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

The Influence of the Climatic Conditions as a Factor on Some Quantitative Characteristics of Sunflower in the Region of Ovce Pole

In this paper we present the values of several quantitativecharacteristics on sunflower, VNIIMK 8931 variety, in the region ofOvce Pole. This variety has tradition for growing in Macedonia withpossibility to grow in the future. Her adaptability to the climaticconditions of the region shows very stable parameters of the examinationcapacities. The average height of the plants was between 204.0 cm in2000, 208.0 and 209.0 cm in 2001 and 2002. The diameter of the head(florescence) for the period of three years was 19.7 cm and absoluteweight of the seed 87.7 g. All three characteristics didn’t show anystatistical differences. The statistical significant differences we obtainonly in the case of yield of seed per head (florescence): 120.0 g in 2002,117.0 g in 2001 and 98.0 g in 2000. The percentage of oil keep theaverage for the sunflower as an industrial oil crops: 44,5% in the first,47,9% in the second and 43,1% in the third year of investigation