Nursefriendly.com: infectious diseases

Showing posts with label infectious diseases. Show all posts

Thursday, May 26, 2011

Thirty Years of AIDS, Open for Questions: Videochat with the White House, AIDS.GOV

On Wednesday, June 1 at 3pm ET, join AIDS.gov in a live video chat with the White House to recognize “30 Years of AIDS”. The U.S. Surgeon General will provide opening remarks. Submit your questions online, in advance or during the event.

Jeffrey Crowley
ONAP Director

Dr. Benjamin
Surgeon General of the United States Public Health Service

via aids.gov

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Thursday, May 5, 2011

Africa: Immigration Law Means Sick May Be Deported

French doctors are worried that a proposed immigration law will stop foreigners receiving vital medical treatment. The bill, which a key committee is discussing Wednesday, would scrap a provision that since 1998 has allowed immigrants temporary residency for medical treatment in France.

Louise (not her real name), a 42-year-old Nigerian woman, is sitting in a hospital room in Argenteuil, a northern Paris suburb. She's been here for several days.

Doctors have figured out that she has a stomach infection, but they are running more tests because she is HIV-positive.

Radio report: Medical visas threatened

Louise came to France in 2008, because she says she had problems with the Nigerian government. Even though her request for political asylum from France was turned down, she is still living here legally, because of her medical condition.

She says she had no idea she had the disease until doctors performed medical tests when she arrived in France.

via allafrica.com

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Thursday, April 28, 2011

Time to Eliminate Dangerous Injection Practices by Clinicians : Health in 30

By Barbara Ficarra, RN, BSN, MPA

Thanks to Laura Landro for shining light on unsafe injections in her WSJ blog, “Unsafe Injection Practices Persist Despite Education Efforts.”

Landro writes:

“A new push is underway to eliminate unsafe injection practices, which remain a persistent safety problem despite years of efforts to educate clinicians about the risks of re-using needles, syringes and drug vials.

In the U.S., failure to follow safe practices in delivering intravenous medications and injections has resulted in more than 30 outbreaks of infectious disease including hepatitis C, and the notification of more than 125,000 patients about potential exposure just in the last decade, according to health-care purchasing alliance Premier Inc.”

As a registered nurse this is unthinkable. Learning to administer injections safely is “patient care 101.” There is no excuse for any health care professional to unsafely inject patients.

via healthin30.com

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Thursday, April 21, 2011

GYT | Where music artists and celebrities meet to spread the word about getting tested | GYT I It's Your Sex Life

Know

Be a Know-it-All. Get the facts about STDs and Testing: what, why, where, how and how much. Don't stress, just test! GO »

Protect

Let's cut to the chase: you can't tell if someone has an STD just by looking at them. What to do? Use protection. No excuses. GO »

Talk

Check out tips and videos on how to talk openly with your bf/gf, or health care provider about testing. Nothing is more awkward than silence. GO »

via itsyoursexlife.com

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Saturday, April 16, 2011

Big Pharma backs deal to boost flu pandemic readiness | Reuters

Virus samples will be shared globally in exchange for vaccines produced from them under a landmark deal to improve preparedness for a flu pandemic, diplomats at the World Health Organization said on Saturday.

In a statement to Reuters, the International Federation of Pharmaceutical Manufacturers and Associations, which represents 26 research-based drugmakers, welcomed the plan and confirmed the commitments its members had undertaken as part of it.
Negotiators ended an all-night session with a draft agreement accepted by all countries, including the United States, the last to join the consensus, diplomats said.

via reuters.com

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Monday, April 11, 2011

How Vaccinations Work | International Medical Council on Vaccination

Philip F. Incao, MD

In order to use vaccinations wisely, we need to understand exactly how they work. Until recently, the mechanism of action of vaccinations was always understood to be simply that they cause an increase in antibody levels (titers) against a specific disease antigen (bacterium or virus), thus preventing infection with that bacterial or viral antigen. In recent years science has learned that the human immune system is much more complicated than we thought. It is composed of two functional branches or compartments that may work together in a mutually cooperative way or in a mutually antagonistic way depending on the health of the individual.

