Is infection control an academic study?
Burnie JP Department of Medical Microbiology, Manchester Royal Infirmary. This editorial aims to answer the question of whether infection control is an academic specialty. By considering the consequences of a lack of infection control in terms of patient morbidity and mortality and hence cost, it is easy to establish the importance of the area. Infection control embraces not only developing policies for preventing the physical spread of a micro-organism but also prophylactic therapy such as vaccination and therapeutic measures such as antibiotics. Infection control not only applies to localized infection in hospital due to antibiotic resistant microbes but also to the community. Bacteria such as Helicobacter pylori and Chlamydia pneumoniae and the viruses hepatitis B, hepatitis C, human lymphotropic virus type 1, Epstein-Barr viruses and human papilloma virus have been implicated in diseases not previously thought to have an infectious origin. Coping with these problems is clearly an a
