Assignment

Write a short paper on a hospital-acquired infection. The paper can be accomplished in about 5 double-spaced pages, not including the cover page or citations. Your paper should cohesively discuss the following topics.

Pathogen Features

• What structural features does it have?

• What important groups does the microbe belong to? For example

o If it is a bacterium is it Gram-positive, Gram-negative, or neither? 

o If it is a virus what type of capsid or envelope does it have? What sort of genome does it have, and how does it protect itself from harsh environments?

o If it is a eukaryote; in which category does it belong? 

Medical Importance

• How common are outbreaks and how severe are the outbreaks?

• How many people does the pathogen kill each year? 

• What challenges does this cause for healthcare providers?

Patient Complications

• What disease does the pathogen cause? 

• Which organ systems/tissues does the pathogen infect? 

• What signs are observed by medical providers and symptoms experienced by the patient?

• What are the risk factors for being infected by this microbe?

Pathogenicity and virulence

• What is the microbes’ portal of entry and portal of exit? 

• How does the microbe damage the patient? 

o Describe several virulence factors and the effects of the virulence factors associated with the microbe. For example, some bacteria produce toxins that cause cell death. In other cases, the pathogen may not be very harmful by itself, but the immune system damages the patient in an attempt to remove it. 

• How is it transmitted to new hosts? For example, many food-borne pathogens are transmitted by fecal-to-oral contamination.

Prevention

• How do you stop the spread of this microbial infection? 

• What hospital practices are used to keep it from infecting patients? 

• How effective are these practices, and how might they be improved?

Treatment

• How do you help patients with this infection? 

• Which drugs or procedures are commonly used? For example, infections that cause an overreaction of the immune system might be treated with anti-inflammatory drugs. Thoroughly explain the mechanisms for these methods of treatment.

Common Hospital Acquired Infections

You can choose from the following pathogens, some of which you may have already encountered if you work in a healthcare environment. If you want to use a pathogen that is not on this list, check with me and we might be able to add it.

Viruses: Hepatitis B, Influenza, Norovirus, Rotavirus

Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) Varicella-Zoster Virus (VZV)

Bacteria

Clostridium sordellii, Enterococcus faecalis, Enterococcus faecium Escherichia coli 

Haemophilus influenzae Klebsiella pneumoniae Legionella pneumophila Mycobacterium abscessus, Mycobacterium tuberculosis Pseudomonas aeruginosa Pseudomonas fluorescens Staphylococcus aureus Staphylococcus epidermidis Staphylococcus hominis

Stenotrophomonas maltophilia