Hospital Infection Control & Prevention
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FDA: States Should Begin Testing Blood for Zika
Underscoring the threat of Zika virus transmission via the blood supply, the FDA is calling for all states to screen donations, with Florida to do so immediately.
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MERS Still Simmers on the Back Burner
While the disease du jour remains Zika, another virus with a much greater ability to spread in hospitals continues to simmer in an arid region a plane ride away: Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) coronavirus.
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CDC: IPs Should Be Vigilant for Legionnaires’ Disease
With outbreaks of Legionnaires’ disease increasing, hospitals should establish water management teams that include infection preventionists and launch an investigation even if they detect only one confirmed case of Legionella, according to recently updated guidelines1 by the CDC.
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IPs are Key Collaborators in the Fight Against Sepsis
With everything else they are tasked to do, infection preventionists may question why they are now being called upon as key collaborators in the national effort to reduce sepsis, a syndrome traditionally more associated with critical care than infection control.
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Will a Mysterious Outbreak of Elizabethkingia End Unsolved?
Unable to determine the source of an inexplicable outbreak of Elizabethkingia anopheles in Wisconsin and two other states, investigators are inviting the survivors of the infection to participate in focus groups and see if they can find a common link that preceded their illness.
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Antibiotic Use Reductions May Decrease Clostridium difficile
Two recent developments limiting antibiotic use could have a secondary benefit of reducing Clostridium difficile infections, which have been the bane of infection preventionists since emerging in a highly virulent strain some 15 years ago.
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Strange Cases of Zika Transmission
Zika virus is proving nothing if not unpredictable as we now also have a strange case of apparent transmission to a caregiver from a dying patient as well as the first documented case of apparent female-to-male sexual transmission.
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Zika Mosquito Spread Begins In Miami
As this issue went to press, public health officials in Miami confirmed the first local cases of Zika transmission in the United States via mosquitoes.
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Drug Diversion: A New Sheriff in Town
After a series of highly publicized drug diversion incidents by healthcare workers and patient outbreaks in Colorado in recent years, the state has passed a law that requires surgical technologists to register and submit to background checks.
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Addicted Patients Inject, Infect Their Own IV Lines
The national opioid epidemic is causing daily overdoses in the community, diversion drug thefts by healthcare workers, and now a dangerous new aspect at the bedside: Hospitalized patients are injecting illicit drugs and hoarded medications directly into their placed IV lines.