Weekly flu season reports resumed today in the United States and Europe, with low flu activity reported in both parts of the world, according to updates today from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and a collaboration between the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) and the World Health Organization (WHO) Regional Office for Europe.
Our weekly wrap-up of antimicrobial stewardship & antimicrobial resistance scans
A multi-hospital study in South Korea has identified risk factors for infection with multidrug-resistant (MDR) pathogens in patients with hemodialysis-associated pneumonia (HDAP), researchers reported yesterday in BMC Infectious Diseases.
Seattle researchers report that, among men who have sex with men (MSM) in Seattle and King County, Washington, 5% have gonorrhea with reduced susceptibility to azithromycin, according to a study today in Clinical Infectious Diseases.
Influenza is finally on the decline in Australia, according to yesterday's global flu update from the World Health Organization (WHO). Influenza A, H3N2, remained the dominant circulating strain, followed by influenza B.
A phase 2 study of intravenous (IV) zanamivir in children hospitalized with severe influenza found that treatment was safe, reduced viral load, and was associated with clinical improvement, researchers reported yesterday in an early online edition of Pediatrics.
Originally published by CIDRAP News Oct 19
A new study published in Clinical infectious Diseases suggests that a Salmonella strain circulating in pigs in the US Midwest is part of an emerging clade from Europe that is resistant to multiple antibiotics and may pose a public health risk.
In a stunning development that played out over the weekend, news surfaced that WHO Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus appointed 93-year-old Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe as goodwill ambassador for noncommunicable diseases, prompting international outrage followed by a quick withdrawal of the appointment.
After a 9-day lapse in cases, Saudi Arabia's Ministry of Health (MOH) today reported a MERS-CoV infection in a 77-year-old man in Riyadh who had contact with camels before he got sick.
In a statement, the MOH said the man is a Saudi citizen who has symptoms of MERS-CoV (Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus) and is listed in stable condition.
A US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention–led study published yesterday in Clinical Infectious Diseases reveals that antiviral drugs are prescribed to only 15% of outpatients who have acute respiratory infections (ARIs) and a high risk for influenza.
The data underscore a need to increase appropriate prescribing, the authors said.
Alopexx Vaccine LLC today reported positive phase 1 results for its broad-spectrum antimicrobial vaccine, which targets drug-resistant bacteria, including methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) and serious infections like pneumonia, meningitis, bloodstream infections, and gonorrhea.
European health and food safety agencies have established a set of indicators to assess progress in combating antimicrobial resistance (AMR) and reducing antimicrobial use in humans and food-producing animals.
Genetic analysis of H7N9 viruses obtained from Chinese poultry from 2013 to 2017 identified new mutations that make the virus more lethal in chickens and may pose a greater threat to human health, based on virulence and transmissibility tests in animal models. Researchers from China reported their findings Oct 24 in Cell Research.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in its weekly FluView report, noted a new case of variant influenza A reported in Ohio involving variant H1N2 (H1N2v).
The World Health Organization (WHO) reported a total of 1,309 suspected cases, including 93 deaths, in an update yesterday on the plague outbreak in Madagascar. The case-fatality rate for the outbreak is now 7%.
The numbers reflect an increase of 12 cases and 9 fewer deaths from the WHO's previous update on Oct 20.
Canadian researchers have found that hospital-specific antibiotic usage was associated with increased, rather than decreased, antibiotic susceptibility in a study yesterday in Infection Control and Hospital Epidemiology.
Uganda's recently announced second lab-confirmed Marburg virus patient—part of a family cluster— visited two traditional healers for his symptoms, one of them across the border in western Kenya, the World Health Organization Regional Office for Africa (WHO AFRO) said today in its weekly outbreak and health emergencies bulletin.
CARB-X, an initiative to build a better pipeline of new antibiotics for treating resistant infections, announced today that it awarded Inhibrx $4.55 million to speed up the development of a new antibody to prevent and treat Pseudomonas, a hard-to-treat Gram-negative pathogen often found in health settings.
South Africa reported four more outbreaks involving highly pathogenic H5N8, two in poultry and two in other captive bird settings, according to two reports today from the World Organization for Animal Health (OIE).
CARB-X announced today that it's awarding $168,000 to Integrated Biotherapeutics to develop a vaccine for the prevention of infections caused by methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA).
The Saudi Arabian Ministry of Health (MOH) reported two new cases of MERS-CoV infection yesterday and today and the death of a previously reported patient.
A 49-year-old Saudi man from Unayzah is in critical condition after presenting with symptoms of MERS-CoV (Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus), the MOH reported yesterday. The man had indirect contact with camels, a known risk factor for MERS.
The Infectious Diseases Society of America (IDSA) today announced the first two recipients to receive its Antimicrobial Stewardship Centers of Excellence (COE) designation: Saint John's Health Center in Santa Monica, Calif., and Summa Health, based in Akron, Ohio.
Madagascar's number of confirmed and suspected plague infections has climbed to 1,801, including 127 deaths, over the past few days, with the number of new cases from the pneumonic form of the disease continuing to decline, according to the latest situation report from the World Health Organization (WHO) Regional Office for Africa.
The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) today reported three new infections involving novel influenza A viruses, two of them variant H3N2 (H3N2v) and one variant H1N2 (H1N2v), with possible human-to-human transmission in one of the cases.
Results from a survey published yesterday in Eurosurveillance indicate more frequent detection and greater geographical dispersion of livestock-associated methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (LA-MRSA) in Europe.
