Hospital Acquired Infection Statistics for 2026

Hospital acquired infection statistics at a glance

Hospital acquired infection statistics show a problem that is both large and measurable: millions of patients are affected, but prevention work is also producing visible improvements in many settings.

Key takeaways

4.3 million patients in EU/EEA hospitals acquire at least one HAI each year (ECDC press release, 2024).
At least 20% of HAIs are deemed preventable by sustained, multifaceted IPC programmes (ECDC press release, 2024).
1 in 3 microorganisms detected in HAIs were bacteria resistant to important antibiotics (ECDC press release, 2024).
In the CDC 2024 report, multiple infection types improved year over year in acute care hospitals, including CLABSI, CAUTI, VAE, colon surgery SSI, hospital-onset MRSA bacteremia, and hospital-onset C. difficile infections (CDC Current HAI Progress Report, 2026).
WHO reported in 2024 that 71% of countries had an active IPC programme, but only 6% met all minimum requirements in 2023-2024 (WHO Global report on infection prevention and control 2024; WHO news item on the global IPC report, 2024).

What hospital acquired infection statistics measure
The biggest numbers in the latest datasets
Which infections appear most often
What the CDC progress report shows
ICU burden, mortality, and excess days
Clostridioides difficile and surveillance detail
Prevention, IPC, and global readiness
How to read HAI statistics in context

What hospital acquired infection statistics measure

Hospital acquired infection statistics are not a single number. They combine surveillance counts, incidence rates, standardized infection ratios, patient outcomes, and facility-level benchmarks across different care settings.

That matters because a hospital can improve on one measure while still carrying a heavy burden on another. The supplied statistics span EU/EEA hospital surveillance, ICU-specific estimates, CDC national reporting, and WHO readiness data, so the picture is broad enough to show both scale and direction.

A useful way to read the data is to separate it into four questions:

How many patients are affected?
Which infection types dominate the burden?
Are prevention programs moving the numbers down?
How much of the problem is still avoidable?

The supplied dataset points to a consistent answer: the burden remains significant, but many metrics are trending in the right direction.

The biggest numbers in the latest datasets

The most important hospital acquired infection statistics are the ones that describe scale first. They tell you how much infection pressure the system is carrying before you get into the detail of individual device types or surgical categories.

Big numbers that frame the issue

4.3 million patients in EU/EEA hospitals acquire at least one HAI each year (ECDC press release, 2024).
About 390,000 hospitalised patients in the EU/EEA receive at least one antimicrobial agent on any given day (ECDC press release, 2024).
35.5% of patients received at least one antimicrobial agent in the 2022-2023 PPS, up from 32.9% in the 2016-2017 PPS (ECDC press release, 2024).
More than 38,000 active hospitals, long-term care facilities, and other healthcare facilities provide data to NHSN (CDC Current HAI Progress Report, 2026).
National SSI data in the CDC report covers 39 inpatient surgical procedure categories (CDC Current HAI Progress Report, 2026).

These numbers show a system-wide surveillance footprint rather than a narrow specialty problem. They also show how the topic links infection prevention with antimicrobial exposure, because a large share of patients are receiving antibiotics while surveillance continues to detect HAIs.

At a glance comparison

Measure	Value	Source label
Patients with at least one HAI in EU/EEA hospitals each year	4.3 million	ECDC press release, 2024
Patients receiving at least one antimicrobial agent in the 2022-2023 PPS	35.5%	ECDC press release, 2024
Patients receiving at least one antimicrobial agent in the 2016-2017 PPS	32.9%	ECDC press release, 2024
Hospitalised patients receiving at least one antimicrobial agent on any given day	390,000	ECDC press release, 2024
Countries with an active IPC programme	71%	WHO Global report on infection prevention and control 2024
Countries meeting all IPC minimum requirements	6%	WHO news item on the global IPC report, 2024

Why these figures matter

The size of the problem is not abstract. It is measured in patient counts, antimicrobial exposure, and facility surveillance coverage.

