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Study Indicates Asking People To Receive Flu Shot In ED May Increase Uptake

HealthDay (3/26, Miller) reports a study published in NEJM Evidence “found a 41% rise in” flu “vaccination among study participants who were asked about getting a flu shot, given an information pamphlet and shown a three-minute video” in which a physician “from a similar ethnic group discussed the shot and its benefits.” Study author Dr. Robert Rodriguez said, “Overall, our study adds to the growing body of knowledge showing that a number of important public health interventions can and should be delivered to underserved populations in emergency departments.”

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Puerto Rico Declares Public Health Emergency Amid Surging Dengue Fever Cases

Healio (3/26, Stulpin) reports, “Puerto Rico has declared a public health emergency following a spike in cases of dengue.” So far this year, the number of confirmed infections as of Monday “was 549, which is already nearly half of the infections reported in 2023. Almost half (49%) of all cases have been reported in the San Juan region.” By declaring an emergency, secretary of Puerto Rico’s health department Carlos Mellado López “said necessary resources to strengthen surveillance, detection, prevention, control of vectors and clinical management will be more readily available to support the local response.”

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Japanese Officials Warn About Spike In Potentially Lethal Strep Throat Infections

Reuters Pan-Asia reports, “Japanese health authorities have warned about a jump in potentially deadly strep throat infections, with cases running about three times higher than last year in Tokyo.” Cases “of streptococcus bacteria of the throat are being diagnosed at quadruple the pace of the past five years, according to a health ministry report earlier this month.” This year, “through March 10, Japan recorded 474 cases of the more serious streptococcal toxic shock syndrome (SSTS), which has a fatality rate of up to 30%.” SSTS “happens when the infection spreads throughout the body, potentially causing organ failure.”

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Health Officials Sound Alarm Over Rising TB Cases In California

The Los Angeles Times (3/25, Lin) reports, “Tuberculosis cases are rising again in California, and health officials are urging those at higher risk, as well as doctors, to be alert for the disease, which can lurk in people’s bodies for years before becoming potentially deadly.” The number of infections “in 2023 rose by 15% in California compared to the previous year, the state Department of Public Health said. That’s the highest year-over-year increase since 1989, when it was tied to people co-infected with HIV.”

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Pandemic-Era Testing Protocols Likely Led To Detection Of More Asymptomatic RSV Cases Among Pregnant Patients, Study Finds

Infectious Disease Advisor (3/25, Chan) reports, “Asymptomatic respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) infection was more frequently identified among pregnant women between 2021 and 2023, likely due to changes in testing practices related to the COVID-19 pandemic.” Nonetheless, “severe RSV outcomes were uncommon, indicating pregnancy is not a risk factor for severe disease.” The results “were published in Open Forum Infectious Diseases.”

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Around One In Eight Hospitalized Adults Treated For Pneumonia Inappropriately Diagnosed, Received Unnecessary Antibiotics, Study Finds

Healio (3/25, Feller) reports, “Around one in eight hospitalized adults treated for community-acquired pneumonia in a Michigan study were inappropriately diagnosed, and most of those patients received unneeded antibiotics, according to a study” published in JAMA Internal Medicine. Out of “more than 17,000 included patients, 12% met criteria for inappropriate diagnosis of CAP, according to the study, and 87% of those patients received full antibiotic courses. Among those receiving full courses, 2.1% had an antibiotic-associated adverse event.”

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Increased Flu Vaccine Uptake Tied To Decreased Pneumonia- And Influenza-Related Mortality, Study Finds

Infectious Disease Advisor (3/25) reports, “Increased influenza vaccine uptake in the United States is significantly associated with decreased pneumonia- and influenza-related mortality, especially among older adults, according to study results published in Vaccine.” In the study, “researchers observed a 0.33 (95% CI, 0.20-0.47) reduction in mortality per 100,000 people for every 1% increase in vaccine uptake, which translated to an annual mean prevention of 1083 (95% CI, 656-1509) pneumonia- and influenza-related deaths in the US.”

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Slight Rise In One Gut Microbe May Help People Ward Off Serious Infections, Study Finds

HealthDay (3/25, Thompson) reports, “Even a slight rise in a specific type of beneficial gut bacteria can help people ward off serious infections, a new study” found. The data indicated that “for every 10% increase in butyrate-producing bacteria in a patient’s gut, their risk of hospitalization for infection drops between 14% and 25%.” The findings are scheduled to be presented at a European Congress of Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases meeting.

