Showing posts with label Communicable Diseases. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Communicable Diseases. Show all posts

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.

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Thursday, April 21, 2011

Keep Pets Out of Your Bed? - Dr. Weil

Q
Keep Pets Out of Your Bed?

What's this I hear that allowing pets to sleep on your bed puts you at risk for some dangerous diseases? I've always let my cats sleep on the bed. Is this for real?

A
Answer (Published 4/21/2011)

A team of veterinary researchers in California recently warned against allowing pets to sleep with their owners, citing studies showing that this practice can favor the transmission of a number of diseases. Their search of medical literature turned up cases of meningitis, staphylococcus infections, bubonic plague, Chagas disease (caused by a parasite and spread to animals and humans from infected bugs) and cat-scratch disease that were passed from animals to humans via licking, kissing or sleeping in the same bed. But they conceded that cases of serious infections passed from animals to humans in this way are rare.

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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 »

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Friday, April 15, 2011

A Silent Epidemic of Needle Injuries - NYTimes.com

needle sticksCraig Dilger for The New York Times Medical students appear to be at high risk for needle injuries.

Surgical students are frequently stuck by needles, but many students don’t bother reporting the injuries, a new study found.

Researchers from Johns Hopkins University surveyed 699 recent medical school graduates who had trained to become surgeons at 17 medical centers in the United States. The survey found that 59 percent had been stuck by a needle at some point during medical school, according to the study, in the December issue of Academic Medicine.

Inadvertent needle sticks are a concern to both doctor and patient. A health care worker accidentally pierced by a needle is at risk for contracting hepatitis C or H.I.V. or developing an infection. And if the health care worker already has a blood borne illness, a needle stick injury could expose patients to a droplet of infected blood.

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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

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Hospital scrubs and sandwiches should not mix | Reporting on Health

You probably have been to a restaurant near a hospital (or a café inside a hospital) and seen a doctor, nurse or medical assistant wearing scrubs and standing in line for a sandwich. You probably didn’t give this a second thought, the way you wouldn’t if you saw a police officer in uniform or a priest wearing a collar.

Dr. David C. Martin, a retired Sacramento anesthesiologist a former assistant professor in the Department of Anesthesiology and Pain Medicine at UC Davis Medical Center, thinks you should be alarmed. He has a niche mission that Antidote has never seen championed before. He wants to rid America’s restaurants of medical staff eating in scrubs. He makes his case over a three-part series that begins today. The first part is below.

Part two will run later this week and conclude with part three, in which I will bring in some voices from the larger health care community to talk about this confrontational approach to a covert public health issue. Here’s Dr. Martin.

I was enjoying lunch at a popular Sacramento restaurant last week, when two patrons walked in wearing green surgical attire, “scrubs” as they are commonly called. Both were wearing official badges from a large, local hospital, revealing one to be a physician, the other a registered nurse. Concerned that these scrubs had been exposed to communicable bacteria, I politely asked that the healthcare workers leave the restaurant, and return only in regular attire. Both were mildly annoyed but agreed to depart. I asked them to leave because the use of scrubs in the community can create a serious and avoidable public threat. I am also convinced that simple public action can play a powerful role in effecting change. I hope to bring misuse of hospital attire to greater public awareness and to solicit broader public action in addressing this potentially dangerous problem of scrubs transmitting pathogens from the hospital into the public and from public places back to the hospital, where these pathogens may cause grave harm to vulnerable patients.

The Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations (JCAHO), which certifies and accredits healthcare organizations, has launched a bold initiative called “Speak Up,” which encourages individuals to take an active role in reducing our risk of infection by assuring that our providers wash their hands and wear gloves. JCAHO has even published a coloring book for children, to teach, early in life, that it is not disrespectful or inappropriate to speak up and remind our physicians and other providers to take appropriate safety measures.

For adults, the Joint Commission issues buttons, to be worn by healthcare providers, which say, “Ask me if I’ve washed my hands.”  This initiative is supported by the American Hospital Association and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, among many other quality and safety organizations. Some hospitals and clinics have embraced and enforced rigorous hand washing protocols have reduced their rate of institution-acquired infections, in some cases quite dramatically.   

Yet, believe it or not, many healthcare workers have not complied with institutional policy on hand washing.

At a forum on hand hygiene organized by Loyola University Medical Center and Medline Industries in March, experts reported that hand-hygiene compliance was lax nationwide. But it takes a lot of effort to get everyone “on board.”  I believe that the growing concern over scrubs as a vector of disease, while less important than sound hand-washing practices, is a substantial problem that merits similarly aggressive action.

Most California hospitals have official or unofficial policies, which restrict the use of hospital scrubs to surgical suites and related patient-care areas. Wearing them or laundering them outside of the hospital is forbidden or discouraged, but enforcement of such policy is a difficult task.

