Health-care-associated infections are avoidable infec-tions that aff ect hundreds of millions of people eachyear worldwide. Following a systematic review of theliterature and meta-analyses, WHO reported in 2010that the prevalence of health-care-associated infectionsin low-income and middle-income countries (LMICs)was two to 20 times higher than in high-incomecountries. 1–3 Surgical site infection (SSI) was the mostsurveyed and most frequent health-care-associatedinfection in LMICs, aff ecting up to a third of patientswho had surgery. The incidence of SSI is much lower inhigh-income countries, but it is still the second mostcommon cause of health-care-associated infection inEurope and the USA. 1,4 Furthermore, data from theUSA showed that up to 60% of the microorganismsisolated from infected surgical wounds have antibioticresistance patterns.