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Study Finds Many Small Foodborne Disease Outbreaks May Go Undetected In US Every Year

Healio (1/29, Feller) reports, “Researchers estimated that hundreds of small foodborne disease outbreaks may go undetected in the United States each year, based on a statistical analysis of data from the last 2-plus decades.” In the study, published by the CDC in Emerging Infectious Diseases, researchers “found that foodborne disease outbreak data fits a power law distribution, statistical distribution in which one variable is proportional to the power of another variable – in this case showing that large outbreaks are rare, but small outbreaks are more common and, historically, have gone underreported.”

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Mpox Knowledge Differs By Self-Perceived Risk Level, Study Finds

Infectious Disease Advisor (1/29, Barowski) reports, “Although general knowledge of mpox infection is strong among high-risk individuals, specific knowledge of symptoms related to the 2022 outbreak is limited. These study results were published in Infectious Diseases in Clinical Practice.” In the study, “higher education level was significantly associated with increased knowledge of these symptoms.” Additionally, “respondents with any self-perceived risk for mpox were more likely to have knowledge of at least 1 additional mode of transmission other than skin to skin contact when compared with those with low or no self-perceived risk.”

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Zimbabwe Launches New Cholera Vaccination Campaign

Reuters (1/29, Chingono) reports, “Zimbabwe on Monday launched a cholera vaccination campaign to immunize over 2 million people against the waterborne disease, amid an outbreak that has killed hundreds since early last year.” The AP adds Zimbabwe “will receive a total of 2.3 million vaccine doses from UNICEF and the World Health Organization to be deployed to 29 of the hardest-hit districts.”

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Pet Bearded Dragons Associated With Rare Salmonella Strain, CDC Says

The New York Times (1/26, Jacobs) reported, “The outbreak of a rare strain of salmonella that sickened scores of people, including several infants, across the United States and Canada, has been linked to pet bearded dragons, some most likely obtained from the same breeder in Southeast Asia, according to a study published by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.” The agency noted that salmonella infections linked to bearded dragons “have become increasingly common in recent years, mirroring the rising popularity of the...lizards as household pets.”

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Duloxetine Therapy For Postherpetic Neuralgia Prevention May Reduce Occurrence Of Moderate To Severe Pain In Adults With Herpes Zoster Infection, Study Finds

Infectious Disease Advisor (1/26, Kuhns) reported, “Duloxetine therapy for the prevention of postherpetic neuralgia may reduce the occurrence of moderate to severe pain in adults with herpes zoster (HZ) infection, according to results of a study published in Clinical Infectious Diseases.” Additionally, analysis “showed that patients who received duloxetine scored significantly higher in physical and mental health examinations, and they were significantly less likely to report poor sleep quality.”

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Lenacapavir May Inhibit Replication Of HIV-2 Isolates And Drug-Resistant HIV-2 Variants, Study Finds

Infectious Disease Advisor (1/26, Nye) reported, “Lenacapavir may inhibit the replication of HIV-2 isolates and drug-resistant HIV-2 variants, according to results of a study published in The Journal of Infectious Diseases.” In the study, “in an analysis of lenacapavir activity via multicycle 6-day infection assay, the mean IC50 for HIV-2 was 2.4 nM, which was 14-fold higher than that of HIV-1. The mean IC50 for both HIV-1 and HIV-2 isolates significantly differed from that of SIV isolates.”

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Single Dose Of Typhoid Conjugate Vaccine Provides At Least Four Years Of Protection, Trial Finds

Healio (1/26, Weldon) reported, “A single dose of a typhoid conjugate vaccine provided protection for at least 4 years among children aged 9 months to 12 years enrolled in a phase 3 trial in Malawi, according to results published in The Lancet.” In an analysis, researchers “calculated the efficacy of the typhoid vaccine to be 78.3%, with one case of typhoid prevented for every 163 children vaccinated.”

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Single Dose Of Oral Cholera Vaccine Protective For At Least 36 Months, Data Indicate

Healio (1/26, Stulpin) reported, “A single dose of Eubiologics’ oral cholera vaccine provided significant protection against cholera for at least 36 months, according to data from a vaccination campaign organized in a cholera-endemic city in Africa.” In the study published in The Lancet Infectious Diseases, “the adjusted single-dose vaccine effectiveness was 52.7% 12 to 17 months after vaccination and 44.7% 24 to 36 months after vaccination.”

