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A team of researchers has detected a high abundance and diversity of antibiotic resistance genes in Chinese coastal estuaries, according to a study yesterday in Nature Microbiology.
France reports three low-path strains that struck poultry last year, Greece detects H5N5 for the first time, and Germany detects high-path H5N2.
Giving pregnant women a dose of azithromycin during labor reduces infections in both mothers and newborns, according to a new study in Pediatrics. But an accompanying commentary suggests the harms of azithromycin exposure could outweigh the benefits.
Signaling an ongoing rise in H7N9 avian flu activity in China, the country's Liaoning province in the northeast today reported two cases, according to a local health department statement translated and posted today by FluTrackers, an infectious disease news message board.
The findings are a sign the gene has spread widely in community and healthcare settings throughout the country.
A review of 4 previous studies shows that solid data on health worker immunization are lacking and highlights the implausability of some of the results.
For the first time this season, the marker for pneumonia and flu deaths rose above the seasonal and epidemic thresholds.
Detections vary from H5N1 in India to the confirmation of H5N5 for the first time in Slovenia.
On the eve of Lunar New Year in China, ringing in the year of the rooster, two of the country's provinces reported new H7N9 avian flu cases, Hunan and Guizhou, according to provincial health department statements translated and posted by FluTrackers, an infectious disease news message board.
Our weekly wrap-up of antimicrobial stewardship & antimicrobial resistance scans
Originally published by CIDRAP News Jan 26
Yesterday Brazil's health ministry reported 129 new suspected cases of yellow fever this week, with two more states, Goias and Matto Grosso do Sul, reporting infections. The country now has 550 suspected or confirmed cases of the mosquito-borne disease.
Two phase 3 trials showed that a human mononoclonal antibody cut recurrence about 40%.
New H5N8 outbreaks, which have affected at least 24 European countries, plus some in Asia, the Middle East, and Africa, were reported in Germany, Italy, Poland, and the UK.
With H7N9 cases in China in January already outpacing December's sudden and steep rise, China reported at least two more cases today, according to the latest official reports.
Hong Kong's Center for Health Protection (CHP) today acknowledged two cases reported from Hubei province yesterday, a 65 year-old man and a 78 year-old woman from two different cities, both in critical condition.
More than 90% of Veterans Health Administration (VHA) hospitals have developed written antimicrobial stewardship policies, and the agency's Antimicrobial Stewardship Initiative has cut antibiotic use 12% overall so far, VHA officials noted yesterday in an analysis in Infection Control and Hospital Epidemiology.
The UK reported H5N8 avian flu on a pheasant farm housing 10,000 birds.
Though a UK C diff spike was thought to be caused by dirty hospital rooms, that theory proved unlikely.
The Saudi Arabian Ministry of Health (MOH) today reported a new case of MERS-CoV in the city of Jeddah.
A 48-year-old expatriate man is in critical condition after presenting with symptoms of MERS-CoV (Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus).The source of his infection is listed as primary, meaning he did not contract the disease from another person.
With novel H7N9 avian influenza cases in China this month already topping an early, steep surge seen in December, two provinces reported four more cases, according to official sources, as US officials posted a travel alert because of the spike in infections.
Many questions remain about how the highly adaptable virus infiltrates farms and spreads.