That is important because the same healthcare system that must treat infection also has to reduce avoidable transmission, improve hygiene, manage device use, and slow resistance pressure.

Which infections appear most often

The supplied statistics show that respiratory tract infections are a major share of the hospital acquired infection burden, and they also connect HAI surveillance to the broader problem of antimicrobial resistance.

Main infection mix

Respiratory tract infections, including pneumonia and healthcare-associated COVID-19, represented nearly one-third of all reported HAIs (ECDC press release, 2024).
SARS-CoV-2 ranked as the fourth most common microorganism in HAIs (ECDC press release, 2024).
1 in 3 microorganisms detected in HAIs were bacteria resistant to important antibiotics (ECDC press release, 2024).

That combination matters because it means the burden is not just clinical volume. It also has stewardship implications. When a substantial share of detected organisms are resistant to important antibiotics, prevention and antibiotic management have to work together.

What that implies for hospitals

Respiratory prevention work remains central.
Device and procedure-related prevention still matters because the burden is spread across multiple infection types.
Resistance surveillance is not a side issue; it is part of the HAI picture itself.

What the CDC progress report shows

The CDC Current HAI Progress Report adds a useful trend layer because it shows year-over-year movement in acute care hospitals and state-level performance relative to earlier baselines.

A few measures moved in the right direction, while at least one surgical site infection category moved the other way. That is the right way to think about HAI progress: not as a single national score, but as a mixed portfolio of gains and setbacks.

Acute care trend snapshot

Infection measure	Year-over-year change	Source label
CLABSI SIR	Decreased 9%	CDC Current HAI Progress Report, 2026
CLABSI in ICU locations	Decreased 10%	CDC Current HAI Progress Report, 2026
CLABSI in ward locations	Decreased 9%	CDC Current HAI Progress Report, 2026
CAUTI SIR	Decreased 10%	CDC Current HAI Progress Report, 2026
CAUTI in ICU locations	Decreased 15%	CDC Current HAI Progress Report, 2026
CAUTI in ward locations	Decreased 8%	CDC Current HAI Progress Report, 2026
VAE SIR	Decreased 2%	CDC Current HAI Progress Report, 2026
Colon surgery SSI	Decreased 4%	CDC Current HAI Progress Report, 2026
Hospital-onset MRSA bacteremia	Decreased 7%	CDC Current HAI Progress Report, 2026
Hospital-onset C. difficile infections	Decreased 11%	CDC Current HAI Progress Report, 2026
Abdominal hysterectomy SSI	Increased 8%	CDC Current HAI Progress Report, 2026

The pattern is clear: several bloodstream, urinary, ventilator-associated, and surgical infection measures improved, but not every procedure category moved in the same direction.

State-level signal

The state comparisons in the CDC report reinforce the same idea.

17 states performed better on at least two infection types versus 2023 (CDC Current HAI Progress Report, 2026).
6 states performed better on three infection types versus 2023 (CDC Current HAI Progress Report, 2026).
4 states performed better on four or more infection types versus 2023 (CDC Current HAI Progress Report, 2026).
1 state performed worse on two or more infection types versus 2023 (CDC Current HAI Progress Report, 2026).

Relative to the 2015 baseline, the progress picture is broader:

50 states performed better on at least two infection types versus the 2015 baseline (CDC Current HAI Progress Report, 2026).
23 states performed better on five or more infection types versus the 2015 baseline (CDC Current HAI Progress Report, 2026).
3 states performed worse on two or more infection types versus the 2015 baseline (CDC Current HAI Progress Report, 2026).

That is a strong sign that long-run prevention infrastructure is having an effect, even if the gains are uneven across infection types and settings.

ICU burden, mortality, and excess days

ICUs are where hospital acquired infection statistics become especially stark, because the data ties together incidence, mortality, and length-of-stay burden.

