Wockhardt Hospitals, a reputed chain of tertiary care super specialty hospitals at Mira Road conducted its 4th edition of its annual conclave on Infection Control in Mumbai between December 3 and 4, 2016.

During the 2-day conclave conducted in association with Indian Medical Association (IMA) -Mira Road Bhyandar and Association of Medical Consultants (AMC), industry experts from across the country delivered lectures on the importance of hospital infection prevention and control initiatives.

The 2 day event saw participation from over 450 clinicians, nurses and hospital administrators from various hospitals of Mumbai region and other cities like Nagpur, Surat, Rajkot, Ahmedabad, Chennai, Hyderabad, Nashik etc. The conclave focused on a range of topics on infection prevention which will be useful to clinicians, nurses and hospital administrators.

The conclave was inaugurated by Zahabiya Khorakiwala, managing director, Wockhardt Hospitals, in the presence of senior leadership of Wockhardt Hospitals - Anupam Verma, president, and Dr. Clive Fernandes, Group Clinical Director along with Dr BK Rana, CEO In charge, NABH, Quality Council of India (QCI) and Dr. Girdhar Gyani, director general, Association of Healthcare Providers (India) and the IMA -Mira Road Bhayandar President Dr. Rajiv Agarwal.

Sessions were delivered by industry experts in infection control from across the country, that included speakers from Apollo Hospital Chennai, Breach Candy Hospital Mumbai, Columbia Asia Hospital Pune, DM Aster Hospital Bangalore, Global Hospital Chennai, Kokilaben Dhirubhai Ambani Hospital, Manipal Hospital Bangalore, Orange City Hospital Nagpur, Shalby Hospital Ahmedabad and Wockhardt Hospitals.

Zahabiya Khorakiwala, managing director, Wockhardt Hospitals, in her address, stressed upon the need for spreading awareness about good practices for infection prevention and control. She said – “When patients come to address their underlying problems, it is our responsibility to take measures that will ensure patient safety through good practices for preventing and controlling infections.”

Dr. Clive Fernandes, Group Clinical Director, Wockhardt Hospitals commented saying, “This is our 4th annual conclave and we intend to continue sharing some of the best industry practices suggested by industry experts in these subjects to address issues in infection control and prevention with our community hospitals and institutes. We also arranged for workshops and panel discussions to improve understanding of our participants.”

A wide range of topics were covered at the conclave including quality improvement in infection control, airborne infection control such as Flu and Tuberculosis as well as infection control in Haemodialysis units, in wound management, in cancer care, etc were conducted.

It was discussed during the event that the proportion of injections given by syringes reused without sterilization ranges from 1.5% - 69.4% in developing countries. In some parts of the world, up to 96% of people seeking primary health care receive injections, of which over 70% are unnecessary or could be replaced by an oral formulation.

In 2000 alone, reuse of contaminated syringes in developing countries caused an estimated 21 million hepatitis B virus infections (33% of new infections), 2 million hepatitis C infections (40% of new infections), and 96 000 HIV infections (2% of new infections).