Background. Antimicrobial resistance has not received the necessary attention it deserves in Africa. While many developed countries have successfully established antimicrobial stewardship programmes in hospital settings, several limited resource countries, including Ghana continue to struggle with getting stewardship programmes up and running. The Infection Prevention and Control team (IPC) and...

Background Delayed pathogen identification and nonspecific clinical findings make definitive decisions regarding antibiotics challenging. The stimuli of bacterial toxins and inflammation make procalcitonin (PCT) unique in its ability to differentiate bacterial infection from other causes of inflammation, and thus it is useful for antibiotic management. The objective of our study was to evaluate...

Antimicrobial resistance is occurring everywhere in the world, compromising our ability to treat infectious diseases, as well as undermining many other advances in health and medicine, including complex surgical procedures.1 In response to the recognition of this rapidly emerging crisis, the UK Government commissioned the “Review on Antimicrobial Resistance” which concluded2 that ‘more consumpt...

Despite increasing concerns regarding the need to optimize appropriate antibiotic use in hospitals, a standardized method for evaluating interinstitutional antibiotic use has not been developed. To address this issue, antibiotic use was analyzed by means of a uniform methodology among 14 acute-care hospitals. Data were standardized by use of a defined daily dose for each antibiotic while adjust...

Invasive fungal infections (IFIs) are among the life-threatening issues in patients with impaired immune system. High administration of antifungals in these patients imposes a heavy economic burden on the national health system. In addition, despite the usually expensive antifungal regimens, the mortality rate due to fungal infections is still high, resulting in the loss of hundreds of lives pe...