At IP2021, experts highlighted the need to re-focus on core IP&C issues. While it is important to learn lessons from the pandemic, we also need to view IP&C through a ‘new lens’ and consider the fundamentals of nursing care.
The Infection Prevention Society (IPS) recently hosted its first face-to-face congress since the start of the pandemic. This year’s event was set to be a poignant one, marking the beginning of a return to a new ‘normal’, and prompting discussion on how we should “move forward”. Opening the conference, IPS president, Professor Jennie Wilson, described the moment as “emotional”.
She acknowledged the impact of the pandemic has had, and that many will have lost loved ones. As far back as 2011, the WHO warned that the World was “ill prepared to respond to a severe influenza pandemic or to any similarly global, sustained and threatening public-health emergency”. Despite WHO’s warning going unheeded, there have also been some extraordinary achievements in tackling the pandemic.
Prof. Wilson went on to highlight the pioneering work that has been undertaken in developing several effective vaccines, at an incredible speed, to fight the virus. The vaccines offer around 90% protection against mortality and just 0.5% of deaths due to COVID occurred in fully vaccinated people (Jan-July 2021). Vaccination is also 90% effective against hospitalisation. Prof. Wilson praised the huge efforts of the researchers but warned that there is still work to be done.
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