Govt constitutes special committee to formulate preventive guidelines

In 15 days, hospitals in Delhi will get a set of guidelines to prevent the spread of infection from the drug-resistant bacteria, superbug.

In 15 days, hospitals in Delhi will get a set of guidelines to prevent the spread of infection from the drug-resistant bacteria, superbug.

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On Friday, the state health minister constituted a team of specialists — the Directorate of Health Services (DHS), Lok Nayak Hospital, Maulana Azad Medical College, Chacha Nehru Bal Chikitsalaya among others — which will come up with measures to control the infection in city hospitals.

“A survey was conducted and the experts did find the presence of drug-resistant bacteria in the ICUs of the surveyed hospitals. But there is nothing alarming as the prevalence is very low,” said Dr AK Walia, health minister, Delhi government.

“However, as a precautionary measure, we will circulate these guidelines to all government hospitals. We even think of roping in private hospitals in future to create awareness,” he added.

Biomedical waste management in hospitals, nursing homes and labs, segregation of drinking and sewer water pipelines across the city and maintaining hand-hygiene will be some of the measures incorporated in the guidelines.

In a survey that was carried out by the National Centre for Disease Control to detect the presence of superbug
NDM1 in Delhi’s water supply, as reported by the British medical journal Lancet, samples were collected from the ICUs of some hospitals, and from the drinking water and sewerage flow.

Though the sewerage samples were clean, the samples collected from the ICUs were found to have presence of NDM1 infection, though on the lower side, between 0.04% and 0.08%.