Infectious Disease Alert – March 1, 2003

March 1, 2003

• Norovirus Infection

  Noroviruses are a frequent cause of acute gastroenteritis. During the last 2 months of 2002 in a single health district in Washington state, 10 outbreaks of acute gastroenteritis attributable to norovirus were investigated. These events affected 354 patients in 6 long-term care facilities, a community hospital, an outpatient clinic, and the county jail.

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• Vancomycin TDM: Therapeutic Drug Monitoring or Just Fooling Ourselves?

  Despite many years of practice, a recent questionnaire about therapeutic drug monitoring of vancomycin revealed marked variability and a lack of consensus regarding postdose assay sampling times, target ranges, and what constituted a toxic level.

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• Need for Susceptibility Testing of Linezolid

  The study established a policy of routine susceptibility testing of linezolid and quinupristin/dalfopristin isolates of VRE from any sterile site.

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• Better Targeting of Antibiotic Therapy Against the GramPositive Coccal Infections of Neutropenic Patients

  Indices have been developed to help assess the risk of neutropenic patients developing Gram-positive infections when they become febrile that might allow strategies to be developed for managing these infections.

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• Updates

  KS Fails to Respond to Cidofovir; Acyclovir & Renal Dysfunction; Broad-Range Bacterial PCR in Meningitis; Why is BCG Less Virulent than MTb?.

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• Pharmacology Watch: Smallpox Vaccination Guidelines Published by CDC

  The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention published Smallpox Vaccination and Adverse ReactionsGuidance for Clinicians in the Jan. 24th edition of Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report. The guidance is a thorough review of the smallpox vaccine with a well-illustrated compendium of complications.

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• Clinical Briefs in Primary Care Supplement

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