The top 10% of healthcare workers in terms of antibiotic use prescribe the drugs for 95% or more of patients they see for colds, bronchitis, or other acute respiratory infections (ARI), according to an Annals of Internal Medicine study yesterday.
The lowest 10%, in contrast, prescribe antibiotics at 40% or less of patient visits for ARI.
The CDC proposes adding certain H5N1 viruses to HHS's select agent list; experts have varied reactions.
In 2013 and 2014, high-containment laboratories at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) logged about a dozen power outages and airflow system failures that could have compromised safety, USA Today reported yesterday.
The problems were disclosed in a lab incident summary that the newspaper obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request. They occurred between January 2013 and July 2014.
The Obama administration has been slow to take recommended and promised steps toward a coordinated national biosurveillance strategy, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) said in a report released yesterday.
For the third day in a row South Korea reported no new MERS-CoV cases, but its health ministry today reported one more death, involving an 81-year-old woman who had a stoke before she was diagnosed, the Korea Times reported today. The woman was exposed to the virus while at Samsung Medical Center in Seoul.
A US Army facility in Utah that mistakenly shipped live Bacillus anthracis to dozens of other labs over a 10-year period did not properly test its method for killing the bacterium, which causes anthrax, according to a USA Today story based on a government report.
In the wake of several lab missteps involving dangerous pathogens, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has said it will take 3 years to release detailed information on lab incidents throughout the country, USA Today reported yesterday.
Saudi Arabia today reported five more MERS cases, including three in Hofuf, which has been a hot spot lately because of an apparent hospital outbreak.
Two of the three Hofuf patients, Saudi men ages 41 and 29 years, are healthcare workers who had contact with other MERS-CoV (Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus) patients, the Saudi Ministry of Health (MOH) reported. They are in stable condition.
The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) yesterday released its final Veterinary Feed Directive (VFD), a rule that aims to put all uses of medically important antibiotics in food animals under veterinary supervision by the end of next year.
Sierra Leone is reporting a spate of new Ebola cases in a new hot spot in the Kaffu Bullom part of Port Loko district, located in the western part of the country, according to official and media reports.