ICU-acquired infections in EU/EEA surveillance

In EU/EEA ICUs, 8.3% of patients staying more than two days had at least one ICU-acquired HAI in 2017 (ECDC ICU annual epidemiological report 2017).
That surveillance counted 11,787 infected patients in 2017 (ECDC ICU annual epidemiological report 2017).
ICU-acquired pneumonia affected 6.1% of ICU patients staying more than two days and an estimated 157,014 patients annually (ECDC ICU annual epidemiological report 2017).
ICU-acquired bloodstream infection affected 3.5% of ICU patients staying more than two days and an estimated 90,090 patients annually (ECDC ICU incidence and attributable mortality report, 2018).
ICU-acquired urinary tract infection affected 3.2% of ICU patients staying more than two days and an estimated 82,368 patients annually (ECDC ICU incidence and attributable mortality report, 2018).

Mortality and burden

These infections are not only common. They also carry serious downstream impact.

ICU-acquired pneumonia caused an estimated 5,495 deaths annually and had 3.5% attributable mortality (ECDC ICU annual epidemiological report 2017).
ICU-acquired bloodstream infection had 5.0% attributable mortality and an estimated 4,505 direct deaths annually (ECDC ICU incidence and attributable mortality report, 2018).
The combined burden of ICU pneumonia, bloodstream infection, and UTI was estimated at 8,650 attributable deaths per year in EU/EEA ICUs (ECDC ICU incidence and attributable mortality report, 2018).
ICU-acquired pneumonia added an estimated 2.2 million extra ICU days per year (ECDC ICU annual epidemiological report 2017).
ICU-acquired bloodstream infection produced an estimated 1.26 million excess ICU days annually (ECDC ICU incidence and attributable mortality report, 2018).
ICU-acquired urinary tract infection produced an estimated 1.06 million excess ICU days annually (ECDC ICU incidence and attributable mortality report, 2018).
Those three ICU infections also caused 3.43 million extra ICU days per year (ECDC ICU incidence and attributable mortality report, 2018).

ICU trend points worth noting

A few ICU device-associated and incidence measures improved between earlier surveillance periods:

The device-associated pneumonia rate fell from 13.6 to 10.2 intubation-associated episodes per 1,000 intubation days between 2008 and 2012 (ECDC ICU incidence and attributable mortality report, 2018).
ICU urinary tract infection incidence fell from 4.1 to 3.4 episodes per 1,000 patient-days between 2008 and 2012 (ECDC ICU incidence and attributable mortality report, 2018).
Catheter-associated urinary tract infection incidence fell from 4.9 to 4.1 per 1,000 urinary catheter days between 2008 and 2012 (ECDC ICU incidence and attributable mortality report, 2018).

These are the kinds of changes that matter in real operational terms because they translate into fewer infected patients and fewer occupied ICU days.

Clostridioides difficile and surveillance detail

Clostridioides difficile is one of the clearest examples of how HAI statistics combine surveillance scale, patient outcomes, and testing intensity.

2016 annual epidemiological report

In the ECDC 2016 CDI surveillance:

20 EU/EEA countries reported data from 593 surveillance periods and 556 hospitals (ECDC CDI annual epidemiological report 2016).
The report recorded 7,711 CDI cases (ECDC CDI annual epidemiological report 2016).
5,756 cases, or 74.6%, were healthcare-associated (ECDC CDI annual epidemiological report 2016).
611 cases, or 7.9%, were recurrent infections (ECDC CDI annual epidemiological report 2016).
921 cases, or 16.7%, had a complicated course of infection (ECDC CDI annual epidemiological report 2016).
4,160 cases, or 79.3% of those with known outcome, were discharged alive (ECDC CDI annual epidemiological report 2016).
1,088 cases, or 20.7% of those with known outcome, died from any cause (ECDC CDI annual epidemiological report 2016).
207 cases, or 3.9% of those with known outcome, were fatal cases where CDI contributed to death (ECDC CDI annual epidemiological report 2016).
The mean CDI testing rate was 42.9 stool tests per 10,000 patient-days (ECDC CDI annual epidemiological report 2016).
The median CDI testing rate was 29.6 stool tests per 10,000 patient-days (ECDC CDI annual epidemiological report 2016).
Metronidazole resistance was reported in 26 of 569 susceptibility-tested cases, or 4.6% (ECDC CDI annual epidemiological report 2016).
One vancomycin-resistant CDI case was reported (ECDC CDI annual epidemiological report 2016).

