News

Scientists at the Scripps Research Institute (TSRI) now have a high-resolution view of exactly how the experimental therapy ZMapp targets Ebola virus. The new study is also the first to show how an antibody in the ZMapp "drug cocktail" targets a second Ebola virus protein, called sGP, whose vulnerable spots had previously been unknown.

As infection preventionists (IPs), the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)’s Guidelines for the Prevention of Intravascular Device Associated Infections have long served as the cornerstone of much of our policy development. When the SHEA/IDSA Compendium documents were released those too served as a source of guidance.  What sometimes has been overlooked have been the Infusion Nurses Society standards which were updated most recently earlier this year and currently reflect the latest evidence based recommendations for all aspects of infusion therapy across all disciplines involved. To keep moving the needle beyond the status quo we need to expand our involvement beyond just hand and skin antisepsis (an over simplification of our role!) and help with all aspects of vascular access and infusion therapy to impact the overall quality of care for these prevalent devices.

Earlier this year, one of the most widely used resources guiding clinical practice for the infusion specialty received a major upgrade. The Infusion Nurses Society (INS) issued a revised Infusion Therapy Standards of Practice, incorporating five years’ worth of new data to establish the most current, evidence-based best practices in vascular access.

The American College of Surgeons (ACS) has released a statement on professional attire for surgeons in and out of the operating room (OR).  The new ACS guideline for appropriate attire is based on professionalism, common sense, decorum, and the available evidence.

Imbed Biosciences announces it has received clearance from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to market its patented wound dressing for human use. The dressing it calls Microlyte Ag is a sheet as thin as Saran Wrap and can conform to the bumps and crevices of a wound, says company CEO Ankit Agarwal.

Coatings or paints are materials applied to different surfaces basically for decorative and protective purposes, yet today the market for these materials is being subjected to increasingly tougher specifications. In addition to being decorative and protective, today's coatings must have additional properties such as low microorganism-adherence, ease of cleaning or self-repair properties. The development of materials of this type, known as "functional coatings," calls for the control not only of their physical properties (mainly to do with their morphology) but also of the chemical ones of the surfaces produced.

Q:  We are experiencing problems with damaged packaging, especially for our loaner sets.  This is causing delays in the operating room and a lot of frustration for the OR and sterile processing staff. What can be done to rectify this?

Evidence-based practice is being implemented through a variety of patient-safety tools, but perhaps checklists and bundles remain one of the best ways to drive down infection rates and boost compliance among healthcare personnel that leads to better patient outcomes. Atul Gawande, MD, in his book The Checklist Manifesto, analyzes the positive impact of checklists in healthcare and in other industries, to handle “the volume and complexity of what we know.” As Gawande (2010) explains, "Know-how and sophistication have increased remarkably across almost all our realms of endeavor, and as a result so has our struggle to deliver on them … Avoidable failures are common and persistent, not to mention demoralizing and frustrating, across many fields-from medicine to finance, business to government. And the reason is increasingly evident: the volume and complexity of what we know has exceeded our individual ability to deliver its benefits correctly, safely, or reliably. Knowledge has both saved us and burdened us."

The Walter Reed Army Institute of Research (WRAIR), in collaboration with the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and Harvard Medical School, has completed a second round of preclinical studies on a promising Zika vaccine candidate and found it to completely protect rhesus monkeys from experimental infection with Zika virus.

The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), part of the National Institutes of Health, has launched a clinical trial of a vaccine candidate intended to prevent Zika virus infection. The early-stage study will evaluate the experimental vaccine’s safety and ability to generate an immune system response in participants. At least 80 healthy volunteers ages 18-35 years at three study sites in the United States, including the NIH Clinical Center in Bethesda, Maryland, are expected to participate in the trial. Scientists at NIAID’s Vaccine Research Center (VRC) developed the investigational vaccine - called the NIAID Zika virus investigational DNA vaccine - earlier this year.

Since the start of the HIV epidemic, there have been speculations as to why HIV and the immunodeficiency syndrome it causes have spread so much more in Africa than in other countries around the world. Scientists from the German Center for Infection Research (DZIF) have now, for the first time, confirmed one reason for this: in a cohort study conducted in Tanzania, they discovered that an infection with the filarial nematode Wuchereria bancrofti increases the risk of HIV infection by two- to three-fold. The study has recently been published in The Lancet.

More than 36 million people worldwide, including 1.2 million in the U.S., are living with an HIV infection. Today's anti-retroviral cocktails block how HIV replicates, matures and gets into uninfected cells, but they can't eradicate the virus. Mike Kent, a researcher in Sandia National Laboratories' Biological and Engineering Sciences Center, is studying a protein called Nef involved in HIV progression to AIDS with the ultimate goal of blocking it. He and his collaborators have developed a new hybrid method to study this HIV protein that compromises the immune system. The method also could work on many other proteins that damage cellular processes and cause diseases.