• The Journal of the Korean dental association
• /
• v.58 no.10
• /
• pp.615-626
• /
• 2020

The outbreak of COVID-19, caused by SARS-CoV-2 infection, has spread worldwide and resulted in a pandemic for health systems. The disease is transmitted via respiration as droplets or aerosol. Due to the nature of dental treatment, aerosols, including body fluid, blood, and saliva, are frequently produced in dental hospitals. The present study investigated the potential risk of nosocomial infection of COVID-19 in dental hospitals to provide recommendations in clinical situations. The Seoul National University Dental Hospital in Korea established a countermeasure to cope with the clinical situation based on The Guidelines of Korean Centers for Disease Control & Prevention (KCDC) for dental practitioners and the available literature. Notably, numerous considerations for patient reservation and schedule management are required for space separation in the hospital, including infection control. Experiences in dental hospitals in Korea would be referable for other dental hospitals facing this infectious respiratory disease.

• Clinical and Experimental Pediatrics
• /
• v.61 no.11
• /
• pp.366-370
• /
• 2018

Purpose: Tuberculosis (TB) is one of the most important diseases that cause significant mortality and morbidity in young children. Data on TB transmission from an infected child are limited. Herein, we report a case of disseminated TB in a child and conducted a contact investigation among exposed individuals. Methods: A 4-year-old child without Bacille Calmette-$Gu{\acute{e}}rin$ vaccination was diagnosed as having culture-proven disseminated TB. The child initially presented with symptoms of inflammatory bowel disease, and nosocomial and kindergarten exposures were reported. The exposed individuals to the index case were divided into 3 groups, namely household, nosocomial, or kindergarten contacts. Evaluation was performed following the Korean guidelines for TB. Kindergarten contacts were further divided into close or casual contacts. Chest radiography and tuberculin skin test or interferon-gamma-releasing assay were performed for the contacts. Results: We examined 327 individuals (3 household, 10 nosocomial, and 314 kindergarten contacts), of whom 18 (5.5%), the brother of the index patient, and 17 kindergarten children were diagnosed as having latent TB infection (LTBI). LTBI diagnosis was more frequent in the children who had close kindergarten contact with the index case (17.1% vs. 4.4%, P=0.007). None of the cases had active TB. Conclusion: This is the first reported case of TB transmission among young children from a pediatric patient with disseminated TB in Korea. TB should be emphasized as a possible cause of chronic diarrhea and failure to thrive in children. A national TB control policy has been actively applied to identify Korean children with LTBI.

• Korean Journal of Clinical Pharmacy
• /
• v.3 no.1
• /
• pp.55-60
• /
• 1993

For prevention of hospital infection, selection of adequate disinfectants by clinical pharmacist is very important role in hospital pharmacy and for performing this role, pharmaceutical, chemical and microbial knowledge of disinfectants and nosocomial microorganism are required to hospital pharmacists. Therefore, to make sure of guideline for choice of disinfectants, author clarifies the distinctive character of disinfectants which are supplied to clinical departments and wards from hospiatal pharmacy in Korea and arrange the specific attention for use of each disinfectants

• Parasites, Hosts and Diseases
• /
• v.47 no.3
• /
• pp.269-273
• /
• 2009

A 57-year old man who was admitted to an emergency room of a tertiary hospital with hemoptysis developed malarial fever 19 days later and then died from severe falciparum malaria 2 days later. He had not traveled outside of Korea for over 30 years. Through intensive interviews and epidemiological surveys, we found that a foreign patient with a recent history of travel to Africa was transferred to the same hospital with severe falciparum malaria. We confirmed through molecular genotyping of the MSP-1 gene that Plasmodium falciparum genotypes of the 2 patients were identical. It is suggested that a breach of standard infection control precautions resulted in this P. falciparum transmission between 2 patients in a hospital environment. This is the first report of a nosocomial transmission of falciparum malaria in Korea.

