As MERS continues to spread in South Korea, two more cases have been reported in the Middle East, one in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and one in Saudi Arabia.
A 77-year-old woman in Abu Dhabi, UAE, is in critical condition with MERS-CoV (Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus), the World Health Organization (WHO) reported yesterday. She fell ill May 21 and was hospitalized a week later.
A potentially promising way to lower the risk of recurrent Clostridium difficile infections is to fight fire with fire, in the form of oral doses of a nontoxigenic strain of C diff, according to a report yesterday in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA).
Four cases of MERS-CoV in Saudi Arabia, one of them fatal, were officially reported to the World Health Organization (WHO) for the period Apr 14 to 20, according to an update today.
The new cases, all previously reported by the Saudi Ministry of Health (MOH) and noted by CIDRAP News, are in adult men, and tracing of household and healthcare contacts is ongoing.
Infection with Clostridium difficile ribotype 027 independently predicts severe disease and mortality, but demographic and clinical factors are stronger predictors of severe disease, according to a study yesterday in Clinical Infectious Diseases.
The CDC says the findings point to a need for better antibiotic stewardship and infection control.
More than 95,000 new cases of chikungunya have been reported in the Caribbean and Americas since Oct 31, bringing the total to 888,806 cases since the outbreak began in December 2013, according to a Nov 7 update from the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO).
Qatar has reported its first MERS-CoV case this year, according to media reports, while Saudi Arabia's Ministry of Health (MOH) has confirmed three new cases in as many days, all in men, none of whom are healthcare workers.
Austria has reported its first MERS case, involving a visiting Saudi Arabian woman, while her home country has reported yet another case.
The Austrian health ministry said yesterday that the Saudi woman arrived in the country a few days ago and is now isolated in a Vienna hospital in critical condition, according to a Deutsche Presse Agentur (DPA) story today.
Vaccination coverage of young US children against all routinely recommended vaccines remained high and even increased for certain vaccines last year, according to data from the National Immunization Survey (NIS), published today in Morbidity Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR).
A federal vaccine advisory group yesterday recommended that adults age 65 and older receive the Prevnar 13 pneumococcal conjugate vaccine, according to a press release from Pfizer Inc., the vaccine's maker. Using the vaccine alongside the current 23-valent pneumococcal vaccine is thought to provide broader protection.
