Health
SOME public health experts have called for stronger infection prevention and control (IPC) systems in Nigerian healthcare facilities, saying protecting patients requires more than hand hygiene and compliance with clinical protocols.
The experts made the call in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Tuesday in Abuja.
They said that healthcare facilities must develop a culture of safety in which health workers could identify hazards, report concerns and challenge unsafe practices without fear, regardless of professional seniority.
The call is particularly relevant to Nigeria, where a 2026 study published in BMJ Global Health highlighted the burden and economic consequences of healthcare-associated infections (HAIs).
The study, which examined Nigeria’s national IPC programme and the “Turn Nigeria Orange” initiative, said an average of 18.2 per cent of admitted patients were estimated to have acquired healthcare-associated infections in 2022.
It estimated that HAIs accounted for about 93,600 deaths and imposed an economic cost of about 4.5 billion dollars on Nigeria in the same year.
The researchers also estimated that about half of the 848,000 HAIs recorded in the country in 2022 involved antimicrobial-resistant organisms.
They said that healthcare settings could serve as amplifiers of infectious disease outbreaks, citing experiences from Lassa fever and Ebola outbreaks in Nigeria.
The researchers, led by Dr Tochi Okwor, Head of Disease Prevention and Control, Nigeria Centre for Disease Control and Prevention (NCDC), said strong IPC programmes were critical to reducing HAIs and AMR.
The study further said that Nigeria had prioritised the establishment of a national IPC programme to provide leadership and coordination for IPC activities across the healthcare system.
This includes the “Turn Nigeria Orange” programme, which was implemented between 2019 and 2023 to strengthen IPC capacity and establish a network of healthcare facilities working towards improved infection prevention standards.
Prof. Massimo Sartelli, a General and Emergency Surgeon, said that infection prevention should be treated as a shared professional and organisational responsibility.
Sartelli said clinical guidelines, hand-hygiene audits, surveillance data and performance indicators remained important, but could not alone guarantee effective infection prevention.
He said clinicians, nurses, environmental services personnel, administrators and patients all had roles to play in preventing transmission.
According to him, a resilient IPC culture requires psychological safety, enabling healthcare professionals to report hazards, question unsafe practices and appropriately challenge deviations from established standards.
He said hospital leadership must reinforce such a culture by embedding IPC in governance, workforce planning, resource allocation, education and continuous quality improvement.
The expert also linked IPC to the fight against antimicrobial resistance (AMR), noting that prevention extends beyond healthcare facilities and requires coordinated action across health facilities and communities.
He identified hand hygiene, vaccination, antimicrobial stewardship, appropriate isolation and responsible health behaviours as important interventions for reducing transmission and protecting vulnerable populations.
Sartelli said IPC should therefore not be regarded as an additional task competing with clinical care, but as an essential component of safe and quality healthcare.
He said that every appropriate hand-hygiene practice, adequately decontaminated environment and constructively challenged unsafe practice contributed to patient safety.
The expert therefore described IPC as more than compliance, but a culture of responsibility, accountability and collective commitment to protecting patients, healthcare workers and communities
Despite progress in developing national IPC structures, Dr Mary Alex-Wele, a Consultant Clinical Microbiologist, said the next challenge was ensuring that policies and guidelines are consistently translated into everyday practice.
Alex-Wele is also the Head of the Department of Medical Microbiology and Parasitology at the University of Port Harcourt Teaching Hospital.
She urged healthcare facilities to strengthen the implementation of IPC measures to ensure that established standards were effectively applied in routine patient care.
“The Nigerian Society for Infection Control is scheduled to hold its National Conference on Infection Control in Abuja from Aug. 19 to Aug. 21.
The theme of the proposed conference is, “Infection Prevention and Control (IPC) as a Pillar of National Health Security”.
“The conference will focus on IPC governance and financing, patient safety and quality improvement, as well as the use of data for surveillance, diagnostics and early warning systems,,” she said.
She said that these priorities highlight the growing recognition that infection prevention is not simply a clinical or hygiene issue but a health-system responsibility involving leadership, financing, infrastructure, surveillance and accountability.
For health workers, Alex-Wele said creating an environment where unsafe practices can be questioned is equally important.
“A junior health worker who notices a potential infection risk, for instance, should be able to raise the concern through established channels without fear of intimidation or professional repercussions.
“Such psychological safety can help facilities detect risks earlier and prevent avoidable transmission,”, she said.(NAN)
M.P
Tags: Hospital infection