Ultra Violet (UV) Light Irradiation Device for Hospital Disinfection: Hospital Acquired Infections Control

1. Introduction

Hospital acquired infections (HAIs) are among the topmost global avoidable health risk that had contributed to millions death and billion expenditures yearly within the healthcare sector (Matthew et al., 2021). The HAIs continued to dominate the public health sector wearisomeness, resulting into severe complications and the outcomes are generally disastrous with consequential loss of human life and unquantifiable resource wastages (Gottrup et al., 2013). The worldwide infection prevention and pandemic control measures have become the topmost priority of the healthcare establishments and institutional management for HAIs, in improving quality of care, patient safety and society good health sustainability (Zimlichman et al., 2013). The ultimate goal of the global healthcare system is to ensure that every patient recovers from whatever health challenges that brought them to the hospital (Borkowski & Meese, 2020). In achieving those objectives, the healthcare systems need to articulate a comprehensive safety environment which the combined emphasis must shift away from patient treatment to outright disease prevention and prompt interventions (Organization, 2017). The stakeholders must be mobilized to respond to the trends and embrace the smart healthcare conveyance toward sustainable digital healthcare future. The global healthcare reform must be comprehensively established towards driving changes in the sector and laying a solid foundation for the development of healthcare services (Tao et al., 2020). The HAIs are conventionally categorized among the infections acquired in hospital premises by patients who were customarily admitted for a reason unrelated to the acquired infection while in the hospital environment (Gesser-Edelsburg et al., 2018). The scenario described the infection happening in patients in the healthcare facility in which the infection was not observable or readily incubating as at the time of hospital admittance (Organization, 2002).

Notwithstanding the progresses made in the public healthcare, infections had continued to multiply among the hospitalized patients and that equally had affected the hospital employees who are at the forefront of the healthcare delivery. Countless factors had contributed to the infection spread among the hospitalized patients such as diminished immunity among the patients, the clinical procedures and relatively invasive techniques which had created chances for infection and administering drug-resistant bacteria among the overcrowded hospital populaces, where susceptibility of infection transmission are extremely high (Wu et al., 2020). The HAIs otherwise regarded as Nosocomial infections happen globally which had disturbed both industrialized and developing countries of the world. The Nosocomial infections are among the major foundations of death and compounded morbidity between the hospitalized patients (B Carter et al., 2020). In a certain investigation conducted under the supervision of World Health Organization (WHO), in the 55 hospitals of the 14 countries representing 4 WHO Regions, the South-East Asia, Europe, Western Pacific and Eastern Mediterranean indicated that an average of 8.7 percent of hospital patients have nosocomial infections (Organization, 2002).