2016-2017 surveillance scale

The later surveillance summary expands the scale further:

The 2016-2017 CDI surveillance covered 1,559 hospital surveillance periods and more than 18.3 million patient admissions (ECDC CDI annual epidemiological report 2016-2017).
That same surveillance covered more than 109 million patient-days (ECDC CDI annual epidemiological report 2016-2017).
An estimated 189,526 healthcare-associated CDI cases occurred annually in the EU/EEA in 2016-2017 (ECDC CDI annual epidemiological report 2016-2017).
An estimated 7,864 fatal healthcare-associated CDI cases occurred annually in the EU/EEA in 2016-2017 (ECDC CDI annual epidemiological report 2016-2017).
11,568 CDI cases had known outcome in the 2016-2017 report, and 17.5% of them died from any cause (ECDC CDI annual epidemiological report 2016-2017).
1,792 CDI cases, or 14.8%, had a complicated course of infection in the 2016-2017 report (ECDC CDI annual epidemiological report 2016-2017).

The CDI data stands out because it shows how quickly a single organism can become a surveillance, treatment, and outcomes problem all at once.

Prevention, IPC, and global readiness

The prevention message in the supplied statistics is unusually direct. Hospital acquired infections are not fully avoidable, but a meaningful share can be prevented.

What the source data says about prevention

At least 20% of HAIs are deemed preventable by sustained, multifaceted IPC programmes (ECDC press release, 2024).
WHO reported in 2024 that 71% of countries had an active IPC programme (WHO Global report on infection prevention and control 2024).
Only 6% of countries met all WHO IPC minimum requirements in 2023-2024 (WHO news item on the global IPC report, 2024).
WHO’s 2024 report says HAIs cause premature deaths and disability and are a major driver of antimicrobial resistance (WHO Global report on infection prevention and control 2024).
WHO reported that patients in low- and middle-income countries have up to 20 times higher risk of acquiring infections during health-care delivery than in high-income countries (WHO news item on the global IPC report, 2024).

Why this section matters

The prevention numbers help explain why HAI statistics remain such a central operational metric. They are not only descriptive. They identify where resources, staff training, infection control systems, and surveillance capacity can change outcomes.

The gap between 71% of countries having an active IPC programme and just 6% meeting every minimum requirement shows that program existence is not the same as program maturity (WHO Global report on infection prevention and control 2024; WHO news item on the global IPC report, 2024).

How to read HAI statistics in context

If you are scanning hospital acquired infection statistics for practical meaning, focus on the pattern rather than any single figure.

Three reading rules

Look for scale first. Large patient counts and high antimicrobial exposure tell you the size of the operational challenge.
Look for direction second. Year-over-year declines in CLABSI, CAUTI, C. difficile, and MRSA matter because they show prevention is not theoretical (CDC Current HAI Progress Report, 2026).
Look for mismatch third. Some measures improve while others worsen, such as abdominal hysterectomy SSI increasing 8% year over year even as several other categories improve (CDC Current HAI Progress Report, 2026).

What stands out across the supplied statistics

The burden is still very large, with millions of affected patients in EU/EEA hospital settings (ECDC press release, 2024).
ICU infection burden carries major mortality and excess-day costs (ECDC ICU annual epidemiological report 2017; ECDC ICU incidence and attributable mortality report, 2018).
Antibiotic exposure and resistance are tightly linked to the HAI story (ECDC press release, 2024).
Prevention programs can move the numbers, but implementation remains uneven by country and facility type (WHO Global report on infection prevention and control 2024; WHO news item on the global IPC report, 2024).
Long-run baseline comparisons suggest broad improvement across many U.S. states, even if not every infection type moves equally (CDC Current HAI Progress Report, 2026).

The overall signal from the supplied dataset is straightforward: hospital acquired infections remain a major patient-safety issue, but the data also shows that surveillance, infection prevention, and targeted improvement efforts are producing measurable change.