News

Research from the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) in Laurel, Md., into better methods of predicting outbreaks of the mosquito-borne dengue virus was selected for presentation in September at the Eisenhower Executive Office Building - part of the White House complex. The APL team had developed new options for forecasting the spread of dengue fever, which affects up to an estimated 390 million people annually worldwide.

The ability to better detect and assess bacteria linked to a form of pneumonia prevalent in hospital intensive care units (ICUs) could soon become possible, according to research reported in the latest issue of the Journal of Biomedical Optics. The journal is published by SPIE, the international society for optics and photonics.

This digital issue explores disease caused by emerging infectious threats as well as hospital pathogens, and the interventions – such as hand hygiene, contact precautions and environmental cleaning – that can be used to control and prevent infection transmission.

Infection preventionists (IPs) continue to be consumed with keeping up with evolving infection prevention imperatives, according to an online survey conducted by ICT that asked respondents what they believed were the most important issues facing the entire infection prevention and hospital epidemiology community in 2016. Other top issues on their minds for the new year included addressing antibiotic/antimicrobial resistance, advancing quality improvement and patient safety, addressing emerging pathogens and infectious diseases, and evolving the evidence base to answer unresolved issues.