Hospital-acquired Covid cases up 75% in year to July

The number of people who contracted Covid-19 while in hospital in the first seven months of the year was 75 per cent higher than during the whole of last year, new figures from the Health Service Executive (HSE) show.

In all, there were 5,762 cases of hospital-acquired Covid between January and July 2022, compared with 3,280 between January 1st and December 31st, 2021.

Beaumont Hospital in Dublin has had the highest number of hospital-acquired cases this year so far at 509, followed by St Vincent’s University Hospital at 444, and University Hospital Limerick at 418.

Six hospitals were recorded as having greater than or equal to five cases, which is a measurement used to protect the privacy of patients when only a small number of cases are identified.

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Children’s hospitals

They were: the National Orthopaedic Hospital Cappagh, Royal Victoria Eye and Ear Hospital, the Rotunda Hospital, Cork University Maternity Hospital, Kilcreene Regional Orthopaedic Hospital and Croom Orthopaedic Hospital.

Children’s hospitals in general had a much lower level of hospital-acquired infection, with 24 cases reported from the three Children’s Health Ireland hospitals.

However, that is still higher than the total number reported in 2021, during which time only two cases were recorded.

Dr Eimear Brannigan, the HSE’s clinical lead for antimicrobial resistance and infection control, said spring of this year was a “very difficult period for the system” due to the high levels of transmission in hospitals.

Community transmission

“When there’s an increase in community transmission, that knocks on to hospital transmission too. In addition to that too, we had the more transmissible variant,” she said.

Dr Susie Frost, consultant microbiologist at the Health Protection Surveillance Centre (HPSC), said the return of visitors, while welcome and necessary, is another contributor.

“We do not want to go back to the days of no visitors, but we track all our outbreaks. We put a lot of effort into how they started, how they spread. We see quite a lot of visitors coming in,” she said.

“We are also seeing staff are allowed to have normal lives again. They can go out to dinner, they can go out to nightclubs, they are acquiring it outside of work. And then we are just back to being really busy. Overcrowding is back, there’s no doubt about it.”