• Journal of Korean Public Health Nursing
• /
• v.15 no.2
• /
• pp.239-248
• /
• 2001

The purpose of this study was to analyze risk factors for nosocomial pneumonia in patients admitted to NS ICU, and to provide a basic data to decrease respiratory nosocomial infection rate engendered from medical environments in NS ICU. The study site was the NS ICU at a university hospital located in Seoul, Korea. The subjects were 31 patients diagnosed with nosocomial pneumonia, who were selected from the initial list of 300 potential subjects who had been a) admitted between September 1999 and January 2000, and September 2000 and January 2001, b) resided at the NS ICU over 72 hours. The diagnostic standard of nosocomial pneumonia was based on the nosocomial infection guides of C university hospital. The data were analyzed using frequencies and logistic regression analysis. The sputums obtained from the subjects were cultivated and causal viruses were separated. The results were as follows: 1. The nosocomial pneumonia rate was $10.3\%$. There were 7 types of causal viruses separated from the sputum. and the most prevalent type of virus was MRSA as $62.2\%$. 2. The factors significantly influencing the incidence of nosocomial pneumonia included age, the residential duration at the NS ICU, GCS scores, diabetes mellitus, insertion of tracheal tube and its duration, tracheostomy and its length of insertion, the use of artificial ventilator and the length of its use, and the insertion of naso-gastic tube. The most significant risk factor among these was the insertion of tracheal tube (odds ratio=18.684. $95\%$ CI=6.849-50.974), followed by the use of tracheostomy (odds ratio=15.419, $95\%$ CI=6.615-35.942), the insertion of naso-gastric tube (odds ratio=14.875, $95\%$ CI=6.396-34.595), and the use of artificial ventilator (odds ratio=13.000. $95\%$ CI=5.633­30.001). 3. Regarding the use of the mechanical aids, the insertion of tracheal tube resulted in 12.968 times increase of the nosocomial pneumonia rate, and the use of artificial ventilator lead 6.714 times increase of the nosocomial pneumonia rate. One point increase of the GCS score resulted in the 1.210 times increase of the nosocomial pneumonia rate. For patients who had tracheal tube, tracheostomy, and artificial ventilator, one day increase of their residential duration at NS ICU lead 1.073 times increase of the nosocomial pneumonia rate. 4. In terms of duration of the mechanical aid usage, one day increase in the use of artificial ventilator engendered 1.080 times increase in the nosocomial pneumonia rate. One day increase of the residential duration at the NS ICU lead 1.604 times increase in the nosocomial pneumonia rate. As one point of the GCS score increased, 0.876 times decrease of the nosocomial pneumonia rate was reported. These study findings show that the risk factors significantly influencing the incidence of nosocomial pneumonia include the use of tracheal tube, tracheostomy, naso-gastic tube, and artificial ventilator. It is recommended that nurses working at NS ICU should pay more attention to the patients with these factors as the risky group for the nosocomial pneumonia, and thus make more active efforts to provide nosocomial pneumonia prevention strategies for them. In further studies patients admitted to the different types of ICUs such as internal medicine or surgery unit ICU will be also included, and more wide investigation of nosocomial pneumonia risk factors will be conducted through one-year longitudinal follow up.

• Pediatric Gastroenterology, Hepatology & Nutrition
• /
• v.20 no.3
• /
• pp.139-146
• /
• 2017

The number of papers discussing probiotics increases tremendously that limits the possibility for primary care physicians and clinicians to stay updated. Therefore, the aim of this paper will be to summarize available evidence of probiotic use in well-defined clinical indications of importance for pediatricians. Based on currently available evidence certain probiotic strains (Lactobacillus rhamnosus GG [LGG] and Saccharomyces boulardii) have proven effect in the treatment of acute gastroenteritis and prevention of antibiotic associated diarrhea. Furthermore, LGG was proven to be effective in prevention of nosocomial diarrhea and respiratory tract infection in day care centers. In conclusion, not all probiotic strains have same efficacy for all clinical indications, therefore, only strains with proven efficacy and safety should be recommended.

• Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention
• /
• v.15 no.7
• /
• pp.3071-3074
• /
• 2014

Background: To investigate the related risk factors of postoperative nosocomial pneumonia (POP) in patients withI-IIIa lung cancer. Methods: Medical records of 511 patients who underwent resection for lung cancer between January 2012 to December 2012 were retrospectively reviewed. Risk factors of postoperative pneumonia were identified and evaluated by univariate and multivariate analyses. Results: The incidence of postoperative pneumonia in these lung cancer patients was 2.9% (15 cases). Compared with 496 patients who had no pneumonia infection after operation, older age (>60), histopathological type of squamous cell carcinoma and longer surgery time (>3h) were significant risk factors by univariate analysis. Other potential risk factors such as alcohol consumption, history of smoking, hypersensitivity, hypertension, diabetes mellitus and so on were not showed such significance in this study. Further, the multivariate analysis revealed that old age (>60 years) (OR 5.813, p=0.018) and histopathological type of squamous cell carcinoma (OR 5.831, p<0.001) were also statistically significant independent risk factors for postoperative pneumonia. Conclusions: This study demonstrated that being old aged (>60 years) and having squamous cell carcinoma histopathological type might be important factors in determining the risk of postoperative pneumonia in lung cancer patients after surgery.

• Journal of Digital Convergence
• /
• v.15 no.11
• /
• pp.307-315
• /
• 2017

This study set out to investigate dental hygiene students' perceptions and performance of dental clinic infection management of clinical training, thus helping to minimize nosocomial infection and providing basic data for infection management and action guidelines in development of curriculums and educational programs. A survey was taken with dental hygiene students that had experiences with clinical training at a four-year university in Gyeongbuk. The findings show that many of the students had experiences with education about the prevention of infection. There were differences in their performance of infection prevention management among the sites of clinical training with university and general hospitals recording a high level of performance. These findings raise a need to make guidelines for infection management, distribute them to sites of clinical training, and manage them through the staff during clinical training. The schools need to run educational program for infection management in relation to clinical training and establish a systematic institution.

• Journal of Oral Medicine and Pain
• /
• v.45 no.1
• /
• pp.17-21
• /
• 2020

Osteomyelitis of the jaw infected with Coagulase-Negative Staphylococci (CNS) is rarely reported in the Oral and Maxillofacial Region. Staphylococcus is a part of the normal body flora, but it may be cause severe infections and CNS are often described as the important pathogens in nosocomial infections. Although many studies on prevalence and antibiotics of Staphylococcus aureus have been done, but many of these studies focus only on Methicillin-resistant S. aureus and not on methicillin-resistant coagulase-negative Staphylococci (MRCNS). There was a less study about CNS or MRCNS infections in the Oral and Maxillofacial Region. This report describes a case of a 41-year-old male patient who developed osteomyelitis caused by MRCNS on condyle after open reduction and internal fixation and suggests guideline for the prevention of postoperative infection and appropriate recommendation for treatment and control.

• Journal of Society of Preventive Korean Medicine
• /
• v.23 no.1
• /
• pp.27-47
• /
• 2019

Purpose : This study was designed to identify the perception and practice level of infection control among korean medical doctors and to identify factors that may influence the performance and practice level. Methods : Data were collected using the on­line survey method. Seven hundred and eighty four Korean medical doctors(KMD) participated the survey. The study was conducted from December 2018 to January 2019. Results : The results of this study are as follows. 1. Participants who experienced infection risk by needles or sharp instruments were 596(76%). and participants who had experienced blood or body fluid contact with the mucous membrane or skin of the patient during treatment were 226(28.8%) of them. 2. The degree of perception and practice of the infectious guideline was higher in the group over 50 years, in the doctor group, in the group with more than 6 years experience in clinic and in the group who work in the hospital. (p < 0.05) 3. In the performance of the infection control management related to the Korean medical treatment, the practice level of the article 'Discard the remaining needle that used for one patient' was the lowest at 4.02, 'Identify the patient and check the validity period of sterilization of medicines or instruments' was the second lowest in 4.16. 4. Among the contents of "Prevention of Nosocomial infection and Sanitary Safety Guidelines" issued by the Korean Medical Association in 2008, the guideline "Prevention of infection by pathogens such as HIV, MRSA, SARS" were lowest article in the perception and practice level of participants. 5. Regression analysis was performed to find out the factors affecting perception and performance of the participants. The regression model showed significant difference in the regression model of the working years. (p < 0.05) 6. In order to examine the effect of the variables on the perception and practice of the infectious guideline, the mediated effect of the knowledge and education level according to the years of working, age, education degree was found to be significant only in the education degree variable. (p < 0.05) In conclusion : in order to improve the perception and practice of infectious control of Korean medicine doctors, it is necessary to include the contents of infection management as essential education during the continuing education of Korean medicine association.