Infection SECTION

Aims and Missions

• Develop educational tools to improve the prescription of antibiotics in critically ill patients. The Section endorsed a practical version of the PACT module. Improve the link with infection groups of other European (e.g. ESCMID, ERS) and American societies (SCCM, CHEST, ATS) or other Sections (Nursing, Sepsis, Peri-operative intensive care) of the Society. This leadership is an opportunity to develop the mission of the group and to increase their visibility.
• Develop cooperative research activities between members of the Section.
• Develop actions to better manage and prevent ventilator-associated pneumonia, the major cause of nosocomial infection in the ICU.

 The infection section has a working group on Pneumonia that was officially approved in November 2007 by the ESICM (see below) 

Chair and deputy 
George Dimopulos - Athens, Greece 

Jordi Rello - Tarragona, Spain

Membership

There are currently 70 voting members and 1254 registered members. Only the voting members of the Section may elect the chair and the deputy. Should you wish to be one of the members of this Section or wish to change your Section registration? Please email ESICM.
 

Activities 

A primary goal of the Section is to develop actions on education and research able to facilitate the early diagnosis of infections and to lead to an adequate and appropriate use of antibiotics improving the outcome in critically ill patients. With the above actions we seek also to develop collaboration with other Societies, the pharmaceutical industry and other stakeholders for educational initiatives.

During the annual meeting of our Society we have regularly a number of Thematic Sessions, Pro-Con Debates, Continuous Professional Development and Competency Teaching Sessions while in collaboration with other Sections we organize multithematic post-graduate courses. A round table on “Difficult infections in the ICU” 
in conjunction with the ESCMID has been held in Helsinki during the last annual meeting of ECCMID.  The number of abstracts related to the infection Section regularly increased over the last years

A significant number of research activities is ongoing or completed. A European survey on oral care for intubated patients has been reported during the meeting of LIsbon, the 'EU-VAP project' (an epidemiologic study involving 3-5 sites per country, launched in October 2005) is completed while a second research project the EU-VAP 2 and the CAPUCCI study (responsible leader J Rello) are endorsed by ECCRN.  A new project named “Euro-BACT” (leading by Jean-François Timsit)  is already ongoing. This  prevalence study is focused on bactereamias and a significant number of European ICUs are registered to participate. Another project called  Euro-PK, a study focused on Pk/Pds of antibiotics used in the ICU (leading by J Lippman and G Dimopoulos) is scheduled to start early in 2010.

Pneumonia, either community-acquired or nosocomial (VAP) is of high priority for our section. A thematic session on what is new in pneumonia is organized in each congress. Competency-based sessions on management of diagnosis, empiric therapy and de-escalation are stimulated. We follow the rule that pneumonia is a global challenge with local responses. An European approach to the management of pneumonia is visualized as part of the leadership of our Society. A PACT module on Severe infection is now available.

We encourage you to participate in the Section activities and will be delighted to welcome you.

Meetings agenda and minutes 

 The next section meeting will be held on Monday October 3rd, 2011 from 7.30 to 9.30 in room BM7 during the 24th ESICM LIVES, 1-5 October 2011, at the ICC Berlin.