Isolation rooms for highly infectious diseases: an inventory of capabilities in European countries.

Isolation of patients with highly infectious diseases (HIDs) in hospital rooms with adequate technical facilities is essential to reduce the risk of spreading disease. The European Network for Infectious Diseases (EUNID), a project co-funded by European Commission and involving 16 European Union member states, performed an inventory of high level isolation rooms (HIRs, hospital rooms with negative pressure and anteroom). In participating countries, HIRs are available in at least 211 hospitals, with at least 1789 hospital beds.

European concepts for the domestic transport of highly infectious patients.

Highly infectious diseases involve clinical syndromes ranging from single to multiorgan infections and pose a constant threat to the public. In the absence of a definite treatment for most causative agents, patients benefit from maximum supportive care as clinical conditions may deteriorate in the short term. Hence, following initial case identification and isolation, rapid transportation to a specialized treatment unit must be considered in order to minimize the risk of secondary infections, but this is limited by available infrastructure, accessible care en route and the patient's clinical condition.

EuroNHID checklists for the assessment of high-level isolation units and referral centres for highly infectious diseases: results from the pilot phase of a European survey.

Healthcare settings have been identified as preferential for the transmission of many agents causing highly infectious diseases (HIDs). Infection control procedures strongly reduce the risk of transmission of HIDs in hospital settings, when adequately applied. The main objective of the European Network for Highly Infectious Diseases (EuroNHID), a network co-funded by the European Commission, is to assess the current capabilities for dealing with HIDs in Europe, specifically in the context of infection control and healthcare worker (HCW) safety, through conducting an on-the-field survey of high-level isolation units (HLIUs)/referral centres for the management of HIDs in participating countries.