Antimicrobials News

Findings from a retrospective cohort study showed that a clofazimine-containing regimen was safe and effective at treating rapidly growing mycobacteria, particularly in nonpulmonary and non-Mycobacterium abscessus complex infections, researchers reported.

Researchers observed low rates of overall hand hygiene adherence among health care workers at six skilled nursing facilities, according to findings published in a recent study. They also found that glove use and job title were associated with higher hand hygiene adherence.

The ability of antibiotic stewardship programs to control and reduce the unnecessary use of antibiotics could be improved by addressing several research gaps, according to a Society for Healthcare Epidemiology of America white paper published in Infection Control & Hospital Epidemiology.

Antibiotics are not needed for most toothaches, the American Dental Association, or ADA, instructed in a newly published guideline, saying that antibiotics may do more harm than good in these cases.

Following a “dramatic” rise in skin and soft tissue infections, or SSTIs, in the United States that peaked earlier this decade, evidence shows an overall plateau in more recent years and a decline among children, although the burden remains substantial, researchers reported.

Despite the trending rise in STDs in the United States, new data published in Emerging Infectious Diseases showed that most physicians do not have injectable antimicrobial drugs available on-site to treat gonorrhea and syphilis.

I did my internal medicine residency at Yale New Haven Hospital in the years immediately before the advent of protease inhibitors would change the face of ART. In addition to caring for many young gay men with AIDS, I saw the side of the epidemic that even today remains relatively hidden in the United States, and is operative throughout much of sub-Saharan Africa: young women — often black — who presented late in the disease, having been infected by boyfriends or husbands. I was on call when one of my favorite patients, Shirley B., was admitted to die, and the team paged me to let me know so I could see her. I’ll never forget their kindness in doing that and my visit to her room. These experiences solidified not only my interest in ID but in advancing women’s reproductive health and autonomy related to ID and HIV prevention. Vaginal health? Female-controlled prevention methods? These were not sexy concepts that attracted big names during my subsequent training and early research career. Luckily, through persistence and commitment and probably some measure of stubborn cluelessness, I connected with some brave visionary mentors who believed there was a future in this arena and who themselves had battled for sexual and reproductive health — women, LGBT people, others not always at the proverbial table when funding or policy priorities are set. The rest is my personal history, and I know that only in ID would I have been able to accomplish any of it.

An FDA committee voted to recommend the approval of cefiderocol for the treatment complicated UTIs, or cUTIs, in patients with few or no alternative treatment options.

A group of biomedical engineers and medical students calling themselves HIVE developed an innovative solution to help patients and doctors optimize outpatient parenteral antimicrobial therapy, or OPAT, landing them the $10,000 top prize at this year’s IDWeek IDea Incubator competition.

Although the current approach to incentivizing antibiotic development has led to the creation of effective treatments, the pipeline has collapsed numerous times, leaving clinicians stranded against increasingly resistant infections, according to an article published the Annals of Internal Medicine.