The Health Service Executive (HSE) has recruited about 40 nurses, pharmacists and scientists as part of an action plan aimed at reducing healthcare- acquired infection (HCAI) rates by 20 per cent.
The recruitment of a further 12 healthcare professionals is under way.
According to Dr Patrick Doorley, chairman of the National Infection Control Steering Committee, the HSE also hopes to reduce the prevalence of Methicillin Resistant Staphylococcal Aureus (MRSA) infection by 30 per cent and antibiotic prescribing - a major contributor to drug-resistant infection - by 20 per cent over a three- to five-year timeframe.
Dr Doorley, who is also national director of Population Health at the HSE, said that, from September, hospitals throughout the State will be obliged to report quarterly on how they are meeting a range of HCAI targets.
Specifically, each hospital will have to return data on antibiotic consumption, the use of hand gel, and MRSA bloodstream infections.
Data on the prevalence of MRSA in intensive care units (ICUs) will be gathered also.
The majority of the 21 infection control nurses, 20 pharmacists and 11 surveillance scientists recruited under the plan will begin work in the autumn.
"These targets are challenging," Dr Doorley said last night. "Healthcare-acquired infection has been around for years and is a problem that will not be solved overnight."
Emphasising that HCAI was a national priority for the HSE, he said: "We are supporting our hospitals but equally we are in a position to assess their performance and their success as they recruit new staff . . . and work towards specific targets."
Dr Doorley confirmed that public education campaigns on the issue later this year will focus on patient empowerment and antibiotic prescribing. The prescribing of antibiotics in the community here is about 20 per cent above European norms.
A survey of 7,500 patients carried out by the Hospital Infection Society last year found that the overall rate of HCAI in the Republic was 4.9 per cent.
Patients who had had recent surgery, those on ventilators and people requiring intravenous lines or urinary catheters were most at risk.
Some 37 patients found to have a HCAI were infected with MRSA, while 36 patients had a gut infection caused by Clostridium difficile.
Meanwhile, scientists at the Alimentary Pharmabiotic Centre at University College Cork and Teagasc's Moorepark Food Research Centre have found a substance that may form the basis for a future treatment against the Clostridium difficile bacteria, a major cause of hospital-acquired diarrhoea.
Lacticin 3147 is produced by a bacterium used by cheesemakers. According to the study in the current issue of the Journal of Medical Microbiology, lacticin is able to kill Clostridium difficile in contaminated faeces.