Practice of standard precautions by Tunisian teaching hospital health care workers (HCW) within the COVID-19 epidemic in March 2020

Introduction: The current outbreak of the SARS-CoV-2 all over the world requires strengthening the practice of preventing measures particularly in healthcare settings. Standard Precautions (SP) are the minimum infection prevention practices designed to both protect and prevent from spreading infection among patients. Within this framework we aimed to assess the practice of standard precautions among healthcare workers (HCWs) in a tunisian teaching hospital over this outbreak in March 2020. Objectives: degree of compliance with standard precautions by health care workers and readness to face the Covid-19 epidemic in a tunisian teaching hospital over this outbreak in March 2020. Methods: This is an audit of the practice of SP by direct observation over a period of one month during the first wave of the covid- 19 outbreak (March 2020).We implemented an observation grid gathering recommandations relative to the six axes of SP. This grid was built considering the new recommandations supported by French Society of Hospital Hygiene in 2017. Results: The highest compliance was for excreta management 87.2%, followed by prevention of accidents with exposure to blood 79.4%, then Respiratory Hygiene 69.6%, environmental management 68.1%, Personal Protective Equipment 60.9% and Hand Hygiene was the lowest 57.1%. Conclusion: These results demonstrate an acceptable level of engagement in the prevention and control of the infectious risk in the hospital besides of an institutional mobilization to face the Covid-19 epidemic. therefore, it is recommended to multiply the evaluations to verify these conclusions. Likewise, the training axis is essential to perpetuate the optimal practice of standard precautions.