¹ A 2025 modelling study showed that risk-based targeted hospital interventions—such as PCR testing with isolation and pre-emptive isolation of high-risk patients—could reduce MRSA infections by up to 46.2% and CRE infections by 22.2%; these strategies were also found to be cost-effective, yielding up to $290 million in savings at the national scale in Chile (Allel et al., 2025).

Allel, K., Garcia, P., Peters, A., Munita, J., Undurraga, E.A. and Yakob, L., 2025. Cost-effectiveness of screening, decolonisation and isolation strategies for carbapenem-resistant Enterobacterales and methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus infections in hospitals: a sex-stratified mathematical modelling study. The Lancet Regional Health–Americas, 43. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.lana.2025.101019

² A global overview highlights healthcare-associated infections as one of the most common and severe threats to patient safety, affecting hundreds of millions of patients annually. It notes their substantial impact on morbidity, mortality, and healthcare costs across both high- and low-income settings (Haque et al., 2018).

Haque, M., Sartelli, M., McKimm, J. and Bakar, M.A., 2018. Health care-associated infections–an overview. Infection and drug resistance, pp.2321-2333. https://doi.org/10.2147/IDR.S177247

³ The World Health Organization reports that approximately 10% of hospitalised patients are affected by healthcare-associated infections, with rates significantly higher in low- and middle-income countries and in high-risk settings such as intensive care units (WHO, 2024). Supporting this, a systematic review by Allegranzi et al. found healthcare-associated infections prevalence rates up to 15.5% among hospitalised patients, and over 30% in adult intensive care units in developing countries (Allegranzi et al., 2011).

World Health Organization (WHO), 2024. Key facts and figures – World Hand Hygiene Day. [online] Available at: https://www.who.int/campaigns/world-hand-hygiene-day/key-facts-and-figures [Accessed 21 July 2025].

Allegranzi, B., Nejad, S.B., Combescure, C., Graafmans, W., Attar, H., Donaldson, L. and Pittet, D., 2011. Burden of endemic health-care-associated infection in developing countries: systematic review and meta-analysis. The Lancet, 377(9761), pp.228-241. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(10)61458-4

⁴ A large UK prospective incidence study using found that HAIs increase hospital stay by an average of 7.8 days (Stewart et al., 2021).

Stewart, S., Robertson, C., Pan, J., Kennedy, S., Haahr, L., Manoukian, S., Mason, H., Kavanagh, K., Graves, N., Dancer, S.J. and Cook, B., 2021. Impact of healthcare-associated infection on length of stay. Journal of Hospital Infection, 114, pp.23-31. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jhin.2021.02.026

⁵ Surveillance data from the United States show 33.6% of Klebsiella spp., 28.6% of Pseudomonas aeruginosa, and 43.6% of Staphylococcus aureus isolates from adult HCAIs were resistant to carbapenems or methicillin (Weiner-Lastinger et al., 2020).

Weiner-Lastinger, L.M., Abner, S., Edwards, J.R., Kallen, A.J., Karlsson, M., Magill, S.S., Pollock, D., See, I., Soe, M.M., Walters, M.S. and Dudeck, M.A., 2020. Antimicrobial-resistant pathogens associated with adult healthcare-associated infections: summary of data reported to the National Healthcare Safety Network, 2015–2017. Infection Control & Hospital Epidemiology, 41(1), pp.1-18. https://doi.org/10.1017/ice.2019.296

⁶ AMR-related infections are associated with significantly higher mortality rates, with projections estimating 10 million annual deaths by 2050 if left unaddressed (Naghavi et al., 2024).

Naghavi, M., Vollset, S.E., Ikuta, K.S., Swetschinski, L.R., Gray, A.P., Wool, E.E., Aguilar, G.R., Mestrovic, T., Smith, G., Han, C. and Hsu, R.L., 2024. Global burden of bacterial antimicrobial resistance 1990–2021: a systematic analysis with forecasts to 2050. The Lancet, 404(10459), pp.1199-1226. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(24)01867-1

⁷ The total annual economic burden of healthcare-associated infections in the United States is estimated to be as high as $45 billion (Stone, 2009).

Stone, P.W., 2009. Economic burden of healthcare-associated infections: an American perspective. Expert review of pharmacoeconomics & outcomes research, 9(5), pp.417-422. https://doi.org/10.1586/erp.09.53

⁸ An estimated 5 million healthcare-associatd infections occur each year in European acute care hospitals, resulting in 25 million excess hospital days and an economic burden of €13–24 billion (Umscheid et al., 2011).

Umscheid, C.A., Mitchell, M.D., Doshi, J.A., Agarwal, R., Williams, K. and Brennan, P.J., 2011. Estimating the proportion of healthcare-associated infections that are reasonably preventable and the related mortality and costs. In: Healthcare-associated Infection (HAI) Prevention. [online] National Center for Biotechnology Information (US). Available at: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK144030/ [Accessed 21 July 2025].

⁹ A retrospective analysis of nosocomial outbreaks in high-income countries reported that the total cost of a single outbreak could exceed $1 million, driven by extended hospital stays, ward closures, and infection control measures (Otter et al., 2017).

Otter, J.A., Burgess, P., Davies, F., Mookerjee, S., Singleton, J., Gilchrist, M., Parsons, D., Brannigan, E.T., Robotham, J. and Holmes, A.H., 2017. Counting the cost of an outbreak of carbapenemase-producing Enterobacteriaceae: an economic evaluation from a hospital perspective. Clinical Microbiology and Infection, 23(3), pp.188-196. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cmi.2016.10.005


¹⁰ According to WHO, infection prevention and control interventions are proven to reduce healthcare-associated infections and antimicrobial resistance by 35–70%, and are cost-saving across all income settings (WHO, 2024).

World Health Organization (WHO), 2024. Key facts and figures – World Hand Hygiene Day. [online] Available at: https://www.who.int/campaigns/world-hand-hygiene-day/key-facts-and-figures [Accessed 21 July 2025].