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To avert a looming public health crisis with a unique set of underlying causes, Congress and the administration, including federal public health agencies, must act quickly to reinvigorate pharmaceutical investment in antibiotic research and development (R&D). Otherwise, doctors wont have drugs to protect Americans against antibiotic-resistant infections a rapidly growing and often deadly problem.
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A hospital in Melbourne, Australia has contacted 1,056 patients who underwent brain or spinal surgery in the past 18 months after a patient died of Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD), according to published reports. Australian health authorities said in a statement there was an extremely remote risk that the disease could be spread by surgical equipment.
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A new draft pandemic influenza plan issued by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services calls for a combination of standard precautions and droplet isolation measures and an overall atmosphere of respiratory etiquette in hospitals caring for flu patients.
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The danger of the next influenza pandemic has become so crystal clear and ever present that the recently released federal pandemic influenza plan has become something of a page turner among the normally dry reading requirements of the infection control professional. The draft document by the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) is being reviewed by many as if it may have to be implemented all too soon.
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The Association for Professionals in Infection Control and Epidemiology (APIC) rallied its members recently in support of a congressional action that could block controversial respirator fit-testing requirements.
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Infection control professionals in a group of cancer centers have developed an algorithm to help meet new patient safety goals by the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations.
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Word that a portion of the 2004-2005 influenza vaccine will be not available until later in the season poses no immediate health crisis, but underscores the vulnerable nature of vaccine production and distribution in the shadow of a pandemic. Citing sterility problems during the production process, Chiron Corp. in the United Kingdom announced that it would delay delivery of its doses to the United States.
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The recently released influenza pandemic plan for the United States couldnt be much more timely because there are some pigs on the other side of the world that already may be brewing up the next global outbreak.
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According to a new draft influenza plan issued by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, the following actions must be taken now, before a pandemic strain emerges.
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