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In this issue: Drug shortages; metformin and cancer prevention; migraine prevention guidelines; and FDA actions.
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In May 2011, an emergency-response team from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) traveled to South Sudan, attempting to assist in the investigation of the recent geographic clustering of an illness, suspected to be the nodding syndrome.
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CDC received 1691 reports of malaria diagnosed in the United States in 2010, a 14% increase from 2009, and the highest number of cases since 1980 (n=1864). Among these cases, 1131 were US residents, 368 foreign residents, and 192 had unknown status.
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In October 2011, GeoSentinel, the global surveillance program of the International Society of Travel Medicine, first reported on the initial findings in probable cases of sarcocystosis among travelers returning from Malaysia.
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Chagas disease is caused by the protozoan parasite Trypanosoma cruzi, endemic only to the Americas. Most cases occur in tropical Central and South America, typically in impoverished communities that impinge upon the rural transmission cycle of this organism.
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This report details the occurrence of an infected, cellulitic lower extremity wound infection in a 70-year-old British woman secondary to an unusual Vibrio species, V. alginolyticus.
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Outpatients with a diagnosis of either dentoalveolar or periodontal abscess or a diagnosis of gingival inflammatory infiltrates were randomized to receive either moxifloxacin 400 mg daily or clindamycin 300 mg QID, both for 5 days, in a prospective, randomized, placebo-controlled, double-dummy clinical trial design.
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Beginning in November 2010, players from several NBA teams were reported as suffering from the "stomach flu". An investigation was launched, querying 400 players and 378 staff members whether they had experienced nausea and/or vomiting sometime between November 10 and December 20. In total, 21 players and 3 staff members met the case definition for acute gastroenteritis from norovirus, based on the presence of symptoms with or without a positive RT-PCR stool test for norovirus. These 24 individuals represented 13 different teams from 11 different states.
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During November, 2011, I attended separate meetings dedicated to exploring the incidence of antimicrobial resistance in two areas of the developing world, India and Cambodia. The first, sponsored jointly by the American Society for Microbiology (ASM), the European Society for Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases (ESCMID), and the Indian Association of Medical Microbiologists (IAMM), was named the "International Workshop on Antimicrobial Resistance" and was held at the Haffkine Institute in Mumbai, India. Organized by Prof. Lance Peterson (ASM representative), Prof. Abhay Chowdhary (Director of Haffkine Institute), Prof. V. Ravi (President of the IAMM), and Prof. Guiseppe Cornaglia (President of ESCMID), the workshop brought together around 250 participants, principally from India, to discuss various aspects of antimicrobial resistance over a 2.5 day program.
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The Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) set forth new guidelines in October 2011 for the use of a quadrivalent meningococcal conjugate vaccine (MenACWY-D) in children, ages 9 to 23 months, that are at increased risk for meningococcal disease.
