Epidemiological profile of deaths after the 2010 earthquake in Chile

Indexación: Web of Science; ScieloBackground: On February 27, 2010 a powerful earthquake followed by a tsunami stroke Chile. The study of mortality during this emergency can provide important public health information. Aim: To describe the main characteristics of people who died during the earthquake and the following three months. Material and Methods: Cross sectional analysis of death records databases obtained from Department of Health Statistics and Information of the Ministry of Health and the Coroner office. Results: Until May 25,2010, 505 corpses were completely identified. Seventy two of these corresponded to people aged 80 years or more. The higher age adjusted death rates per 100,000 inhabitants were observed among subjects aged more than 80 years and those aged 70 to 79 years (22.6 and 7.7 respectively). The higher rates of deaths were observed in regions where the earthquake had a higher intensity and coastal regions affected by the tsunami. The causes of death were trauma in 75% of cases and drowning in 25%. There was no association between the Mercalli scale of earthquake intensity and rates of death. Among deceased subjects, there was a concentration of unemployed, under educated and low socioeconomic status subjects. Conclusions: After the earthquake, the higher rates of deaths occurred among older people and in the region of the epicenter of the earthquake. Most deaths were due to trauma.http://ref.scielo.org/gmq43

Periodic and Quasiperiodic Motion of an Elongated Microswimmer in Poiseuille Flow

We study the dynamics of a prolate spheroidal microswimmer in Poiseuille flow for different flow geometries. When moving between two parallel plates or in a cylindrical microchannel, the swimmer performs either periodic swinging or periodic tumbling motion. Although the trajectories of spherical and elongated swimmers are qualitatively similar, the swinging and tumbling frequency strongly depends on the aspect ratio of the swimmer. In channels with reduced symmetry the swimmers perform quasiperiodic motion which we demonstrate explicitely for swimming in a channel with elliptical cross section

International nosocomial infection control consortium (INICC) report, data summary of 36 countries, for 2004-2009

The results of a surveillance study conducted by the International Nosocomial Infection Control Consortium (INICC) from January 2004 through December 2009 in 422 intensive care units (ICUs) of 36 countries in Latin America, Asia, Africa, and Europe are reported. During the 6-year study period, using Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) National Healthcare Safety Network (NHSN; formerly the National Nosocomial Infection Surveillance system [NNIS]) definitions for device-associated health care-associated infections, we gathered prospective data from 313,008 patients hospitalized in the consortium's ICUs for an aggregate of 2,194,897 ICU bed-days. Despite the fact that the use of devices in the developing countries' ICUs was remarkably similar to that reported in US ICUs in the CDC's NHSN, rates of device-associated nosocomial infection were significantly higher in the ICUs of the INICC hospitals; the pooled rate of central line-associated bloodstream infection in the INICC ICUs of 6.8 per 1,000 central line-days was more than 3-fold higher than the 2.0 per 1,000 central line-days reported in comparable US ICUs. The overall rate of ventilator-associated pneumonia also was far higher (15.8 vs 3.3 per 1,000 ventilator-days), as was the rate of catheter-associated urinary tract infection (6.3 vs. 3.3 per 1,000 catheter-days). Notably, the frequencies of resistance of Pseudomonas aeruginosa isolates to imipenem (47.2% vs 23.0%), Klebsiella pneumoniae isolates to ceftazidime (76.3% vs 27.1%), Escherichia coli isolates to ceftazidime (66.7% vs 8.1%), Staphylococcus aureus isolates to methicillin (84.4% vs 56.8%), were also higher in the consortium's ICUs, and the crude unadjusted excess mortalities of device-related infections ranged from 7.3% (for catheter-associated urinary tract infection) to 15.2% (for ventilator-associated pneumonia). Copyright © 2012 by the Association for Professionals in Infection Control and Epidemiology, Inc. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved

Nosocomial Infection Control Consortium (INICC)

We aimed to evaluate the impact of a multidimensional infection control strategy for the reduction of the incidence of catheter-associated urinary tract infection (CAUTI) in patients hospitalized in adult intensive care units (AICUs) of hospitals which are members of the International Nosocomial Infection Control Consortium (INICC), from 40 cities of 15 developing countries: Argentina, Brazil, China, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, India, Lebanon, Macedonia, Mexico, Morocco, Panama, Peru, Philippines, and Turkey.We conducted a prospective before-after surveillance study of CAUTI rates on 56,429 patients hospitalized in 57 AICUs, during 360,667 bed-days. The study was divided into the baseline period (Phase 1) and the intervention period (Phase 2). In Phase 1, active surveillance was performed. In Phase 2, we implemented a multidimensional infection control approach that included: (1) a bundle of preventive measures, (2) education, (3) outcome surveillance, (4) process surveillance, (5) feedback of CAUTI rates, and (6) feedback of performance. The rates of CAUTI obtained in Phase 1 were compared with the rates obtained in Phase 2, after interventions were implemented.We recorded 253,122 urinary catheter (UC)-days: 30,390 in Phase 1 and 222,732 in Phase 2. In Phase 1, before the intervention, the CAUTI rate was 7.86 per 1,000 UC-days, and in Phase 2, after intervention, the rate of CAUTI decreased to 4.95 per 1,000 UC-days [relative risk (RR) 0.63 (95 % confidence interval [CI] 0.55-0.72)], showing a 37 % rate reduction.Our study showed that the implementation of a multidimensional infection control strategy is associated with a significant reduction in the CAUTI rate in AICUs from developing countries