Infectious Disease Alert – October 1, 2022
October 1, 2022
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Antibiotic Resistance: We Were Doing Great and then COVID Happened
After improvement, antimicrobial resistance in the United States significantly increased.
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Boosting with the New Bivalent COVID-19 Vaccines
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has made recommendations for the use of the newly approved bivalent COVID-19 booster vaccine.
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Cellular Tests Are Not Accurate for Diagnosing Lyme Disease
A prospective case-control study from the Netherlands evaluated three cellular tests for diagnosing Lyme disease. All three had low specificity compared to serological testing, leading to an unacceptably high number of false-positive results.
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Doxycycline Plus a Beta-Lactam for Treatment of Inpatients with Community-Acquired Pneumonia
In this retrospective study of an elderly male population hospitalized with community-acquired pneumonia, the combination of doxycycline with a beta-lactam was at least as effective as a respiratory fluoroquinolone or a combination of a beta-lactam with azithromycin.
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Safety of Infliximab After Live Vaccines
Despite concerns about the use of infliximab for children with Kawasaki disease shortly after administration of live vaccines, retrospective reviews do not show any vaccine-related infections following subsequent infliximab use.
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CDC Warning: Enterovirus-D68 Re-Emerging and Once Again Raising the Specter of Acute Flaccid Myelitis in Children
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is receiving increasing reports of pediatric infections with enterovirus-D68, which previously has been associated with the development of acute flaccid myelitis.
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U.S. Endemic Fungal Infection Surveillance
In the United States in 2019, 29,061 cases of coccidioidomycosis were reported, as were 1,124 cases of histoplasmosis and 240 of blastomycosis.
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Rehospitalization Common in Herpes Encephalitis
Herpes simplex encephalitis (HSE) is the most common cause of infectious encephalitis in the United States, accounting for around 30% of all causes of infectious encephalitis in the United States. With the advent of antiviral therapy and improved diagnostic measures, mortality and morbidity have improved over the past few decades, but patients remain at risk for long-term neurologic sequelae and even relapse.
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Kindergarten Vaccine Rates: Post-COVID
The COVID-19 pandemic caused disruption in healthcare delivery for everyone. Schools continue to struggle to meet the Healthy People 2030 Nationwide target of ≥ 95% coverage for measles, mumps, rubella (MMR) vaccination in kindergarteners, and COVID-19 did not help. Remarkably, the nationwide vaccine rate for children entering kindergarten in the 2020-2021 school year was decreased by only 1% for all vaccines compared with the previous year.