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UFS experts give presentations on hospital-acquired infections at Africa Health

09 November 2023 | Story André Damons | Photo SUPPLIED

It was recently discovered that bacteria are capable of growing inside bottles of disinfectants, hand sanitisers and antiseptics. These cleaning products, which are actively used in South African hospitals, are doing more harm than good by contaminating the environment they are designed to clean. Upon testing, some of these contaminated bottles harbouring harmful microorganisms were still actively in use in hospitals and instead of killing microorganisms, the contaminated cleaning solutions were spreading pathogens throughout the hospital with their use.

This is according to Samantha Mc Carlie from the Department of Microbiology and Biochemistry at the University of the Free State (UFS). She, with her promotor, Prof Robert Bragg, were part of a workshop at the Africa Health Exhibition – the biggest gathering of health care professionals in South Africa and Africa. This was held at Gallagher Estate, Midrand, from 17 to 19 October 2023.

Increasing mortalities in health-care setting

In a workshop titled: “Developing and sustaining safe health-care environments”, they were part of the main presenting panel, together with Caroline Bilen from the Compass Health Consultancy in Dubai

Prof Bragg, whose main research is in disease-control, first in the agricultural industry, and now human health, started off the session by highlighting the problems with the increasing mortalities in the health-care setting. He presented data indicating that in the not too distant future, deaths from hospital-acquired infections would be the leading cause of human deaths. “This problem is rapidly growing as most of the pathogens which people contract while in hospital are now resistant to antibiotics, making them very difficult to treat,” he explained.

He used an analogy from San Tzu from the book The Art of War to explain why humankind is losing the war against the microbes. “San Tzu stated that if you know yourself and know your enemy, you will be victorious in every battle. On the other hand, if you do not know yourself or the enemy, you will be defeated in every battle. He pointed out that we do not know the enemy and we do know ourselves (or rather the weapons we have to defeat the enemy) and for this reason we are being defeated,” according to Prof Bragg.

He continued: “We know the names of the different pathogens causing diseases, but do we really understand them? The answer to that must be ‘no’. A typical example is people are using ethanol-based or chlorine-based products to disinfect and then they wonder why there are increasing problems with Clostridioides difficile infections. If we knew the enemy, we would know that this bacterium producers endospores and chlorine and ethanol-based disinfectants do not inactivate bacterial endospores, and so will not kill this bacterium,” said Prof Bragg.

He stated that a major concern for hospitals is that they are currently unaware of whether the disinfectants they are using are effective against the pathogens in their hospital. It is assumed that their cleaning products are working but no testing is being done.

Bacterial resistance to disinfectants

Mc Carlie, in her presentation, highlighted the development of bacterial resistance to disinfectants and why this is important in the health-care setting. She pointed out that the standards for the registration of disinfectant products is based on the use of reference strains of bacteria.

“Bacteria found in hospital environments often exhibit significantly greater resistance to disinfectant compounds compared to the standard strains used for product testing. The presence of these resistant bacteria can result in microbial growth and contamination within containers of disinfectants, hand sanitisers, and antiseptics intended for hospital cleaning purposes. Instead of effectively eliminating microorganisms, these contaminated products inadvertently spread these resilient bacteria throughout the hospital environment, contributing to overall contamination,” said Mc Carlie.

She also discussed the consequences of using incorrectly diluted disinfectant products at concentrations that will not be effective against resilient hospital pathogens.

Prof Bragg finished the session with a discussion on the solutions to the current problem and highlighted the need for a paradigm shift in medicine. “The current paradigm, since the discovery of antibiotics, has been treatment. As we are entering into a post-antibiotic era, this paradigm of treatment needs to change to one of ‘prevention’. The old saying ‘Prevention is better than cure’ has never been more true.”

He concluded by discussing various options which could be used when focus is placed on biosecurity for the prevention of hospital-acquired infection; including the installation of UV lights, monitoring of the laundry process, correct disinfecting of surfaces, using products with proven efficacy against the pathogens isolated from the different health-care setting and finally, the use of antimicrobial bedside privacy curtains.

The workshop ended with a panel discussion on biosecurity and the efforts needed to reduce the ever-increasing numbers of hospital-acquired infections. It is hoped that the message of this workshop will have a significant impact on the reduction of hospital acquired infections.

