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Poultry production and antimicrobial resistance in India
Take a look at these three stories on intensive poultry production and antimicrobial resistance in India published yesterday on the Bloomberg website. In accordance with what the movie industry does,...
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LA-MRSA: The Never-ending Sequel
Over the last years, we have been getting used to the fact, that commercial pig, veal, and chicken farms, as well as horse breeding, is associated with a risk of animal to human transmission of...
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Hand hygiene – social norms and compassion
I just saw Sanjay Saint’s TEDx UofM-talk and have to say that I was impressed. The message is clear, the characters portrayed recognizable, and the conclusion something we all have to agree with. I...
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PPE for preventing highly infectious diseases
The use of PPE and the protection of HCWs against highly infectious diseases was (and is) a topic of major importance, around the globe. The recent Cochrane review by Verbeek et al. was probably...
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Course in Healthcare Epidemiology and Infection Control
In the mood to up your epi skills? This is the new ESCMID-SHEA course that was given for the first time in Australia last year (at least the first two tracks). It consists of a plenary part and 3...
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Hand hygiene in healthcare (or the lack of it)
I had posted about Sanjay Saint’s great TED talk. He now wrote an article for the general public – based on his talk: “Hand washing stops infections, so why do health care workers skip it?” While I am...
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WHO global guidelines on the prevention of surgical site infection
After years of no recent international guidelines to prevent SSI, today (November 3rd,2016), WHO published the first ever Global guidelines for the prevention of surgical site infection. They include a...
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Tired of MRSA and CPE? The new superbug has arrived and it’s a yeast!
All of a sudden, Candida auris seems to become the “new” global super villain. Antimicrobial Resistance and Infection Control recently published the first, large European outbreak of C. auris in...
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The day the WIP died
Today it became official that the Dutch Workingparty on Infection Prevention (WIP) will no longer be supported by funds from the Dutch Ministry of Health. Therefore, after 30-years of coordinated,...
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Can we halve Gram-negative BSIs by 50% by 2021? The crowd say “No”
Most of those casting their vote supported Martin’s (somewhat pessimistic) view that we can’t halve Gram-negative BSI by 2021 (see the figure, below). Let me first give you my own, unspoiled opinion...
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The decreasing importance of the Impact Factor
Earlier today, ARIC’s (www.aricjournal.com) publisher (BioMed Central) signed the San Francisco Declaration on Research Assessment (DORA). Eighteen years ago, when the start of open access changed the...
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Candida auris part III. Are you prepared?
MMWR just published on the ongoing transmission of Candida auris in the US, while at the same time PLOS Pathogens came with an excellent review on the topic. By now I had the debatable pleasure to be...
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C. auris questionnaire – the outcome
Overall 61 colleagues from 17 countries answered the questionnaire. A large proportion (26 of 61) of the answers came from the UK, which might have to do with the fact that the first European outbreak...
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WHO IPC Core Components
While I had seen the WHO IPC Core Components, I have totally missed the great video they made. Thus, with no further comment, here the link to this well-made video. Just in case that the link via the...
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Contact Precautions for Endemic MRSA and VRE
by Andreas Voss and Eli Perencevich, intentionally posted on “Reflections” and “Controversies” at the same time as a reaction to the JAMA Viewpoint by Morgan, Wenzel & Bearman During the recent...
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The antibiotic course has had its day?
In a recent BMJ article, Llewelyn et al. argue that the old dogma of completing a prescribed course of antibiotics to prevent antibiotic-resistance is a myth, not based on evidence. Actually the...
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Shortages
Shortages?! Slowly, I get used to it. Basic antibiotics such as penicillins, CHX-wipes, or now, mupirocin. From what I hear we have to expect severe shortages (= no product) for the next few months....
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Working while sick
Compared with the general population, healthcare workers (HCWs) have an increased risk of being exposed to respiratory pathogens including flu, causing a potential threat for their own health and...
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Persistence and transmission of Candida auris on and from gloves
Interesting results from Jabeen et al. that many of us might have missed, as they are published in a mycology journal and not in an infection control journal. Persistence of Candida spp. on latex and...
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COVID-19 and my idea on masks
Next to the idea that we see many contraptions (you can’t even call them masks) we see many people with all kind of masks, in and outside our healthcare settings. Certainly after my last flight to a...
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