Respiratory Infections News

The incidence and prevalence of nontuberculous mycobacterial lung disease appear to be on the rise among the U.S. population, according to new data published in the Annals of the American Thoracic Society.

Study findings showed that last season’s influenza vaccine “offered no substantial protection” against H3N2 viruses that moved through the United States late in the season, highlighting the ongoing challenge of producing a vaccine that works against this influenza A subtype and leading two experts to wonder if an additional H3N2 strain should be added to the seasonal vaccine.

Bedaquiline-based regimens for treating patients with multidrug-resistant tuberculosis, MDR-TB, were associated with favorable outcomes and a lower rate of acquired drug resistance compared with delamanid-based regimens, according to a study conducted in the country of Georgia.

In March 2018, infectious disease physicians in the Emerging Infections Network received a survey asking about their institution’s experiences with and policies for working with an influenza-like illness, or ILI. The results of the survey revealed that more than one-third of respondents did not know whether their facility had sick leave policies, and those who did reported a variability in the dissemination, monitoring and enforcement of the policies, researchers said.

Researchers tested the skin, clothing and personal protective equipment, or PPE, of health care workers after caring for patients and found they are routinely contaminated with respiratory viruses, demonstrating the importance of complete hand hygiene and appropriate PPE use and doffing practices to prevent transmission of pathogens, they said.

The proportion of outpatient visits attributed to influenza-like illness climbed above the national baseline for the first time this season, comprising 2.5% of visits during the week ending Nov. 16, according to CDC FluView data.

Among more than 160,000 patients admitted to University of North Carolina hospitals during a recent 5-year period, non-device-associated, or ND, pneumonia was implicated in three of every four nosocomial pneumonia cases, with more than 60% occurring outside the ICU, indicating a possible need to expand infection prevention programs to include non-ventilated patients, researchers said.

NEW YORK — Certain rheumatologic diseases can often appear initially to be infections, according to Ronald M. Laxer, MDCM, FRCPC, professor at the University of Toronto’s departments of pediatrics and medicine and staff rheumatologist at the Hospital for Sick Children.

NEW YORK — In this video, Joseph A. Bocchini Jr., MD, professor and chairman of the department of pediatrics at Louisiana State University Health Sciences Center, discusses common travel-related infections.

I fell in love with immunology as a first-year medical student at Harvard in a class taught by the Nobel Prize-winning immunologist Baruj Benacerraf. It was the mid-1980s, and the HIV epidemic was emerging in all its perplexing horror, the virus devastating the immune system through unknown means. I had friends who were stigmatized and dying from HIV, which made it personal. When I was a third-year medical student in 1987, Chip Schooley was my ID attending. He was involved in clinical trials to treat HIV as well as laboratory research to understand HIV immunology. His brilliance and passion for patient care and research were inspiring, and that is when I became hooked on ID! I decided then that I would dedicate my career to fighting the HIV epidemic through clinical care and research to unravel how HIV evades and depletes the immune system. I was fortunate that Chip recruited me to perform my ID fellowship at the University of Colorado and then to join the faculty. Although there were many challenges, the path has been fulfilling. I would encourage anyone who wishes to pursue an academic career in ID to focus on what they think is important and find good mentors!