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A 38-year-old man returned to the United States from west Africa, where he had spent the last 4 months in Liberia and Sierra Leone where he owned farms. Two days before his August 2004 return, he developed fever, chills, and severe sore throat, and shortly after his arrival, he was hospitalized with, in addition to these complaints, diarrhea and back pain. Lassa fever was considered, and administration of ribavirin was planned, but the patient died before receiving this antiviral medication. The diagnosis of Lassa fever was confirmed by serum antigen detection, immunohistochemical staining of postmortem liver tissue, virus isolation in cell culture, and genome sequencing.
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A retrospective review of 1387 cases of salmonellosis revealed that almost half of cases in children younger than 5 years of age were associated with contact with a reptile.
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A 73-year-old woman who lives at home with her husband presented at the ED with progressive weakness and difficulty walking. Her chief complaint: My legs just feel weak. After an extensive work-up, including a CAT scan, there were no clear answers, and she was admitted for further evaluation.
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A new report from the Urgent Matters Learning Network titled Bursting at the Seams: Improving Patient Flow to Help Americas Emergency Departments, describes the experiences of 10 hospitals selected for an initiative to help hospitals eliminate ED overcrowding. Of the 10, four received a special $250,000 grant for demonstrator projects.
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The health care organization is an important resource for the continued functioning of a community. An organizations ability to deliver care, treatment, or services is threatened when it is ill-prepared to respond to an epidemic or infections likely to require expanded or extended care capabilities over a prolonged period.
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The Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations and the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) have been working to align their common national hospital performance in the areas of acute myocardial infarction, heart failure, pneumonia, and surgical infection prevention.
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