Impact of COVID-19 on bloodstream infections in ICUs: Report from Indian HAI surveillance network
Objectives: Blood stream infections (BSIs) are potentially fatal healthcare associated infections (HAIs). The COVID pandemic had a huge impact on hospital processes and health care outcomes. We studied the impact of COVID pandemic on the prevalence of ICU acquired BSIs in our established Indian HAI surveillance network. Material and methods: This study included adult patients from ICUs in AIIMS HAI network that conducted BSI surveillance in COVID and non-COVID ICUs during and before the pandemic periods. Of the 40 hospitals in the network, ICUs from 16 hospitals conducted HAI surveillance in COVID ICUs and were included for the purposes of this study. Hospitals identified BSI and reported clinical and microbiological data to the network as per established and previously published protocols. Results: A total of 1,863 events of BSI were identified during pre-pandemic and 2,571 events during pandemic period. During the pandemic, 557 (21.6%) were reported from COVID ICUs. The BSI rate during the pandemic was 8.9/1,000 patient days, and during pre-pandemic 5.4/1,000 patient days (P < 0.01). The central line associated BSI (CLABSI) rates increased from 9.2/1,000 central line days during the pre-pandemic period to 11.3/1,000 central line days during pandemic. Conclusion: An increase in BSIs during the COVID pandemic was observed, which may be attributed to increased susceptibility of the patients or suboptimal infection control practices in COVID ICUs.
Authors
- Ruchita Lohiya
- Sanjeev Lalwani (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7272-9579)
- Purva Mathu
- Hema Paul
- Khuraijam Ranjana Devi (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6199-3961)
- Rasna Parveen
- Aparna Sonowal
- Ashish Aggarwal (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2838-7409)
- Arpan Kumar Thakur (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7052-8351)
- Kamini Walia (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1494-6919)
- Tadepalli Karuna
- Mamta Puraswani
- Ujjwala Gaikwad (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9869-2839)
- Vidhi Jain (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0180-6175)
- S. N. Chatterji (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5291-1901)
- Shashank Purwar (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3542-2401)
- Sehrish Baqal
- Richa Aggarwal (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0237-0094)
- Jyoti Iravane
- M Naveen Varma (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2520-7249)
- Juliah Chelliah (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0009-0007-0933-6423)
- Zia Arshad (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1762-3493)
- Joy Sarojini Michael
- Balaji Veeraraghavan
- MA Thirunarayan
- Vibhor Tak
- Daisy Khera
- Sushma Sagar
- Neeraj Goel
- Manisha Biswal
- Anjali Shetty
- Gaurav Jain
- L. Chaoba Singh
- Sharad Srivastav
- Bashir Ahmad Fomda
- Vijay Sharma
- Vijayshri Deotale
- Kapil Devi Soni
- Pratima Gupta
- Puneet Kumar Gupta
- Kuldeep Singh
- Camilla Rodrigues
- Arunaloke Chakrabarti
- Padma Das
- Pallab Ray
- Sagar Khadanga
- Bijayini Behera
- Balram Ji Omar
- Vimala Venkatesh
- Sheetal Verma
- Vandana Ke
- Gaurav Goel
- Chiranjay Mukhopadhyay
- Yamunadevi V Ramanathan
- Chand Wattal
- Pradeep Bhatia
- Anudita Bhargava
- Ashoka Mahapatra
- Subodh Kumar
- Satyam Mukherjee
- Prakhar Sharma
- Vinay Kumar Hallur
- Kanne Padmaja
- Amber Prasad
- Sanjeev K. Singh
- Prasan Kumar Panda
- Raja Ray
- Neeraj Gupta
- Vijaya Lakshmi Nag
- Kamran Farooque
- Aparna Ningombam
- Sanjay Bhattacharya
Institutions
- Amrita Institute of Medical Sciences and Research Centre (IN)
- All India Institute of Medical Sciences Raipur (IN)
- Apollo Hospitals (IN)
- Nizam's Institute of Medical Sciences (IN)
- Christian Medical College, Vellore (IN)
- Sher-i-Kashmir Institute of Medical Sciences (IN)
- All India Institute of Medical Sciences Jodhpur (IN)
- P. D. Hinduja Hospital and Medical Research Centre (IN)
- King George's Medical University (IN)
- Indian Council of Medical Research (IN)
- Tata Medical Center (IN)
- Institute of Post Graduate Medical Education and Research (IN)
- All India Institute of Medical Sciences Bhopal (IN)
- Sir Ganga Ram Hospital (IN)
- All India Institute of Medical Sciences Bhubaneswar (IN)
- Government Medical College (IN)
- Regional Institute of Medical Sciences (IN)
- All India Institute of Medical Sciences Rishikesh (IN)
- Post Graduate Institute of Medical Education and Research (IN)
- All India Institute of Medical Sciences (IN)
- Kasturba Medical College, Manipal (IN)
- Assam Medical College (IN)
- Mahatma Gandhi Institute of Medical Sciences (IN)
Publication Details
- Journal
- Heliyon
- Published
- 2026-02-24
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.1016/j.heliyon.2026.e44623
- Primary Topic
- Antibiotic Use and Resistance
- Type
- article
- Field-Weighted Citation Impact
- 0.00