Dermatology News

My path into infectious diseases began in 1983 during my intern year at Grady, when patients with a new infectious disease that we now know as HIV/AIDS began showing up.

Artificial intelligence can help predict the chance of resistant organisms appearing in sputum cultures in the ER, helping to guide therapy, according to findings presented during the ASM Microbe virtual meeting.

IDWeek organizers decided unanimously to convert this year’s meeting to a completely virtual event over concerns about COVID-19.

Donald Kaye, MD, MACP, an influential infectious diseases clinician and researcher and longtime Infectious Disease News Editorial Board Member, died July 4 at the age of 88, his family announced.

Dupixent has been approved by the FDA for the treatment of moderate to severe atopic dermatitis in children aged 6 to 11 years, Regeneron Pharmaceuticals and Sanofi announced in a press release.

Tularemia is a zoonotic disease caused by Francisella tularensis, an aerobic gram-negative coccobacillus. Francisella are slow growing, fastidious and difficult to cultivate.

Botulism is a rare, life-threatening toxemia caused by the toxin of Clostridium botulinum and rarely Clostridium butyricum and Clostridium baratii. Botulinum toxin is listed as a Class A biological weapon and is toxic when ingested or inhaled. The CDC lists five types of botulism: foodborne, wound, infant and iatrogenic botulism and the very rare disease called infant-type botulism in adults (adult intestinal botulism).

I knew from the earliest stages that if I pursued medicine as a career, infectious disease was the only choice for me. As a child, my favorite storybook was The Value of Believing in Yourself: The Story of Louis Pasteur, which recounts the discovery of the rabies vaccine. The idea that there were these mysterious entities called viruses and the human immune system had ways to combat them was completely captivating. As I grew older and learned about infectious diseases such as HIV, this fascination only increased. By the time I decided to go to medical school, I had already consumed scores of books on Ebola, Lassa fever, antimicrobial resistance and anything else I could get my hands on. In residency, I was mocked for carrying C.J. Peters’ Virus Hunter in my lab coat pocket, whereas the pockets of my fellow residents were teaming with reference books that allowed them to function on the wards.

Household environments play a significant role in the spread of MRSA in the community, according to a study of transmission events involving children with community-associated MRSA skin and soft tissue infections.

Some decisions in life are quite difficult and complex; others come more easily and naturally. For me, the latter was the case with my decision to pursue a career in infectious diseases. From early first year pharmacology classes, to learning at the feet of ID giants like Harold Neu, Glenda Garvey, Mark Goldberger and many others in my 3rd and 4th years, going into ID was an easy choice.