INFECTION PREVENTION & WOUNDCARE
The Health Protection Agency is an independent UK organisation that was set up to protect the public from threats to their health from infectious diseases. New research has incredible implications in fulfilling that aim, Kate Ashley reports.
I
nfection control could be revolution- ised by genetic sequencing, according to research presented at the annual Health Protection conference in September.
Although latest figures show that MRSA and C. difficile rates are continuing to fall, healthcare associated infections still re- main a major challenge for healthcare pro- viders. The ongoing search for new strate- gic approaches to control infectious diseas- es has produced original research that is set to change the way we understand infection.
Innovative presentations demonstrated
the latest scientific research and its practi- cal application in preventing and reducing infectious diseases. This included cutting edge genetic sequencing technology which could hold the key to help to control the spread of healthcare associated infections.
The laboratory technique known as whole genome sequencing, which is used to iden- tify the complete DNA sequence of an or- ganism’s genome, has developed dramati- cally in recent years. Microbiologists have shown how it is now possible to use this process to gain a deeper understanding of the spread and transmission of infections.
Dr Elizabeth Sheridan, head of healthcare associated infections and antimicrobial resis- tance for the HPA, said: “Whole genome se-
54 | national health executive Sep/Oct 11
quencing has been around for some time but advances in technology have meant the pro- cess has become faster and cheaper to use.
“This has meant the technology is more widely available and can now be applied to many more scenarios including research- ing the transmission and spread of infec- tions in hospitals and community settings. For example, whole genome sequencing has been used to investigate an outbreak of MRSA in a neonatal intensive care unit and it was found this method was able to distin- guish between those strains involved in the outbreak and those that were not.
“This is a real breakthrough because it fi- nally allows us to understand the dynamics of how a strain spreads in a healthcare set- ting where a high baseline level of infection already exists.”
Genetic sequencing is much more useful than traditional methods for keeping track of infections as it can categorise organisms more accurately, resulting in a clearer un- derstanding of how they can be controlled.
Dr Sheridan continued: “Existing typing methods are useful for monitoring out- breaks but because this technique looks at the micro-organism’s entire DNA se- quence, it goes much further which allows us to see just how closely related the or-
ganisms are within a single strain as well as showing if they have genes which give them special virulent characteristics en- abling them to cause more severe disease or spread more quickly.
“This work is extremely valuable and has demonstrated how the technology can pro- vide a much more scientific approach to researching infection control.
“It can offer a deeper level of understand- ing about outbreaks that has not been available before and enable us to get better evidence for which infection control inter- ventions would be the most effective. This information can then be used to develop future infection control strategies.
“We hope that the application of the tech- nology will continue and in future, local hos- pitals as well as research institutions will be able to use whole genome sequencing in the management of outbreaks, which will inevi- tably help with the continuing reduction in healthcare associated infections. The find- ings today have shown that this technology offers a promising new approach to radically improving infection control.”
FOR MORE INFORMATION The presentation abstract can be viewed at
http://tinyurl.com/HPAgenome Or visit
www.hpa.org.uk
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