Reusable Gowns for routine use in hospital and laboratory: a necessity arising of COVID-19 Pandemic

COVID-19 pandemic caused by SARS-CoV-2 has started a paradigm shift in working in a hospital or laboratory and airborne precautions have become equally significant as universal blood and body fluid precautions. Use of PPE including surgical masks or N95FFR is becoming a norm and this has led to scarcity of PPE for healthcare workers. We have prepared gowns for healthcare and laboratory workers made from a reusable material and tested with various disinfectants and heat. The cloth could tolerate repeated exposures to heat, alcohol, hypochlorite and hydrogen peroxide, but was damaged by phenol. Since this impermeable material did not allow the air to pass, we used a cool vest made up of indigenous "Khadi" cloth with pockets containing phase change material. The cost of whole reusable assembly of gown and cap was Indian Rupees 250 (1USD=76INR). This can be used in healthcare workers in hospital and community as well as people in diagnostic and research laboratories as a cost effective PPE.

Assessment of core capacities for antimicrobial stewardship practices in indian hospitals: Report from a multicentric initiative of global health security agenda.

Introduction: Antimicrobial-resistant HAI (Healthcare associated infection) are a global challenge due to their impact on patient outcome. Implementation of antimicrobial stewardship programmes (AMSP) is needed at institutional and national levels. Assessment of core capacities for AMSP is an important starting point to initiate nationwide AMSP. We conducted an assessment of the core capacities for AMSP in a network of Indian hospitals, which are part of the Global Health Security Agenda-funded work on capacity building for AMR-HAIs. Subjects and Methods: The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's core assessment checklist was modified as per inputs received from the Indian network. The assessment tool was filled by twenty hospitals as a self-administered questionnaire. The results were entered into a database. The cumulative score for each question was generated as average percentage. The scores generated by the database were then used for analysis. Results and Conclusion: The hospitals included a mix of public and private sector hospitals. The network average of positive responses for leadership support was 45%, for accountability; the score was 53% and for key support for AMSP, 58%. Policies to support optimal antibiotic use were present in 59% of respondents, policies for procurement were present in 79% and broad interventions to improve antibiotic use were scored as 33%. A score of 52% was generated for prescription-specific interventions to improve antibiotic use. Written policies for antibiotic use for hospitalised patients and outpatients were present on an average in 72% and 48% conditions, respectively. Presence of process measures and outcome measures was scored at 40% and 49%, respectively, and feedback and education got a score of 53% and 40%, respectively. Thus, Indian hospitals can start with low-hanging fruits such as developing prescription policies, restricting the usage of high antibiotics, enforcing education and ultimately providing the much-needed leadership support.