Hospital Infection Control & Prevention
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Misinformation: The Many-Headed Hydra
Social media platforms have become the Wild West of misinformation, and current indications suggest this is going to continue and possibly expand, said Donna Nucci, RN, MS, CIC, director of infection prevention, Yale New Haven Health.
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What Is in Your Laundry? The Threat of Mucormycosis
Even pressed and folded, so-called “hygienically clean” hospital laundry can harbor fungal pathogens, sometimes in sufficient number to cause fatal mucormycosis infections in high-risk patients, outbreak investigators reported at the 2023 conference of the Association for Professionals in Infection Control and Epidemiology.
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CAUTIs: What to Do, What Not to Do
New compendium recommendations by the nation’s leading infection control groups on catheter-associated urinary tract infections (CAUTIs) emphasize that, in most cases, screening for asymptomatic bacteriuria does more harm than good.
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Burning Down the House: Climate Change Drives Emerging Infections
The connection between emerging infections and climate change has gone from theoretical discussions in the past few years to an evidence-based phenomenon happening in real time. That said, there are multiple converging factors, and attributing all emerging infections to global warming is too broad a stroke to explain a complex issue.
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CDC Publishes Guide to Help Hospitals Diagnose, Treat Sepsis
The agency details seven pillars upon which leaders can build a successful program.
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U.S. Public Health Officials Warn Frontline Providers to Watch for Malaria Cases
Clinicians should raise their suspicion levels for the mosquito-borne illness when patients present with fever with an unknown etiology, even if the patients have not traveled recently to a country where malaria is endemic.
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COVID Forced a Unity of Purpose
Writing a “Science Speaks” blog on the website of the Infectious Diseases Society of America, Erica Kaufman West, MD, went through highs and lows of the pandemic before ultimately returning to business as usual, rolling a rock senselessly up a hill like the Greek mythic figure Sisyphus.
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Vaccine Mandates: Critical or Counterproductive?
Testifying before a recent congressional committee on vaccine mandates, John Lynch, MD, MPH, FIDSA, medical director of infection prevention and control at Harborview Medical Center in Seattle, extolled the many benefits of COVID-19 immunization compared to the risks of morbidity, mortality, and the lingering chronic effects of SARS-CoV-2 infection.
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Potential Spread Via Droplets from Dirty to Clean Instruments
Infection preventionists may want to recheck the distance between the separation of dirty and clean activities in cleaning and reprocessing rooms after researchers found contaminated droplets can travel more than seven feet.
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C. auris: Active Screening Interrupts Transmission
The ability for emerging fungal threat Candida auris to move undetected across the healthcare continuum via asymptomatic colonized patients capable of transmitting the pathogen raises a compelling question.