We are a leading healthcare campus encompassing all fields of health: from healthcare and research to teaching and management.
Professionalism, commitment and research by professionals on the Campus are the key elements in offering patients excellent care.
We are committed to research as a tool to provide solutions to the daily challenges we face in the field of medical healthcare.
We generate, transform and transmit knowledge in all areas of the health sciences, helping to train the professionals of the future.
We are defined by our vocation for communication. We invite you to share everything that happens at Vall d'Hebron Barcelona Hospital Campus, and our doors are always open.
Hospital donations
Research donations
Infectious Diseases, General Hospital
The goal of the Infectious Diseases Department is the prevention, control and treatment of these diseases, through three main areas: care, teaching (both undergraduate and postgraduate), and research (between the Vall d'Hebron Hospital and the Autonomous University of Barcelona).
At the Infectious Diseases Department, our care is structured into the following areas: hospitalisation, outpatient care, nosocomial infection control (infections contracted during a hospital stay), prevention and treatment of infection in HIV- immunodepressed patients (with solid or haematological neoplasia, bone marrow transplant or solid organ); international health and imported infections, and the HIV+ patients ward.
Our Department handles approximately 10,000 outpatient visits a year. There is also a day hospital where all types of prolonged antimicrobial treatments can be carried out, as well as a large number of diagnostic tests, in order to reduce hospital admissions.
In the hospitalisation division, between 550 and 600 patients are admitted a year, with an average hospital stay of about nine days. We admit immunodepressed patients with serious infections or requiring clinical isolation, as well as patients with serious infections that can be helped by our specialised care.
The priorities of the nosocomial infection control division are to identify and reduce the risk of transmission of especially complex infections and to ensure effective treatment. This latter aspect is key across all of the Department’s areas of care. Antimicrobial treatments are complex and one of the main responsibilities of the group is to ensure that they are administered as accurately as possible. To this end we are careful to constantly carry out a cost-benefit assessment.
Monitoring of infection in immunodepressed patients, both for HIV and others, is handled by two wards that treat patients with especially complex, serious infections, bearing in mind the type of infection and number of patients being treated at the Hospital. We aim to provide comprehensive care, handling prevention, diagnosis and treatment of infectious pathologies, especially opportunistic infections, that this type of patients suffer. One example is the Anal Dysplasia Unit in the HIV+ population, inaugurated in 2009 for the prevention, diagnosis and early treatment of anal cancer secondary to chronic infection by the human papilloma virus.
The international health and imported infections division, which works in coordination with the Tropical and Imported Diseases Unit of the Drassanes primary care centre and various local NGOs, is dedicated to providing overall care for patients affected by these infections. Thanks to telemedicine, we make regular contact with the regional Nossa Senhora da Paz Hospital in Cubal (Angola) to carry out joint sessions.
The Infectious Diseases Department was created in 1996 and consists of 14 doctors on staff, with resident doctors, predoctoral and postdoctoral doctors carrying out research and other key healthcare professionals all a part of its structure. The main characteristic of the Department, therefore, is our transversality. We firmly believe in the importance of having members of the Department collaborate with the different medical and surgical teams of the Hospital, both in terms of healthcare and research.
The portfolio of services offered by the Infectious Diseases Department responds to the health needs of the population and the demand for services generated at Vall d'Hebron University Hospital, guaranteeing accessibility, equity and quality of care, in a way that satisfies the expectations of the clients following the strategic lines of the Catalan Health Institute.
These wards are used to treat patients with systemic infections acquired in the community, including:
Sepsis and primary bacteraemia
Zoonoses with organic complications
Parasitosis requiring hospital admission
Febrile syndromes of unknown origin with severe systemic repercussions
Organospecific infections requiring hospital admission due to systemic or organic repercussions
This area cares for patients with infections acquired in the community, offering treatment with acute clinical symptoms.
This area covers:
This is a specific clinic included in the Pere Virgili Health Park, integrated into the policy for treatment of the HIV positive population.
This area handles patients with any type of systemic or organospecific infection, nosocomial or acquired in the community, whichever part of the body is affected and in immunocompetent or immunodepressed hosts, whatever the cause. It includes the differential diagnosis of community and nosocomial febrile syndrome.
Includes the following activities:
The Infectious Diseases Research Group (coordinated by Dr Benito Almirante) of the Vall d'Hebron Research Institute carries out clinical research that is closely linked to the care we provide, and which groups together the various Research Areas. We should also highlight our animal experimentation laboratory, within the Vall d'Hebron University Research Institute, which allows us to experiment and obtain results using various animal models, with the ultimate goal of trying to improve the prognosis of various serious infectious pathologies in humans. The current lines of research are:
These lines of research are externally funded through research projects funded by the pharmaceutical industry or by public entities, as well as receiving funding as a member of thematic cooperative research networks organised by the Carlos III Health Institute (REIPI and RIS).
Teaching represents a major part of the Department's activity. We collaborate and foster basic and continued training for students, professionals undergoing training (resident doctors) and predoctoral students in the area of knowledge of infectious diseases. This work is carried out both as part of hospital work and in academic and research activity.
It includes the following activities:
By accepting these conditions, you are agreeing to the processing of your personal data for the provision of the services requested through this portal, and, if necessary, for any procedures required by the administrations or public bodies involved in this processing, and their subsequent inclusion in the aforementioned automated file. You may exercise your rights to access, rectification, cancellation or opposition by writing to web@vallhebron.cat, clearly stating the subject as "Exercising of Data Protection Rights". Operated by: Vall d’Hebron University Hospital Foundation – Research Institute. Purpose: Manage the user’s contact information. Legitimisation: Express acceptance of the privacy policy. Rights: To access, rectify, and delete personal information data, as well to the portability thereof and to limit and/or oppose their use. Source: The interested party themselves.