68-5

19/120

Nosocomial is a term used to describe any infection, disease or condition that originated in hospital. Ultimately, this means that a patient was admitted to hospital for one thing and is then afflicted by something else. It is an issue that people around the world have come to be increasingly aware of in recent years with the rise of more resistant bugs, such as methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) and multi-drug resistant Pseudomonas aeruginosa (MDRPA).Figure 2　New countermeasures against nosocomial infection469A team of researchers based within the Department of Pediatrics at Juntendo University is investigating the efficacy and safety of chlorine dioxide against nosocomial infection to help develop improved infection countermeasures38 www.impact.pubOne example of a condition that can occur in patients who have been admitted to hospital is nosocomial pneumonia, which is a type of pneumonia that develops in patients around 48 hours after admission. Unfortunately, this form of pneumonia has a high mortality rate and occurs in a surprisingly large number of patients. For these reasons, researchers are intent on finding new and improved means of preventing nosocomial pneumonia from occurring, but also helping to develop treatments that help combat it in those incidents where it does occur.One of the chief means of preventing nosocomial pneumonia (and the prevalence of MRSA and MDRPA) is through improving the sanitary conditions of hospitals, where the building undergoes extremely stringent disinfection and cleaning. However, in many ways, this is an uphill battle, as many infections are transmitted through droplets in the air (as we have seen with the recent COVID-19 pandemic), which are extremely difficult to combat, especially when the main preventive method is cleaning surfaces.NOVEL AVENUES EXPLOREDIt is with these challenges in mind that Professor Kaoru Obinata has embarked on a project employing a novel technique to combat nosocomial pneumonia and other conditions contracted in hospital. Based within the Department of Pediatrics at Juntendo University in Japan, Obinata leads a team that is exploring the safe and effective application of chlorine dioxide in medical settings. ‘The novel element of the project comes from the fact that, in high concentrations, chlorine dioxide is toxic and can burn and/or severely irritate the skin and eyes of human beings, so it would not be an obvious avenue for exploration - especially in hospital patients, but from our perspective New countermeasures against nosocomial infections