Click to view document Prof Bragg's presentation.

Click to view document Mc Carlie's presentation.

News Archive

UFS awards honorary doctorate to global peace ambassador Dr Lakhdar Brahimi

2015-07-07

Professor Heidi Hudson, Director of the Centre for Africa Studies at the UFS and Dr Lakhdar Brahimi.
Photo: Mike Rose from Mike Rose Photography

The Faculty of the Humanities and Centre for Africa Studies rewarded the contributions of Dr Lakhdar Brahimi, a prominent global peace leader, with an honorary doctorate on Thursday 2 July 2015.

The conferment formed one of the highlights of the 2015 Winter Graduations. Dr Brahimi’s work as a United Nations’ (UN) envoy, and African peace leader of note, was deeply respected by the university. Professor Heidi Hudson, Director of the Centre for Africa Studies at the UFS, accepted the PhD on his behalf.

In his acceptance speech, read by Prof Hudson at the Chancellor’s Dinner the same evening, Dr Brahimi expressed his gratitude to the university. “I deeply appreciate your generous recognition, and even now, in the twilight years of my life, I shall try to be worthy of your confidence in everything I say or do.”

“My generation did its share: its successes and its failures are things of the past. We must accept to be judged by you, the graduates. You, the young graduates here at the University of the Free State, and your fellow members of the African intellectual elite, have an exciting opportunity to take on the challenges and fulfil the dreams you have. We must accept to be judged by you.”

Algerian-born Dr Brahimi was first involved with the UN in 1992 as rapporteur to the Earth Summit. Distinctively, he is the most-frequently appointed special envoy of the UN. Amongst many other countries, he has worked as a mediator for South Africa, Haiti, Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Democratic Republic of Congo, Cameroon, Burundi, Angola, Liberia, Nigeria, Sudan, and Côte d’Ivoire on behalf of the UN.

Significant peacekeeping efforts in South Africa (1993- 1994)

The ambassador– in his capacity as special representative to South Africa from December 1993 to June 1994 –played a direct role in South Africa’s democratic transition.

Prof Hudson expressed appreciation for the ambassador’s role in facilitating a peaceful transition from South Africa’s Nationalist government into the current democratic dispensation.

“One of the reasons we selected him as recipient of the honorary doctorate, is because of what he did for the African continent,” she said.

In addition, she commented Dr Brahimi for being a living testament of Ubuntu. “He has displayed an ethic of humanism in everything that he has done, in the way that he has mediated in certain conflicts - his main contribution is as a mediator.

According to Hudson, his humility, modesty, and generosity are the epitome of Ubuntu which states that “I am because we are.”

Dr Brahimi as a global peace practitioner

Dr Brahimi served as Undersecretary-General of the Arab League, Arab League Special Envoy for Lebanon, and Foreign Minister of Algeria.

The UN Peace-building Commission was established as a result of recommendations in his2000 Report of the Panel on United Nations Peace Operations (Brahimi Report).

Since 2007, Dr Brahimi has been a member in The Elders - an alliance chaired by Kofi Annan -of peace and human rights advocates including Desmond Tutu, Graça Machel, Mary Robinson, and Jimmy Carter. His passion for justice led to his membership in the Commission on Legal Empowerment of the Poor.

In 2010, he was Laureate of the Special Jury Prize for Conflict Prevention, awarded by the Chirac Foundation (France), which promotes international peace and security.

Dr Brahimi’s influence in Peace Education

The Brahimi Report has had an indelible impact on scholars specialising in the broad field of peace operations. Dr Brahimi’s writings have also contributed to knowledge on post-conflict reconstruction and development (PCRD), a signification part of the African Union’s narrative.

He is a distinguished senior fellow at the Centre for the Study of Global Governance at the London School of Economics. He has taught a postgraduate course on Conflict Resolution at Sciences Po, Paris (2011); is Andrew D. White Professor-at-Large at Cornell University; and is affiliated to the Institute for Advanced Studies at Princeton, where he was a visiting professor from 2006 to 2008.

In addition, Dr Brahimi is a founding member of the French-language Journal of Palestine Studies, and a board member of the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute.

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