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CDC Warns Clinicians To Be Alert For Measles Cases Following Several Outbreaks

USA Today (1/26, Cuevas) reported, “U.S. health officials are warning clinicians to be alert for cases of measles following several outbreaks, largely among children who were eligible for the vaccine but did not receive it.” In an email, the CDC on Thursday “urged vigilance among health providers across the U.S. following reports of nearly two dozen cases of the preventable virus since December.” In particular, “health providers should look for patients with rash and fever, symptoms of measles, and pay attention to patients who have recently traveled internationally, the alert said.” ABC News (1/27, Kekatos, Benadjaoud) reported, “Between Dec. 1, 2023, and Jan. 23, 2024, there have been 23 confirmed cases of measles including seven cases from international travelers and two outbreaks with five or more infections each, according to an email sent [last] week.”

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Labs That Were At Forefront Of Tracking Coronavirus Variants During Pandemic Unite To Boost Genomic Surveillance

Reuters (1/25, Rigby) reports, “Two laboratories in Britain and South Africa, which were at the forefront of tracking new coronavirus variants during the pandemic, have teamed up to keep the focus on genomic surveillance globally as the COVID emergency recedes.” The researchers “said they were worried governments and funders may pull back from such surveillance, despite its potential to better monitor many infectious diseases, from malaria to cholera.”

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Study Finds Maribavir And Valganciclovir Linked To Comparable Viremia Clearance Rates Among Patients With Asymptomatic CMV Infection Following HSCT

Infectious Disease Advisor (1/25, Chan) reports, “Study findings published in Clinical Infectious Diseases indicate that maribavir and valganciclovir are associated with comparable rates of viremia clearance among patients with asymptomatic cytomegalovirus (CMV) infection following hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (HSCT).” In the study, “at week 8, 69.9% of patients in the maribavir group and 77.4% of those in the valganciclovir achieved CMV viremia clearance. However, noninferiority of maribavir to valganciclovir was not achieved.”

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Survey Evaluates Factors Contributing To High HIV Risk Among Transgender Women

MedPage Today (1/25, Kahn) reports, “Homelessness, violence, incarceration, and socioeconomic discrimination are linked to a high risk of HIV in transgender women, according to the CDC’s National HIV Behavioral Surveillance Among Transgender Women (NHBS-Trans) survey.” Additionally, “employment discrimination also negatively impacted transgender women’s access to health insurance and gender-affirming care.” These survey results “appeared in a Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR) supplement.”

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Study Indicates Asking People To Receive Flu Shot In ED May Increase Uptake

Puerto Rico Declares Public Health Emergency Amid Surging Dengue Fever Cases

Japanese Officials Warn About Spike In Potentially Lethal Strep Throat Infections

Health Officials Sound Alarm Over Rising TB Cases In California

Pandemic-Era Testing Protocols Likely Led To Detection Of More Asymptomatic RSV Cases Among Pregnant Patients, Study Finds

Around One In Eight Hospitalized Adults Treated For Pneumonia Inappropriately Diagnosed, Received Unnecessary Antibiotics, Study Finds

Increased Flu Vaccine Uptake Tied To Decreased Pneumonia- And Influenza-Related Mortality, Study Finds

Slight Rise In One Gut Microbe May Help People Ward Off Serious Infections, Study Finds

Study Finds Many Small Foodborne Disease Outbreaks May Go Undetected In US Every Year

Mpox Knowledge Differs By Self-Perceived Risk Level, Study Finds

Zimbabwe Launches New Cholera Vaccination Campaign

Pet Bearded Dragons Associated With Rare Salmonella Strain, CDC Says

Duloxetine Therapy For Postherpetic Neuralgia Prevention May Reduce Occurrence Of Moderate To Severe Pain In Adults With Herpes Zoster Infection, Study Finds

Lenacapavir May Inhibit Replication Of HIV-2 Isolates And Drug-Resistant HIV-2 Variants, Study Finds

Single Dose Of Typhoid Conjugate Vaccine Provides At Least Four Years Of Protection, Trial Finds

Single Dose Of Oral Cholera Vaccine Protective For At Least 36 Months, Data Indicate

CDC Warns Clinicians To Be Alert For Measles Cases Following Several Outbreaks

Labs That Were At Forefront Of Tracking Coronavirus Variants During Pandemic Unite To Boost Genomic Surveillance

Study Finds Maribavir And Valganciclovir Linked To Comparable Viremia Clearance Rates Among Patients With Asymptomatic CMV Infection Following HSCT

Survey Evaluates Factors Contributing To High HIV Risk Among Transgender Women