Infectious Disease
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Do Long-sleeved Physician Coats Spread C. diff?
The “bare below the elbows” approach to infection control, wherein physicians wear short sleeves rather than their traditional white coats, has been met with some derision as a misguided approach by “fashion police.”
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Driving C. diff to Zero? It’s Possible
An infection preventionist in Ohio drove C. diff to zero for a stunning 341 days with a multifaceted program that had buy-in from healthcare colleagues and hospital administration.
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Decolonization Protocol Yields Mixed Results
A decolonization protocol that has reduced infections in ICU patients did not translate that overall efficacy when researchers tried it on non-critical care patients. However, when they targeted non-ICU patients with central and other lines in place, they saw MRSA and VRE infections drop by one-third.
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IDWeek 2017: Resistant Bugs Rampant in Long-term Care
The nation’s long-term care facilities are teeming with multidrug-resistant organisms, giving pathogens that can cause virtually untreatable infections access to vulnerable patient populations across the healthcare continuum.
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Secnidazole Oral Granules (Solosec)
The FDA has approved the first oral single-dose treatment for bacterial vaginosis in adult women.
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Etiology of Acute Liver Failure and Next-generation Sequencing
Metagenomic next-generation sequencing was applied to examine serum from 204 adult patients with acute liver failure (ALF). Researchers identified a potential viral etiology in eight of the 187 patients with ALF of indeterminate etiology. Potential pathogens identified in these included HSV-1, HBV, parvovirus B19, CMV, and HHV-7.
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Stewardship, Science, and Spirituality
Awareness of a patient’s and family’s belief system might help physicians appropriately frame explanations about the importance of antimicrobial stewardship.
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Meropenem-vaborbactam
Meropenem-vaborbactam (Vabomere) is the latest β-lactam/β-lactamase inhibitor (BLI), approved by the FDA in August 2017 for treatment of complicated urinary tract infections (cUTI), including pyelonephritis, caused by susceptible Escherichia coli, Klebsiella pneumoniae, and Enterobacter cloacae species complex in adults older than 18 years of age.
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Statin Use Is Associated With a Lower Risk of Community-acquired Staphylococcus aureus Bacteremia
A population-based case-control study from Denmark found the use of statins was associated with a decreased risk for community-associated Staphylococcus aureus bacteremia, with the greatest benefit from higher doses.
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Lyme Disease in the United States — Good News, Bad News
The incidence of Lyme disease appears to have stabilized in states with known high incidences of the infection, but there is evidence of geographic expansion into neighboring states.