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Microbiologists have been trying for years to make an effective vaccine against infections caused by the Group A Streptococcus (GAS). The best hope has been a vaccine that targets the outer carbohydrate (CHO) coat, since antibodies to these antigens increase with age and there is less GAS disease as humans age.
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More than 5000 people in the Comoros Islands, off the eastern coast of Africa and near Madagascar, became ill with high fever and severe joint paints in the first months of 2005.
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Tuberculin skin testing is a crude procedure, fraught with potential error at every step, from application to interpretation, and requires 2 visits to a health care provider. Its use has persisted, nonetheless, because it remained, until recently, the only means of detection of latent infection with Mycobacterium tuberculosis.
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The first article reports the results of an industry-sponsored clinical trial comparing TDF/ABC/3TC vs EFV/ABC/3TC in treatment-naïve patients. Three hundred forty patients were randomized. Baseline characteristics including CD4 count and HIV RNA level were similar between the arms.
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Adverse drug events (ADES) are unwanted consequences of drug therapy and have important implications for each patient, the treating physician, and the institution itself. When assessing adverse effects, prescribing healthcare workers should pay particular attention to ADEs that interrupt the patients therapeutic regimen and hence increase the patients length of stay in the hospital.
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Samples obtained by swabbing both nares of almost 10,000 individuals > 1 year of age in the US National Health and Nutrition Survey (NHANES) in 2001-2002 were cultured on mannitol salt agar. S. aureus was identified in 32.4% of subjects and 0.8% were colonized with methicillin resistant S. aureus(MRSA).
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Normal circulating plasma glucose concentration is maintained by a delicate constant balance between glucose utilization (i.e., glycolysis or storage as glycogen by various tissues) on one hand and glucose production on the other (i.e., glycogenolysis and gluconeogenesis induced in certain tissues, such as liver, muscle, renal parenchyma, and adipose tissue). During the late post-absorptive period or starvation, normal glucose concentration is maintained by facilitating glucose production while inhibiting glucose uptake.
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Lack of consensus on how to measure hand hygiene compliance has made this a daunting challenge for quality professionals. To address this, the Joint Commission has partnered with infection control organizations to identify how to measure compliance with hand hygiene guidelines.
