News

Finding out whether you have been infected with dengue may soon be as easy as spitting into a rapid test kit. The Institute of Bioengineering and Nanotechnology (IBN) of A*STAR has developed a paper-based disposable device that will allow dengue-specific antibodies to be detected easily from saliva within 20 minutes. This device is currently undergoing further development for commercialization.

This report addresses the concept of "hygienically clean" healthcare textiles, explores the healthcare laundry process, and reviews reports of infections associated with contaminated healthcare textiles. It also provides some instruction on best practices from regulatory agencies and associations.

This Pulse looks at the recent guidance from the Society for Healthcare Epidemiology of America (SHEA) regarding healthcare attire in non-operating room settings. It explores microbial contamination of apparel in clinical settings, discusses laundering issues and perceptions of cleanliness, and provides recommendations from the SHEA work group on healthcare personnel attire.

What made the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)’s Bo Lab Team 5 different wasn’t that it was the first and only all-woman team to run CDC’s Ebola testing lab in the heart of the Sierra Leone epidemic – it was that they set records for the most Ebola samples processed in one day (162), the most samples tested in 21 days (2,012), and the most samples tested in 28 days (about 2,700).  As Bo Lab Team 9 prepares to deploy, the records still hold.

Dr. Rob Fowler, a Canadian critical-care physician, landed in Conakry, Guinea, the last week of March 2014, focused and eager to get to work. He joined his WHO colleague Dr. Tom Fletcher, an infectious diseases expert from the United Kingdom. Both had been recruited by the World Health Organization (WHO) to work with the WHO Pandemic and Epidemic Diseases clinical team, led by by Dr. Nikki Shindo.

Researchers from the Chicago Antimicrobial Resistance and Infection Prevention Epicenter (C-PIE) were able to reduce colonization and infection of Klebsiella pneumoniae carbapenemaseproducing Enterobacteriaceae (KPC CRE) at four longterm acute care hospitals using a bundled approach of prevention strategies. Healthcare-associated infections due to antibioticresistant bacteria result in greater risk of death and higher costs.