One branch is the humoral immune system (or approximately Th2 function), which primarily produces antibodies in the blood circulation as a sensing or recognizing function of the immune system to the presence of foreign antigens in the body. The other branch is the cellular or cell-mediated immune system (or approximately Th1 function), which primarily destroys, digests and expels foreign antigens out of the body through the activity of its cells found in the thymus, tonsils, adenoids, spleen, lymph nodes and lymph system throughout the body. This process of destroying, digesting and discharging foreign antigens from the body is known as the acute inflammatory response and is often accompanied by the classic signs of inflammation: fever, pain, malaise and discharge of mucus, pus, skin rash or diarrhea.

These two functional branches of the immune system may be compared to the two functions in eating: tasting and recognizing the food on the one hand, and digesting the food and eliminating the food waste on the other hand. In the same way, the humoral or Th2 branch of the immune system tastes and recognizes and even remembers foreign antigens and the cellular or Th1 branch of the immune system digests and eliminates the foreign antigens from the body. But just as too much repeated tasting of food will ruin the appetite, so also too much repeated stimulation of the tasting humoral immune system by an antigen will inhibit and suppress the digesting and eliminating function of the cellular immune system. In other words, over stimulating antibody production can suppress the acute inflammatory response of the cellular immune system! 1

via vaccinationcouncil.org

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Wednesday, April 6, 2011

Male Circumcision and Risk for HIV Transmission: Implications for the United States | Factsheets | CDC HIV/AIDS

Several types of research have documented that male circumcision significantly reduces the risk of HIV acquisition by men during penile-vaginal sex.

Biologic Plausibility

Compared with the dry external skin surface, the inner mucosa of the foreskin has less keratinization (deposition of fibrous protein), a higher density of target cells for HIV infection (Langerhans cells), and is more susceptible to HIV infection than other penile tissue in laboratory studies [2]. The foreskin may also have greater susceptibility to traumatic epithelial disruptions (tears) during intercourse, providing a portal of entry for pathogens, including HIV [3]. In addition, the microenvironment in the preputial sac between the unretracted foreskin and the glans penis may be conducive to viral survival [1]. Finally, the higher rates of sexually transmitted genital ulcerative disease, such as syphilis, observed in uncircumcised men may also increase susceptibility to HIV infection [4].

International Observational Studies

A systematic review and meta-analysis that focused on male circumcision and heterosexual transmission of HIV in Africa was published in 2000 [5]. It included 19 cross-sectional studies, 5 case-control studies, 3 cohort studies, and 1 partner study. A substantial protective effect of male circumcision on risk for HIV infection was noted, along with a reduced risk for genital ulcer disease. After adjustment for confounding factors in the population-based studies, the relative risk for HIV infection was 44% lower in circumcised men. The strongest association was seen in men at high risk, such as patients at sexually transmitted disease (STD) clinics, for whom the adjusted relative risk was 71% lower for circumcised men.

via cdc.gov

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Friday, April 1, 2011

MRSA Protocols- Are They Being Used In Practice? | Registered Nurse Blog

Posted: April 2nd, 2011

In Advance For NPs and PAs, a March 9, 2011 article was featured on the following study of protocols used by health care providers to treat MRSA infections. I was surprised to see that some providers were still using Keflex to treat these infections. Some providers still were not sending cultures on these infections. How can we adequately treat an infection without knowing what will actually kill the bacteria? My impression of the following information is that the protocol that I do is somehow a new treatment regimen. I have been doing incision and drainage with appropriate culturing with first line Septra for the last 3 plus years. I also use mupricion ointment to nares twice daily and Hibaclens during the regimen if they have had more than one outbreak within a 6 month period.

Taking Aim at MRSA
Protocol use by an NP-PA team
Anita D. Barnes is a family nurse practitioner who is an assistant professor of nursing at Stephen F. Austin State University in Nacogdoches, Texas.
A 2009 study reported a variety of approaches used by ED physicians to treat CA-MRSA SSTIs.6 The study surveyed 225 ED physicians nationwide: 56% reported always sending cultures for testing and 19% said they never did so. The physicians prescribed trimethoprim-sulfamethoxazole (TMP-SMX) 60% of the time, either alone or in combination with another antibiotic. Nineteen percent treated patients with cephalexin alone, and 13% prescribed cephalexin in combination with another antibiotic. Cephalexin is not recommended in the CDC protocol.

