02 Oct How to Prevent and Control Infection

Knowing how to prevent and control infection is a duty on all people in society to protect our vulnerable members.  Older people, adults and children with serious conditions or undergoing cancer treatments are particularly at risk of infection.

All Healthcare staff  (including community homecare) receive regular training to inform them how they can keep people safe and how to protect themselves from infection.  The COVID-19 pandemic has shown us that stopping the spread of infection relies not just on health professionals, but everybody in society.  Thankfully, COVID-19 protocols such as cough etiquette, hand hygiene and social distancing are not difficult to practice and prevent transmission of other infections too.

Standard Precautions

These are the basic practices used when caring for people- the ‘how to prevent and control infection’ from spreading.  They include:

• Hand hygiene (handwashing and/or alcohol hand gel)
• Use of personal protective equipment (e.g., gloves, gowns, masks)
• Safe handling of potentially contaminated equipment or surfaces in the patient environment, and.
• Respiratory hygiene/cough etiquette.

Basic Hand Hygiene

Hand Hygiene is THE standard precaution key to protecting the transmission of infection in our community. You can find out more about protecting your loved ones with proper hand hygiene practices here.

Safe Use of Gloves

At the start of the outbreak, everyone was wearing gloves in the supermarkets etc.  People need to know about the correct use of gloves because they can actually increase the spread of infection if used incorrectly.  Therefore everyone needs to know basics about how to prevent and control infection.

Gloves do not replace the need for hand hygiene, proper hand hygiene is a key part of the infection control process when using gloves.

Transmission-Based Precautions

The next level after basic infection control is transmission-based precautions.  These are used as well as standard precautions in situations where people may be infected or colonized with certain infectious agents.  They are to prevent infection transmission.  These are grouped into:

• Contact Transmission – direct or indirect contact with an infected person.
• Droplet Transmission – coughing, sneezing or talking.
• Airborne Transmission- e.g. tuberculosis, measles,

Home care staff are trained in both standard precautions and transmission-based precautions.  We use them to suit the individual circumstances of the people in our care.

Get Vaccinated for Flu

The seasonal flu vaccine (flu jab) protects against several strains of flu virus which are most likely to be circulating this flu season (October to March).

The HSE recommends you should get the jab in October if  you:

• work in healthcare
• are a carer or live with someone who is at risk of flu because of a long-term health condition
• are a carer or live with someone who has Down syndrome

The HSE has detailed information here about the At-Risk groups and where you can get the flu jab.

Finally, if you have a sore throat or temperature click here to find out about other everyday illnesses like colds, coughs, earache and sore throats.