The number of chikungunya infections in the Americas has increased to 1,343,372, a rise of 32,504, the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) said in its latest update. The bump in cases was slightly higher than the 28,768-case increase recorded the week before.
Filovirus experts who met a year ago say that evidence is lacking for recommending personal protective equipment (PPE) for health workers treating patients for diseases like Ebola and Marburg, and they outline several priorities for research, according to a report late last week in the Journal of Infectious Diseases.
Saudi Arabia's Ministry of Health (MOH) reported a new MERS-CoV case today, the sixth this week.
The case involves a 48-year-old male expatriate in Riyadh. He is not a healthcare worker but had contact with a MERS-CoV (Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus) case in the community, the MOH said in a statement. He is hospitalized in stable condition.
Federal officials noted several biosafety lapses at a Tulane University animal lab after animals were infected with Burkholderia pseudomallei, the bacterium that causes melioidosis, or Whitmore's disease, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) announced today.
Most healthcare-associated infections—such as MRSA and C diff—have gone down, but not all.
China reported its second H7N9 avian flu case this year, with both cases in Guangdong province near Hong Kong, according to a report today from Xinhua, the country's state-run news agency.
The authors expand on a previous commentary by clarifying the possible role that aerosol transmission might play in Ebola transmission and offer new language for discussing disease transmission.
The rate of two important healthcare-associated infections (HAIs) in critically ill children decreased substantially from 2007 to 2012, an important factor in patient outcomes as well as in monetary savings, according to findings of a study yesterday in Pediatrics.
Significantly fewer infectious organisms are transferred through a fist bump than through a handshake or even a "high five," so fist bumps would be a more hygienic way of greeting others, says a study from the United Kingdom released today in the American Journal of Infection Control, the journal of the Association for Professionals in Infection Control and Epidemiology (APIC).
The evidence-based guidance is part of a series on preventing hospital infections.
