Clinicians' Biosecurity News Archive: 2015
                     

• 12-04-2015: Fluoroquinolone Resistance in the Wild A new study finds surprisingly high rates of fluoroquinolone resistance in E. coli even in people with no recent antibiotic exposure.
• 11-20-2015: Modeling a Postantibiotic World A new paper shows a substantial increase in illness and deaths due to resistant infections in patients undergoing surgery and chemotherapy.
• 11-06-15: Diminishing Returns with Healthcare Worker Influenza Vaccination? A new study shows limited incremental reduction in nosocomial influenza infections when healthcare worker vaccination rates exceed 50%.
• 10-16-2015: The Role of the Occult Infection in Falls Study found a surprisingly high incidence of unrecognized infection among patients who presented to a hospital because of a fall and were subsequently admitted.
• 09-18-2015: More Evidence for Herd Protection of the Elderly Herd protection is a real phenomenon that has great potential to change the face of vaccine-preventable diseases.
• 09-04-2015: The Indirect Protection of Pneumococcal Vaccines Study shows that the incidence of invasive pneumococcal disease (IPD) in adults correlates with the pneumococcal vaccination rates in children living near them.
• 08-21-2015: Modeling Critical Care Regionalization A new study models the effects of pre-hospital triage of patients to optimize the transport of critical care patients to critical care specially centers.
• 07-31-15: Community-Acquired Pneumonia: A Viral Storm A study finds that the etiology of most cases of community acquired pneumonia cannot be determined but that viral causes were found twice as often as bacterial
• 07-10-2015: CERN: A Healthcare Coalition for Ebola Treatment A new report describes how 4 major medical centers and the health department in Chicago have collaborated to create an Ebola response network.
• 06-26-15: Novel Type H Botulinum Toxin Neutralized by Standard Antitoxin A new CDC study reveals that the newly discovered type H botulism toxin is in fact neutralized by the existing standard heptavalent botulism antitoxin.
• 06-12-15: West African Travel-Related Illnesses: Not Just Ebola A new study highlights the importance of travel histories—not just for Ebola or MERS. The most frequent cause of fever in travelers from West Africa is malaria.
• 05-29-2015: Afebrile Influenza in Healthcare Workers One of the chief means of arresting the spread of influenza through healthcare facilities is vaccination of healthcare workers.
• 05-15-2015: Improving Antibiotic Stewardship Through Better Diagnostics A recent study published in the Journal of Infectious Diseases assesses the ability of this biomarker to influence antibiotic stewardship.
• 05-01-2015: Asymptomatic H5N1 Avian Influenza Infections A new, well-designed and well-controlled study in Egypt demonstrates a low level of asymptomatic infection in people exposed to backyard poultry.
• 04-17-2015: Statins in Sepsis: An Idea Whose Time May Have Passed Deshpande and colleagues recently published a meta-analysis of randomized trials that used statins to treat sepsis found that they have no effect.
• 04-03-2015: National Action Plan Developed for Combating Antibiotic-Resistant Bacteria The White House released a national action plan to address the rising tide of antimicrobial resistance, special attention is given to hospital-based initiatives
• 03-20-2015: Patterns of Emergency Department Use After a Disaster Patients displaced from closed public and private hospital EDs in NYC exhibited somewhat different patterns with regards to where they sought ED care.
• 03-06-2015: An Update on Bioterrorism-Related Conditions In the months and early years following these anthrax attacks, the US embarked on the important task of readying the nation for another biological attack
• 02-20-2015: A Flock of Bird Flu Viruses There has been a spate of bird flu viruses causing human and avian disease all over the world. Some are infecting only birds; others both birds and people.
• 02-06-15: The Role of Camels in MERS Transmission The MERS-CoV, which has been spreading in the Middle East, is likely to have originated in bats, spread to camels, and then spilled into the human species.
• 01-23-2015: Telemedicine: A Force Multiplier for the ID Physician Telemedicine is increasingly being recognized as a transformative technology that has the capacity to improve medical care delivery.
• 01-09-2015: New Tools for a Harsh Flu Season A new IV antiviral (peramivir) and a new CLIA-waived, PCR-based, rapid flu test (Alere i) have just been approved and are now available.