Pediatric ID News

More than a dozen pediatric ICUs were able to sustain reductions in blood culture rates during a 2-year period following a diagnostic stewardship effort aimed at safely improving ordering practices, researchers reported in JAMA Pediatrics.

The FDA on Tuesday authorized Novavax’s updated COVID-19 vaccine for emergency use in adolescents and adults, giving the country a third vaccine option heading into the fall and winter respiratory diseases season.

The FDA has issued a safety alert warning patients and health care providers of a “risk of invasive, potentially fatal disease” linked to probiotic use among preterm infants in hospital settings.

Influenza poses significant health and socioeconomic threats despite cases drastically dropping during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Infant hospitalization for congenital syphilis increased 10-fold from 2016 to 2022 in Mississippi, from 10 cases per year to 110 cases per year, according to an analysis of hospital discharge data.

Salmonella — not Streptococcus pneumoniae — was the top cause of invasive bacterial infections among children with sickle cell disease in five European countries during a recent 6-year period, a study in Pediatrics reported.

The CDC last week recommended Pfizer’s respiratory syncytial virus vaccine for pregnant people to protect newborns from severe RSV illness.

As of last year, around one in 100 children in the United States had ever had long COVID, according to survey findings reported by the CDC’s National Center for Health Statistics.

An intervention undertaken by dozens of health centers reduced antibiotic use for pediatric conjunctivitis by up to 19% without increasing treatment failure, according to study findings.

Free at-home COVID-19 tests will be available for mail order again in the United States beginning on Monday, Sept. 25.