Neonatal nosocomial infection surveillance: Incidences by site and a cluster of necrotizing enterocolitis

Nosocomial infection (NI) was prospectively studied in hospitalized neonate s during a to-month period,The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) criteria ( some specified for neonates) were used for surveillance. Forty-nine of 677 infants experienced 73 episodes of NI. The overall incidence was 10.8 NI/10 0 patients and 6.5 NI/1,000 patient days. The average monthly NI number did not correlate with patient load,Very low birth weight (VLBW) infants showe d a higher NI incidence (81.8 NI/100 patients and 11.1 NI/1,000 patient day s), also elevated if adjusted for their inherently longer neonatal intensiv e care unit (NICU) stay. The most common NI sites in the VLBW stratum were sepsis and necrotizing enterocolitis (NEC), the latter occurring in a seaso nal cluster. It can be concluded that surveillance for NIs should focus on VLBW infants a nd include the evaluation of NEC, as it behaves like a nosoc omial disease.