Surveillance of Healthcare-Associated Infections in Low- and Middle-Income Countries: From the Need to a Reality

Opinion Statement Surveillance of healthcare-associated infections (HAI) is a useful tool for prevention of HAI; however, in low- and middle-income countries, the implementation of HAI surveillance has many methodological and resources challenges. Some challenges are related to skilled and dedicated human resources to perform tasks; others are related to methodological issues such as HAI definition and diagnostic tests available, prioritization of infection to follow-up, data reporting methods, data quality and availability of analyzed information for decision-making. Lack of consistent and representative HAI data are hiding the real HAI problem and decreasing the chances to solve it. Countries should invest strongly to understand the real burden of HAI, and its costs in order to learn the best use of preventive measures available.