To establish a link between health care associated infection, pathogenic bacteria from health care workers and bio-medical waste management practices in a leading tertiary care centre from India

Health care associated infection (HCAI) is a serious problem both in patient care and amongst health care workers (HCW) which adversely affect the mortality and morbidity despite antimicrobial therapy and advances in supportive care. Today over 1.4 billon people worldwide are suffering from HCAI. Although the role of the hand and nasal flora of HCW in the development of HCAI has been less evaluated by studies. The proper handling and disposal of bio-medical waste (BMW) ensures proper hospital hygiene and safety of the HCW. Due to improper waste management there are potential risks of the spread of pathogens causing HCAI. The aims of this study is to determine the presence of potentially pathogenic micro organisms in the collected hand and nasal swab samples from HCWs and to establish a link between pathogenic micro organisms of hand and nose from HCW, HCAI and BMW practices. A 3 months pilot study was conducted over 100 randomly selected HCW shows MSSA is the most common isolate from their hand and nose swabs and also the most common pathogen isolated from the different waste bins from different wards.