I spoke about this concern with quality assurance personnel at two of the four major hospital organizations in the Sacramento area. The two others failed to return several calls. One of the quality assurance staff members shared an observation that her organization had been effective in curtailing scrub misuse by non-physician staff, but that physicians were frequently allowed to break the rules. She said that many considered themselves to be “above the law” in this regard. Some travel to and from their own homes in contaminated scrubs, which suggests that this practice stems less from a disregard for others and more from a curious type of denial and disbelief that hospital-contaminated scrubs offer any real threat.  Are these the same professionals who have resisted aggressive hand-washing protocols, which make a huge difference in institutional infection rates?  As a physician who has spent most of my career in the surgical suite, I find this perplexing.

The notion that our physicians and nurses are immune to error, or unapproachable regarding its potential should have been laid to rest long ago. None of us should share public space with those who unnecessarily risk compromising public safety, knowingly or otherwise. I believe, as does the medical community at large, that it is time for all of us to take responsibility for our health and safety, rather than displacing the entirety of this onus to our caregivers. Purging public spaces of hospital-exposed garments could make more than a public fashion statement. It could reduce illness and even death from infectious disease.

Next: Why superbugs may show up wearing scrubs

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Wednesday, March 30, 2011

Hospital worker had deadly blood infection

All Children's Hospital has contacted all the families whose children were exposed to an outpatient therapist who died Monday from a contagious infection that can lead to meningitis.

As they continue to notify staff who may be affected, officials want the public to know the hospital is safe, and the general public is not at risk.  However, they do want all of us to be aware of two key facts about the infection that could save lives.

Doctor Juan Dumois, The Director of Pediatric Infectious Diseases at All Children's, has spent the last two days answering questions about a blood infection that likely killed an outpatient therapist.  “It’s an organism that we call meningococcal. And this organism has the potential to cause very serious life threatening blood infections and sometimes, once it's in the blood it can get into the brain and that's when we call it meningitis."

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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.

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Tuesday, March 1, 2011

Women living with HIV fight challenges through photography

A picture may be worth a thousand words, but for women living with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), the virus that causes AIDS, a picture can help them deal with the challenges of living with the virus.

A University of Missouri researcher is completing a pilot project during which women living with HIV take photos to document their lives. The photos are used to engage women in critical discussions about their lives, identifying both social, mental, and physical challenges and possible solutions for the women. The photos will be presented at two special events. The first event will be held on March 3-6 in Columbia at the True/False Film Festival. The second event will be held on March 19 in St. Louis at the Regional Arts Commission to commemorate National Women and Girls HIV/AIDS Awareness Day.

"Women with HIV face more challenges than most intervention programs are designed to address," said Michelle Teti, assistant professor of health psychology in the MU School of Health Professions. "These women need to discuss more issues than merely how to have safe sex. Many live in poverty, with substandard housing and abusive partners. Helping women understand and address these issues is what this project is all about."

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Monday, February 28, 2011

Food safety, drug safety, and pregnancy information are among eight new topics included in our survey. | Pew Internet & American Life Project

Health information remains one of the most important subjects that internet users research online. The Pew Internet Project and California HealthCare Foundation have added eight new topics to our national survey measuring internet users’ interest in health information:

  • 29% of internet users look online for information about food safety or recalls.
  • 24% of internet users look online for information about drug safety or recalls.
  • 19% of internet users look online for information about pregnancy and childbirth.
  • 17% of internet users look online for information about memory loss, dementia, or Alzheimer’s.
  • 16% of internet users look online for information about medical test results.
  • 14% of internet users look online for information about how to manage chronic pain.
  • 12% of internet users look online for information about long-term care for an elderly or disabled person.
  • 7% of internet users look online for information about end-of-life decisions.

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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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Sick doctors who work are doing more harm to their patients than good

Doctors: if you’re sick, don’t go to work.

The stereotype of doctors is that they go to work, despite whatever symptoms ail them. Calling in sick places strain on colleagues. Especially in residency, where team members are expected to pick up the slack.

In a recent column, the New York Times’ Pauline Chen discusses the image of self-sacrifice that a sick doctor going to work portrays:

Hacking, febrile or racked with the sequelae of chronic illnesses, doctors who are sick have continued for generations to see their patients. Although published reports for over a decade have linked patient illnesses like the flu, whooping cough and resistant bacterial infections to sick health care workers, as many as 80 percent of physicians continue to work through their own ailments, even though they would have excused patients in the same condition.

In today’s age of H1N1 influenza and other assorted public health worries, presenteeism is being looked at. Interestingly,

researchers in the business world have begun to question this assumption. Instead of focusing on problems incurred by absenteeism, these researchers have analyzed the impact of what’s been called presenteeism, or working despite being ill. And it turns out, at least in early studies, that those employees who choose to go to work sick are expensive. Presenteeism costs companies more than $150 billion a year in lost worker productivity.

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Wednesday, February 2, 2011

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.

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

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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

Current United States Flu Activity Map Weekly U.S. Influenza Surveillance Report International Influenza Surveillance

Situation Update: Summary of Weekly FluView

Full FluView Report

Overview of Influenza Surveillance in the United States

Past Weekly Surveillance Reports and Historical Data

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