Gastrointestinal Infections News

Current WHO guidelines for chronic hepatitis B failed to detect half of the patients in need of treatment in Ethiopia and more than half of those who met eligibility criteria had developed decompensated cirrhosis.

Cholera cases have increased in Yemen within recent weeks, where 108,889 suspected cases and 190 deaths have been reported since January. Approximately one-third of these cases have been reported in children aged younger than 5 years, according to a report issued by the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.

“Typhus is not dead. It will live on for centuries and it will continue to break into the open whenever human stupidity and brutality give it a chance, as most likely they occasionally will.” – Hans Zinsser. The lure of infectious disease began with books (science fiction, noir detectives, Arrowsmith), but the hook was sex and drugs. While debating a life in philosophy or neuroscience (but for the slaughter of mice), I stumbled into volunteering at the Berkeley Free Clinic. Mentored by charismatics at the radical front of free health care and harm reduction with dignity, these teachers had weathered the Vietnam War, AIDS crisis and multiple injection-drug epidemics. To keep up and care for clients, I had to understand not only chlamydia, abscesses and hepatitis C, but also feminism, gay liberation, sex work, homelessness and criminal justice. The infections were a window into the vulnerabilities of our social immune system. At the University of California, San Francisco, my ID teachers varied widely in appearance and constitution, as well as where they would return after rounds: the laboratories, the clinics, phone meetings with WHO, the city’s public health department and the one attending who would stop by the freeway underpass to sit with one of her struggling patients. ID was the hopeful work of hopelessly tangled systems: global commerce and immunoglobulins; gender, power and negotiating condoms; heroin, the hospital venting systems and where the water flows. My ID mentors and colleagues continue to inspire and surprise me with endless curiosity, rigorous intellectual integrity and ferocious passion for doing the right thing. Typhus is not dead, nor are MRSA, HIV, or human brutality. I am grateful to be an ID physician who can draw on a rich history and community to push against these with vigor and compassion, immersed in the ambitious life’s work of sex, drugs and microbes.

One of the most disappointing situations you can encounter while traveling is the dreaded travelers’ diarrhea. Travelers’ diarrhea is the most common travel-related illness that can disrupt vacations and business plans when visiting low-income countries. The rate of travelers’ diarrhea has been reported to be as high as 70%, depending on the time of year and destination, but most recent data suggest that rates have decreased overall and are in the range of 10% to 40%. The highest risk for infection is within the first few weeks while abroad, and it somewhat decreases thereafter. The definition of classic travelers’ diarrhea is three or more diarrheal stools per day, along with at least one other clinical sign, such as abdominal cramps, fever, nausea or vomiting. Approximately 10% of those suffering from this illness will require medical care, and up to 3% may require hospitalization. On average, the duration of illness in those that go untreated is approximately 4 to 5 days.

The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs announced that it is on track to eliminate hepatitis C in all veterans willing and able to receive treatment within a timeframe of two months, according to a press release from the office.

Twelve weeks of combination Sovaldi and NS5A inhibitors without ribavirin was a reliable therapy with high rates of sustained virologic response for recurrent hepatitis C after liver transplantation, according to a study published in Hepatology.

Researchers found that 14% of patients at one acute-care hospital in Ohio had positive perirectal cultures for toxigenic Clostridioides difficile on admission — a “relatively high prevalence” they attributed to a sensitive culture method and a patient population with a high frequency of prior antibiotic use.

Twitter has become a “go-to” social media platform to disseminate information and create conversation. Four years ago, researchers reviewed the usefulness of Twitter for infectious disease clinicians and found it to be a useful tool.

Three women who were hospitalized with botulism last year in New York City were sickened after eating potato salad containing improperly home-canned peas, an investigation found.

Kidney transplant recipients with hepatitis B and hepatitis C in whom viral replication was controlled had similar overall and graft survival rates as patients without viral hepatitis, according to data published in Journal of Hepatology.