Participants were reminded of the remarks of Markos Kyprianou, European Commissioner for Health, on the First European Communicable Disease Epidemiological Report 2007, in which he states that there are approximately three million HCAIs in the European Union each year, and that one in ten patients who receives hospital treatment acquires a HCAI.
Held in the European Parliament and supported and co-hosted by Liz Lynne MEP (UK, ALDE) and Avril Doyle MEP (Ireland, EPP-ED), the event highlighted the increasingly prevalent incidences of HCAIs and the enormous drain on national health budgets. Mary Banotti, Honorary President of Health First Europe, stressed that "patients who contract HCAIs such as MRSA are much more likely to die as those who don't and will spend on average about three times longer in hospital. This is just not acceptable."
Avril Doyle, MEP added: "National governments quite rightly invest time and resources in preparing contingency plans for a potential avian flu pandemic, but they are not doing nearly enough to address the existing pandemic of HCAIs, which is killing 50,000 people per year."
Liz Lynne MEP, Vice-Chair of the European Parliament Social Affairs Committee, will continue to urge her Committee when it convenes in late October to prioritise HCAIs in relation to health and safety at work and emphasise that they present unacceptable occupational risks to care homes and hospitals.
She said: "There is an enormous disparity in the level of HCAIs across the EU. The same level of protection should be available wherever you are in the EU. We need to learn quickly from best practices in the EU and encourage universal implementation. The commission has an important role to play. We need to move urgently towards a European code of practice for the prevention and management of these infections."
Professor Gian Maria Rossolini of the Università di Siena in Italy added: "Studies have provided ample evidence that the HCAI crisis needs to be dealt with now. Politicians need to work with medical experts and institutions such as the World Health Organisation (WHO) and the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) to build synergies and share their best practice."
The European Commission stated that it is making strenuous efforts to listen to the experiences of experts and patients so that more can be done to tackle HCAIs. In addition, the ECDC informed delegates that it is hosting the Anti-Microbial Resistance Day in 2008 to help raise awareness of HCAIs and the need for clear and timely action. In addition, Health First Europe hopes that the European Commission's White Paper on Health, due to be published on 23 October, will also be sufficiently far-reaching to call for a White Paper specifically on HCAIs.
