Background:

Scabies outbreaks are common in hospital facilities around the world, nevertheless the management of such outbreaks is not universally defined, and so several approaches are valid. In this article we describe a short extent hospital outbreak, successfully controlled after the creation and institution of guidelines for the management of scabies.

Methods:

Following an outbreak of scabies at a teaching hospital, a guideline for control and scabies treatment was created and applied. Data regarding the number of cases of hospital employees infected and the efficacy of the implemented guideline was analyzed six weeks later.

Results:

Late diagnosis of scabies on a patient admitted to the Internal Medicine ward resulted in infection of eight hospital employees, who presented themselves with symptoms one month after the patient admission. They were submitted to treatment and possible contacts were surveyed for prophylaxis, according to the established guideline. There was no recurrence of cases after six weeks.

Discussion:

Early recognition of a case of scabies is essential to prevent hospital outbreaks. In this sense we developed an informative triptych intended for health professionals. There are several possible therapeutic and prophylactic approaches to the disease, but the key to the rapid resolution of an outbreak is the timing for the treatment of cases and prophylaxis of contacts, which should be instituted simultaneously or within a 24 hour period.

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