A meta-analysis of 12 studies indicates that serum procalcitonin levels are unlikely to help clinicians determine whether community-acquired pneumonia (CAP) in adults requires antibiotics, researchers from Baylor College of Medicine reported yesterday in Clinical Infectious Diseases.
A study yesterday in Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy details the emergence of gonorrhea strains with high-level resistance to azithromycin in Taiwan.
A study over four flu seasons of influenza and other respiratory illnesses at nine Canadian hospitals found that 95% of health providers have worked while sick, often when symptoms were mild or began during the workday. Researchers reported their findings yesterday in Infection Control and Hospital Epidemiology, the journal of the Society for Healthcare Epidemiology of America (SHEA).
A 38-year-old man and his pregnant wife, 37, died in Mongolia from bubonic plague after eating tainted marmot meat, according to a report in The Siberian Times.
The Mongolian Ministry of Health confirmed the cause of death, and issued a quarantine for Ulgii, the town where the couple lived, leaving several dozen tourists stranded. The quarantine lifted yesterday, the BBC reported.
An international team of scientists reported today in Eurosurveillance that the three extensively drug-resistant (XDR) gonorrhea cases identified in Australia and the United Kingdom in 2018 were caused by a single XDR clone.
The new drug is a 'modernized' version of tetracycline, designed to address antibiotic resistance, but its clinical role isn't yet clear.
Merck announced yesterday that the US Food and Drug Administration has accepted for priority review a New Drug Application (NDA) for the combination of relebactam and imipenem/cilastatin and a supplemental NDA for Zerbaxa (ceftolozane and tazobactam).
Today Saudi Arabia's Ministry of Health (MOH) reported two new MERS-CoV cases, both in Wadi Al Dawasir, a town in south-central Saudi Arabia.
In an update to its epidemiologic week 5 report, the MOH said the patients were a 44-year-old man and a 62-year-old women, both hospitalized for their MERS-CoV (Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus) infections.
Flu levels are rising in some parts of the country, but nationally activity is still low, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said today in its latest weekly flu update.
About 61% of kids in children's hospitals got guideline-concordant therapy, compared with only 27% in non-children's hospitals.
