What is the chain of infection and how can nurses break it?

The chain of infection has six links: the infectious agent or pathogen, the reservoir where the organism lives and multiplies, the portal of exit from the reservoir, the mode of transmission, the portal of entry into a new host, and the susceptible host. Nurses can break the chain at any link: destroying pathogens through sterilization and disinfection, eliminating reservoirs through environmental cleaning, blocking portals of exit with wound dressings and respiratory hygiene, interrupting transmission with hand hygiene and PPE, protecting portals of entry with aseptic technique, and stre