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The epidemiology of infections in ICUs has been well studied in North America and Europe but not in the rest of the world. To address this gap, an international team of investigators organized a single-day point-prevalence study in 1265 ICUs in 75 nations, using standardized definitions of infection.
On the selected study day (May 8, 2007), there were 13,796 adult patients in the participating ICUs, with 7087 (51%) classified as having infection. Seventy-one percent of all patients were receiving antibiotics (prophylactic or therapeutic). The most frequent sites of infections were the lungs (64%), abdomen (20%), bloodstream (15%), and urinary tract (14%). Gram-negative bacteria were present in 62% of positive microbial isolates, gram-positiv…