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A new guide from the Association for Professionals in Infection Control and Epidemiology (APIC) serves as a reminder to hospital-based infection preventionists that even before emergency department (ED) personnel, there is another group of professionals which faces considerable risks from infectious exposures. Janet Woodside, RN, MSN, COHN-S, the EMS program manager for the Portland (Ore.) Fire and Rescue, is lead author of APIC's Guide to Infection Prevention in Emergency Medical Services (2013) and reminds us that "Emergency medical services (EMS) system responders deliver medical care in many unique and oftentimes dangerous environments. They render care to increasingly mobile populations who potentially have a higher likelihood of having an infectious or emerging disease. In addition to treating accident victims of every nature (vehicular, falls, cuts, burns, and more), they treat the homeless, nursing home patients, trauma victims, and the critically ill with multiple diseases and infections. They have unique concerns such as suspect searches, communal living arrangements, and the need to clean and disinfect their work equipment. Like many other healthcare professionals, they face ever-increasing exposures to infectious diseases."

Exposing bed bug-infested clothing or other small items to freezing temperatures may be a viable control option for people at risk of bed bug infestations. However, a new study has found that bed bugs may be less susceptible to freezing temperatures than previously reported.

A recent study has found that patients placed in contact precautions were twice as likely to report perceived problems with care compared to patients without contact precautions, placing the common infection control practice at odds with hospital interests. These patient complaints are often reflected in diminished scores on the HCAHPS (Hospital Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems) Survey, a standardized survey instrument and data collection methodology for measuring patients' perspectives on hospital care developed by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) along with the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ).

Tests at two wastewater treatment plants in northern China revealed antibiotic-resistant bacteria were not only escaping purification but also breeding and spreading their dangerous cargo. Joint research by scientists from Rice, Nankai and Tianjin universities found superbugs carrying New Delhi Metallo-beta-lactamase (NDM-1), a multidrug-resistant gene first identified in India in 2010, in wastewater disinfected by chlorination. They found significant levels of NDM-1 in the effluent released to the environment and even higher levels in dewatered sludge applied to soils.

Wolbachia, a symbiont that resides naturally in up to 70 percent of all insect species, are probably the most prevalent infectious bacteria on Earth. In 2008 Luis Teixeira, now a principal investigator at the Instituto Gulbenkian de Ciência (IGC, Portugal), and other scientists have discovered that Wolbachia can protect their hosts against viral infections. Since then, several studies have been made to further investigate the interactions between Wolbachia and insects, aiming to build new strategies to use this bacterium in the control of diseases transmitted by mosquitoes, such as dengue. Now, Luis Teixeira's research team studied the genetic variability of Wolbachia strains and discovered that bacteria that give stronger protection against virus grow to higher concentrations and often shorten the host's lifespan. These results help to understand Wolbachia evolution in nature and open the way to the identification of the best strains to be used in the biocontrol of mosquito-spread diseases. This work was published in the latest issue of PLOS Genetics.