such infections are caused usually endogenously from microbial components of the patient’s own microbiome. Usually, the microorganisms of the microbiome show a natural resistance against a few antibiotics. Due to selection processes and epidemic transmission of specific clones, microorganisms that have become resistant to multiple antibiotics become part of the patient’s microbiome and can subsequently cause infections that are difficult or even impossible to treat. The kind of infections that will occur depends on diverse factors.

Article: NCBI