What are you doing as providers to treat MRSA infections? Do you find the information alarming that some providers are still not culturing infections?

via registerednurseblog.com

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Tuesday, March 29, 2011

Man's death tied to salmonella in Rhode Island

An elderly man who tested positive for salmonella has died, according to Rhode Island officials investigating an outbreak of salmonella that has sickened 39 people.

Six fresh cases were reported on Tuesday and, while the source of contamination has not been determined, pastries from a local bakery were being recalled, said Annemarie Beardsworth, spokeswoman for the state Department of Health.

The man who died was in his 80s and lived in a Warwick nursing home that recently bought pastries from DeFusco's Bakery in Johnston, she said.

Inspectors went to DeFusco's and found cross-contamination and major violations of food handling, she said.

The most likely cause of salmonella was consumption of pastries that came in contact with infected raw eggs, the Health Department said. Pastry shells at DeFusco's had been stored in used egg crates, it said.

Fifteen people were sickened at the nursing home, while the rest of the 39 cases were elsewhere in the community. Twelve people were in hospitals, Beardsworth said.

"What we have now is a group of people who are ill with salmonella," she said. "What we don't have is laboratory-confirmed evidence of a source of contamination.

via health.yahoo.net

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Monday, March 21, 2011

World TB Day, March 24, 2011, March 21, 2011 News Release - National Institutes of Health (NIH)

World TB Day
March 24, 2011

Statement of Christine F. Sizemore, Ph.D., and Anthony S. Fauci, M.D.
National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases
National Institutes of Health

The theme of World TB Day 2011 — "On the move against TB: Transforming the fight towards elimination"— reflects renewed momentum to approach the global problem of tuberculosis with greater intensity and seriousness of purpose. This growing interest is broad-based, emerging from leaders in public health to laboratory scientists, from physicians to activists.

Today, about one-third of the world's population is infected with Mycobacterium tuberculosis (Mtb), the bacterium that causes TB. Most people have no symptoms because the bacterium is inactive, or latent, but individuals with symptoms of active TB disease can infect others. According to World Health Organization (WHO) estimates, in 2009 more than 14 million people had active TB, leading to 1.7 million deaths, or 4,600 deaths each day. Among people infected with the bacteria, those who have certain other conditions, such as HIV/AIDS and diabetes, are more likely to develop active TB and to die from it. Because of this deadly synergy, TB has become the leading cause of death among people with HIV/AIDS.

Although TB control programs have led to a decline in cases worldwide, the emergence and spread of drug-resistant strains of Mtb challenge the way we currently approach TB diagnosis and treatment. Extensively drug-resistant TB, while relatively rare, has been confirmed in 58 countries, including the United States, and likely is present in many more. It has become necessary not just to identify the infection but also to determine the proper therapy for patients at the earliest stages of disease.

via nih.gov

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Education Resources, Association for Professionals in Infection Control and Epidemiology, Inc APIC |

APIC works to provide information to both the general public and healthcare professionals. The brochures on this page are regularly reviewed and updated as needed to insure that the information provided is current. These materials are available for you to download, copy and distribute free of charge. These pamphlets are intended to provide a general reference to each topic. No brochure can adequately diagnose a medical condition. If in doubt regarding your symptoms, please contact a healthcare professional.

10 tips for preventing the spread of infection
Los Hechos Sobre Chlamydia
Antibiotic Safety
Meningococcal Meningitis
Chlamydia
Mold in Your Home
Companion Animals and Your Health
Patient Safety - Protecting Yourself from Medical Errors

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Monday, February 28, 2011

Fast response crucial in outbreaks of food-borne illness, study finds - USATODAY.com

Nearly three years after a nationwide salmonella outbreak that sickened about 1,500 people and claimed two lives, U.S. epidemiologists have learned that speed is of the essence in identifying sources of food contamination and preventing further infection.
But speed requires resources that cost money and, as an editorial accompanying the paper in the Feb. 23 online issue of the
New England Journal of Medicine points out, funds may not be forthcoming.
Although the recently signed Food Safety Modernization Act could help the U.S. Food and Drug Administration respond better to outbreaks of food-borne illness, the reality is that Congress still needs to authorize the money, the editorial stated.

via yourlife.usatoday.com

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Sunday, February 20, 2011

Antiseptic baths 'reduce infection risk' | News | Nursing Times

Using 2% chlorhexidine gluconate cloths for the daily bathing of inpatients, instead of soap and water, reduces the risk of hospital-acquired infections, according to US researchers.

