Hospital infections and hospital hygiene at Malmö General Hospital: 1. The incidence of staphylococcal infections during three years

Abstract

The incidence of purulent staphylococcal infections at a large Swedish university hospital was followed during 3 years and has been described as an expression of the incidence of hospital infections.A marked decrease in the relative number of infections was found. The decrease was most evident among infections with ‘80/81’ strains and other antibiotic resistant hospital strains and was parallel in all the departments investigated. This is taken as an evidence for the assumption that the lowering of the amount of staphylococcal infections was brought about by a factor that was active throughout the hospital, probably some hygienic preventive measure.