Improving control strategies of infections by resistant pathogens in a hospital network

The efficacy of infection prevention and control on several hospital networks is assessed. We tested two kinds of strategy, a network-topology-based allocation and a R-0-based allocation, where R0 is the basic reproduction number of the infection. For this, a multi-patch deterministic model simulates the spread of carbapenemase-producing Enterobacteriaceae in several theoretical hospital networks parametrized by data from Brazil. Our results show that: (i) the allocation methods based on the R-0 of the hospitals may work better than the network-topology-based allocations; (ii) results from control efficacy for a specific hospital network cannot be generalized to other types of networks. Putting together the global network topology with local factors that drive pathogens transmission, the R-0-based allocation method seems to be enough to control of healthcare-associated infections. Overall, the obtained results emphasize the importance of data collection on infection transmission and patient transfers.