Infection Control News

The optimal duration of antibiotic therapy has been a matter of some debate, and increasingly, research is showing that shorter durations are just as effective as longer courses for many infections.

Moderna announced Tuesday that its RNA-based respiratory syncytial virus vaccine has met primary endpoints in a phase 3 trial showing that the vaccine is both safe and highly effective in older adults.

Blood culture contamination was significantly reduced when phlebotomists used an initial specimen diversion device on patients vs. the use of traditional venipuncture, according to a recent study.

Janssen on Wednesday announced it has stopped the phase 3 Mosaico trial because the investigational HIV vaccine regimen it was testing was not effective in preventing HIV infection compared with placebo.

Children hospitalized with COVID-19 who had a secondary viral infection like respiratory syncytial virus or rhinovirus were around twice as likely to have severe respiratory illness, a study found.

A population-based survey of U.S. adults who previously reported having COVID-19 showed a high burden of long COVID, with some reporting symptoms more than 12 months after their initial infection.

Health officials said a safety signal detected by a national surveillance system is “very unlikely” to represent a “true clinical risk” for stroke among older people who received the Pfizer-BioNTech bivalent COVID-19 booster.

Among people who inject drugs, partial-oral antibiotic treatment for bone and joint infections was effective when paired with medical respite and specialized follow-up care, researchers reported.

Patients with injection drug use-associated infections were less likely to be readmitted to the hospital or die when they were treated by a clinical team that integrated infectious disease and substance use disorder care, researchers found.

Researchers found high rates of tuberculosis among high-risk patients who sought care at primary health care clinics, many of whom had no preceding symptoms suggesting a high rate of subclinical TB.