The study found a 64% decrease in the risk of acquiring either MRSA or Vancomycin-resistant Enterococcus. A group of 7,699 general medical patients were bathed daily by healthcare assistants with CHG antiseptic cloths for the duration of their admission, while a control group of 7,102 patients were bathed with soap and water.
Kassakian SZ, et al. Impact of chlorhexidine bathing on hospital-acquired infections among general medical patients. Infection Control and Hospital Epidemiology 2011; Advance online publication.

via nursingtimes.net

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Friday, February 18, 2011

C. Difficile Spreads from Hospital to Community, ACG from MedPage Today

Clostridium difficile infection has spread from the hospital to the community but has proved manageable thus far, according to data reported here.

From 1991 to 2005, the incidence of community-acquired C. difficile in Olmsted County, Minn., quadrupled but still remained less common than the hospital-acquired gastrointestinal infection, Sahil Khanna, MD, of the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn., said at the American College of Gastroenterology meeting.

"Patients with community-acquired C. difficile infection were younger, more likely to be female, and less likely to have severe infections," Khanna observed.

Epidemiologic studies have shown an increasing incidence of both nosocomial and community-acquired infections. However, few studies have looked at the incidence of community-acquired C. difficile, said Khanna.

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Friday, February 11, 2011

Balancing infection control with the patient experience, KevinMD.com

by Kevin Pho, MD
Hospitals have recently been stepping up their infection control procedures, in the wake of news about iatrogenic infections afflicting patients when they are admitted.
Doctors are increasingly wearing a variety of protective garb — gowns, gloves and masks — while seeing patients.
In an interesting New York Times column, Pauline Chen wonders how this affects the doctor-patient relationship.
She cites a study from the Annals of Family Medicine, which concluded that,
fear of contagion among physicians, studies have shown, can compromise the quality of care delivered. When compared with patients not in isolation, those individuals on contact precautions have fewer interactions with clinicians, more delays in care, decreased satisfaction and greater incidences of depression and anxiety. These differences translate into more noninfectious complications like falls and pressure ulcers and an increase of as much at 100 percent in the overall incidence of adverse events.
Hospitals are in a no-win situation here. On one hand, they have to do all they can to minimize the risk of healthcare-acquired infections, but on the other, doctors need to strive for a closer bond with patients — which protective garb sometimes can impede.
More research is clearly needed to determine how much protection is actually needed to prevent the spread of infectious disease.
For instance, Dr. Chen cites studies where,
researchers at the Medical College of Virginia in Richmond found that the rate of infection was identical whether health care workers wore gowns and gloves with only the patients in isolation or whether they wore only gloves with all patients.
So there’s some evidence that being overly protective may not necessarily help.
The key is finding the right balance between infection control and preserving the physician-patient relationship. With rapidly advancing, and sometimes impersonal, technology, combined with the legitimate fear of hospital-acquired contagion, it’s easy to forget about the patient experience during their hospital stay.

via kevinmd.com

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Wednesday, February 2, 2011

Impact of a statewide intensive care unit quality improvement initiative on hospital mortality and length of stay: retrospective comparative analysis -- Lipitz-Snyderman et al. 342 -- bmj.com

The US Institute of Medicine highlighted the serious problem of patient safety and importance of evidence based quality improvement initiatives to reduce adverse events.1 Evidence that quality improvement initiatives intended to reduce adverse events result in a measurable impact on other important outcomes, such as mortality and length of hospital stay, is limited. Without this evidence, hospitals and healthcare payers face uncertainty about whether investment in any specific quality improvement intervention will significantly benefit patients and represent a good use of limited financial resources.

The Michigan Health and Hospital Association Keystone ICU (intensive care unit) project, developed by researchers at Johns Hopkins and undertaken by the Michigan Health and Hospital Association, about 80 of its member hospitals, and researchers at Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions, is a recent example of a successful, large scale quality improvement initiative.2 3 4 The project adopted a comprehensive approach to improving patient safety that included promoting a culture of safety, improving communication between providers, and implementing evidence based practices to reduce rates of catheter related bloodstream infections and ventilator associated pneumonia. Evidence based interventions for preventing catheter related bloodstream infections were promoting handwashing, full barrier precautions, skin antisepsis with chlorhexidine, avoiding the femoral site during catheter insertion, and removing unnecessary catheters. Interventions to prevent ventilator associated pneumonia included a mechanical ventilator “bundle” consisting of use of semirecumbent positioning, daily interruption of sedation infusions, and prophylaxis for peptic ulcer disease and deep venous thrombosis.5 The project showed that measures of culture and infection rates in the intensive care unit were substantially improved for up to 36 months after implementing the quality improvement measures.2 4 5 6

via bmj.com

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Cash machines 'as dirty as toilets' - Telegraph

Experts took swabs from the numeric key pads on a string of city centre ATMs around England which are used by thousands of shoppers every day.

