An Individual-Based Model of Transmission of Resistant Bacteria in a Veterinary Teaching Hospital

Abstract

Veterinary nosocomial infections caused by antibiotic resistant bacteria cause increased morbidity, higher cost and length of treatment and increased zoonotic risk because of the difficulty in treating them. In this study, an individual-based model was developed to investigate the effects of movements of canine patients among ten areas (transmission points) within a veterinary teaching hospital, and the effects of these movements on transmission of antibiotic susceptible and resistant pathogens. The model simulates contamination of transmission points, healthcare workers, and patients as well as the effects of decontamination of transmission points, disinfection of healthcare workers, and antibiotic treatments of canine patients. The model was parameterized using data obtained from hospital records, information obtained by interviews with hospital staff, and the published literature. The model suggested that transmission resulting from contact with healthcare workers was common, and that certain transmission points (housing wards, diagnostics room, and the intensive care unit) presented higher risk for transmission than others (lobby and surgery). Sensitivity analyses using a range of parameter values demonstrated that the risk of acquisition of colonization by resistant pathogens decreased with shorter patient hospital stays (P<0.0001), more frequent decontamination of transmission points and disinfection of healthcare workers (P<0.0001) and better compliance of healthcare workers with hygiene practices (P<0.0001). More frequent decontamination of heavily trafficked transmission points was especially effective at reducing transmission of the model pathogen.

Application of dynamic modelling techniques to the problem of antibacterial use and resistance: a scoping review

“…In contrast, individual or ABM represent the system as a population of heterogeneous entities engaged in local interactions; models of this type better capture the stochastic behaviour of a system but impose opportunity costs related to model construction, parameterisation and computing time [114]. Opatowski and colleagues [30] argue that increasingly realistic predictions arising from ABM models are likely to advance the utility of computer simulations for 1 month ⩽ x <1 year [42] 1 year ⩽ x <10 years [35,37,41,42,64,67,70,71,73,88,90,97] 10 years ⩽ x <50 years [59,66,89,92,93,99,101,103] 50 years ⩽ x [ 59,66,79,93,94,102] Undefined time steps [109] Undefined steady state [46,51,53,63,110] Distribution of values reported as mean or range 1 week ⩽ x <1 month [55] 1 month ⩽ x <1 year [82] 1 year ⩽ x <10 years [49,56,69,72,83] 10 years ⩽ x <50 years [36,…”

Nosocomial Infections and their Surveillance in Veterinary Hospitals

“…In one individual-based model study to scrutinize the effect of movement of dogs to various locations in a veterinary teaching hospitals, it was found out that nosocomial infection transmission is greater in diagnostic rooms, intensive care units and housing wards than operation theatre and lobby and it also revealed that transmission following the contact with healthcare personnel was more common (Suthar et al, 2014). Veterinary hospitals are the major source and accountable for increasing prevalence of a MDR E. coli in horses (Ahmed et al, 2012).…”

“…Implication of multiple drug resistant bacterias in nosocomial infections are the main concern because of high morbidity, high cost and duration of treatment and more challenging to eliminate (Weese, 2008a;Owens et al, 2008; and there is potential zoonotic risk (Suthar et al, 2014). The food animals with resistant antimicrobial bacteria pose a serious public health risk (Howard et al, 2003), but the pet animals transmit the resistant bacteria directly to human population by acting as a reservoir (Guardabassi et al, 2004;Lloyd, 2007;Murphy et al, 2009;.…”

Treatment of a femoral septic nonunion in a dog with interlocking nail stabilization associated to corticospongious bone autograft and greater omentum flap: case report

“…Klebsiella sp., an enterobacterium, isolation, could indicate fecal contamination, inadequate cleaning and disinfection of the environment, in a study on this subject at a veterinary hospital, the author affirmed that this kind of infection is an emerging problem because of its potential to lead to multiple antibiotic-resistant bacterial strains (Suthar et al, 2014).…”