KARACHI, March 16: There is an urgent need for creating public awareness regarding hygienic practices and simple but necessary precautions right from homes, hospitals to beauty saloons and barber shops to fight infectious diseases.
These views were expressed at an Infection Control Symposium/ Workshop here on Thursday. The speakers including Dr Anita Zaidi, Dr Afia Zafar, Dr Amanullah, Dr Maqsood Bhatti, Dr Aslam Khan, Dr Farheen Ali, Dr Seema Irfan, Dr Rumina Hussein and Ms Roshan Hadwani explicitly discussed vulnerability of local population to a wide range of infections, often fatal, due to the rampant disregard for simple and cost effective measures.
The workshop organized by the Department of Pathology and Microbiology, Aga Khan University in collaboration with the Pakistan Medical Research Council, National Institute of Health — Pakistan, Marie Adelaide Centre, Infectious Disease Society of Pakistan, Surgical ICU, Civil Hospital — Karachi was attended in large numbers by nurses, paramedics, technicians, junior doctors from different hospitals of the city.
There was also a significant presence of Karachi-based beauticians at the event supported by the US Department of Health and Human Services funded through a grant from the Higher Education Commission; Pak-US Joint Academic and Research Programme.
Dr Afia Zafar of the AKUH in her presentation “Infection control issues in community (barbershops, beauty saloons, fitness clubs)” mentioned that prick injury was not only confined to hospital or clinic settings but were also quite frequent in beauty saloons and barber shops.
Indifference towards sterilization of the tools, which otherwise are considered to be ingenuous as nail foils, clippers, cuticle scissors and clippers are but major sources of infections, particularly blood borne as hepatitis B and C as well as HIV, due to absolutely no or improper sterilization, she warned.
Even the much cherished and soothing experience of facial massage can turn into a nightmare as the workers may not only ensure proper hand washing after handling each client but also making use of latex gloves during every single procedure. This will and does prevent transmission of any ailment of one client to the other, the speaker elaborated.
Issues of ear piercing and tattooing, piercing of skin, hair cut and circumcision at barber shops without necessary provisions for sterilization and clean surroundings were also discussed.
Dr Afia Zafar strongly recommended that all barber shops, beauty parlours and tattooing units must have provision for running hot and cold water with toilet facilities and that the floor at these facilities be kept free from hair at all times and all furniture must be kept free from hair and dust.
Reiterating that every operator must clean hands thoroughly immediately before serving each customer, she stressed that sterilization and washing of tool/ vessels and relevant gadgets must also be ensured coupled with must arrangement for towel laundering.
Dr Anita Zaidi, Pediatric Infectious Diseases Consultant in her presentation “Importance of infection control” discussed in detail causes and prevention of varied types of infections commonly registered in the country.
At the very onset, she said that the day-long event was aimed at promoting capacities for infectious diseases surveillance and control.
The speaker said that many of the hospital induced bacterial organism had turned severely resistant to all commercially available antibiotics (with the exception of one or two) and had thus emerged as super bug, which could not be eradicated hence remaining a constant threat to public health and lives.
The situation is not only attributable to poor hygienic practices but also due to the fact that most pharmaceuticals are no more investing in research and development nor producing improved antibiotics as they have much more profitable products to manufacture, she added.
Dr Anita said that dirty hands were responsible for most of the infections at hospitals, homes and other community level units.
She mentioned infectious diseases were responsible for over two-thirds of all child deaths in developing countries adding that recent estimates reveal that 15 per cent of deaths in hospitals in developing countries were attributable to hospital acquired infections.
“Antimicrobial resistance rates are rising at alarming levels,” she said attributing this not only to poverty and malnutrition but also to poor and cost effective control practices complimented with pollution and contaminated water.
Dr Amanullah, Secretary, Occupational Health Society in his presentation regretted the absence of any system to address issues related to vulnerability of local health care professionals to fatal infections.
Dr Rumina Hasan, chairperson of the Department of Pathology and Microbiology discussing the objectives of the seminar said it was to highlight the importance of infection control to decrease burden related to infections.
The presentations were followed by workshops on Infection Control in Labour Room/ Paediatric Unit; Care of Indwelling and Infection Control in different hospital units.—APP
