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A consecutive series of 84 patients operated by the same surgical team was studied in order to identify risk factors for post operative infection. Female sex and longer antibiotic prophylaxis were significantly associated with higher infection risk; the risk of dying of infection was more pronounced with infected men than with infected women. Diabetes, undernutrition, low albumin serum level in the first or in the fifth day post-operatively, asthma or pneumonia in the past did not correlate with infectious risk, as well as use of antibiotic before surgery or longer hospitalization before surgery.

The vaccination program against hepatitis B at the hospital of the "Real Sociedade Portuguesa de Beneficiência" in São Paulo was carried out successfully. Out of 554 persons that received the initial 3 vaccine doses 520 completed the program (93.86%) which is an achievement comparable to the best ones of the published series. Since the anti hepatitis B vaccine is expensive we feel that it should be given only to the hospital employees for whom we have a certain guarantee that they will complete the program. Our good results were possible only because we vaccinated only persons having stable relationship with the hospital and because the vaccination was carried out in the hospital during the working hours.

A seven year analysis with established adequate methods of reporting and confirming hospital acquired infections shows a surprising statistically significant relationship between the frequency of hospital acquired infections and the number of infected patients admitted to this hospital: hospital acquired infections comprised 2% to 3.7% of all admissions, and patients already infected admitted were 5.3% to 8.4%. Surgical wound infections were the most frequent acquired infections. Followed by respiratory infections and urinary tract infections. During the 7 years period there was a very pronounced drop in the number of cases with infectious diseases acquired inside the hospital and a fall in infections acquired after cardiac surgery.