Respiratory Infections News

BOSTON — A 1-month antibiotic regimen to prevent active tuberculosis in patients living with HIV was just as effective and caused fewer adverse events than a standard 9-month regimen, according to results of a phase 3 clinical trial presented at CROI.

Infants who experience bronchiolitis during respiratory syncytial virus season within their first 6 months of life are more likely to have otitis media, pneumonia and use antibiotics regardless of their mother’s asthma status, according to a study presented at the annual meeting of the American Academy of Allergy, Asthma & Immunology in Orlando.

Researchers have constructed a molecule that can illuminate Mycobacterium tuberculosis in sputum samples within 1 hour. Preliminary study findings published in Science Translational Medicine suggest a diagnostic method that uses the molecule to detect tuberculosis may be simpler than current microscopy-based methods.

WHO released new guidance that aims to expand testing and treatment options for latent tuberculosis, as well as the types of patients that are prioritized for care.

WHO recently released its annual list of priority diseases with an “urgent need” for accelerated research and development because of their potential to cause a public health emergency. Among them is an unknown disease that the agency termed “Disease X.”

Researchers recommend expanding access to a combination regimen of Sirturo and delamanid for multidrug-resistant tuberculosis after preliminary data showed the treatment was safe and associated with high cure rates in patients who previously had “very little treatment success.”

Researchers found evidence that e-cigarette vapor increases a receptor that pneumococci use to adhere to cells that line the airways.

Influenza and acellular pertussis vaccinations during pregnancy were not associated with hospitalization or death of infants in the first 6 months of life, according to recently published study results in Pediatrics.

A study examining pharmacokinetic interactions between the first-line HIV drug dolutegravir and a once-weekly tuberculosis regimen was terminated early after NIH researchers found that the combined use of the treatments led to “unexpected and serious toxicities” in healthy participants.

Plague is caused by Yersinia pestis, a gram-negative coccobacillus. HHS and the Department of Agriculture classify it as a Tier 1 select agent. Y. pestis exists in nature in rodent fleas. Periodically, the number of rodents and their fleas increase, presumably related to environmental factors. As rodents die from plague in increased numbers, the fleas abandon their preferred warm-blooded hosts to find others to feed on, such as humans. This is the most common manner by which humans become infected. Interestingly, in the infected flea, the midgut and the proventriculus (a valve-like area that keeps ingested mammalian blood from escaping) become blocked with aggregating Y. pestis. This causes the flea to bite more aggressively in an attempt to feed and in doing so, the flea delivers regurgitated Y. pestis with the feeding attempts. Therefore, not only does the rodent die, but ironically, the flea also eventually starves to death. Less commonly, infected rodents and other infected animals can infect humans by physical contact with their fluids or tissues through a break in the skin. Humans with pneumonic plague can cause infection by coughing infectious droplets. Because of the centrality of fleas as carriers of the disease, epidemics tend to occur in warm weather as opposed to cold weather. Y. pestis is very sensitive to sunlight and is rapidly killed outside the host.