They then took similar swabs from the seats of nearby public lavatories and compared the bacteria under microscopes in a lab.

The swab were left to grow overnight and samples from both locations were found to contain pseudomonads and bacillus, bacterias which are known to cause sickness and diarrhoea.

Yesterday (Mon) Dr Richard Hastings, microbiologist for BioCote, a built-in, antibacterial product coating, said: ''We were interested in comparing the levels of bacterial contamination between heavily-used ATM machines and public lavatories.

''We were surprised by our results because the ATM machines were shown to be heavily contaminated with bacteria; to the same level as nearby public lavatories.

''In addition the bacteria we detected on ATMs were similar to those from the toilet, which are well known as causes of common human illnesses.''

BioCote carried out the swab tests after they carried out a survey which revealed Brits consider public lavatories to be the biggest health risk.

The study of 3,000 adults also revealed public telephones are considered the biggest health risk.

via telegraph.co.uk

You might want to wear gloves when you use the ATM next.

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Wednesday, January 26, 2011

Why You Shouldn’t Snuggle with Your Pooch in Bed – TIME Healthland

It isn't just dog trainers and the occasional finicky spouse who want you to keep your pets off the bed. A new report in the journal Emerging Infectious Diseases found that of the 250 known zoonotic diseases, which are transmitted between humans and animals, more than 100 are derived from domestic pets — yes, even from your precious Sparkles or Daisy.

Reported HealthDay:

In one case a 69-year-old man, whose dog slept under the covers with him and licked his hip replacement wound, came down with meningitis. Another incident involved a 9-year-old boy who got plague, a potentially deadly bacterial infection, from sleeping with his flea-infested cat.

Other infections transmitted to people after sleeping with their cat or dog, kissing them or being licked by the pet include: hookworm, ringworm, roundworm, cat scratch disease and drug-resistant staph infections, the report said.

The good news is that the risk of your pet making you sick is relatively small, at least compared to the sheer number of people who sleep with their pets (more than half of all pet owners in the U.S.). And the health benefits of owning a pet outweigh its risks: studies show that having a pet can lower blood pressure, reduce stress, improve physical fitness and increase happiness.

via healthland.time.com

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Sunday, January 9, 2011

Starve a Cold, Feed a Fever? | Patient Advocate - Kitty Wilde, RN

Do you starve a cold and feed a fever when you’re feeling under the weather? Or is it the other way around?

Good news — starving is never the correct answer.

When you eat a nutritional, well-balanced diet, many other factors fall in place that keep your body functioning optimally. Foods that are rich in nutrients help fight infections and may help to prevent illness. Because a wide array of nutrients in foods — some of which we may not even know about — are essential for wellness, relying on dietary supplements (vitamins and minerals) for good nutrition may limit your intake to just the known nutritional compounds rather than letting you get the full benefit of all nutrients available in food.

Including more raw fruits and vegetables in your diet is the best way to ensure a high intake of antioxidants. And when you cook these super-nutrients, be sure you cook them using as little liquid as possible to prevent nutrient loss.

via patient-advocate.com

To read the rest of the article, click on the link above.

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Monday, January 3, 2011

CDC - Seasonal Influenza (Flu) - Flu Activity & Surveillance

Flu Activity & Surveillance

Reports & Surveillance Methods in the United States

Situation Update: Summary of Weekly FluView

Full FluView Report

Overview of Influenza Surveillance in the United States

Past Weekly Surveillance Reports and Historical Data

via cdc.gov

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World TB Day March 24, 2011

Statement of Christine F. Sizemore, Ph.D., and Anthony S. Fauci, M.D. National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases National Institutes of Health

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World TB Day
March 24, 2011

Statement of Christine F. Sizemore, Ph.D., and Anthony S. Fauci, M.D.
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National Institutes of Health