Prevention

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Observed on December 27, the International Day of Epidemic Preparedness highlights the need for continuous investment in prevention, detection, and response to protect lives and strengthen health systems against ongoing and emerging threats.

To celebrate and thank the infection prevention community, Infection Control Today® introduces The Merry Microbe, a festive holiday games booklet filled with quizzes, puzzles, and crosswords designed to educate, engage, and bring a little joy to the vital work of keeping health care environments safe.

ICT’s top articles of 2025 spanned essential glove-use standards, CDC guidance on H5N1 monitoring, AI-driven infection prevention in operating rooms, advanced influenza surveillance for public health reporting, and APIC’s warning on communication restrictions that threaten outbreak response. Together, they highlight the evolving, high-stakes role of infection prevention in safeguarding health care and communities.

As misinformation accelerates and public trust is tested, Infection Control Today® reflects on a challenging year and reaffirms its commitment to evidence, clarity, and supporting IPC professionals who continue to confront falsehoods with facts, empathy, and persistence.

Good credentials, like a good ladder, make all the difference in how well you do the job you need to do. Read on to find out more about why credentials are vital to be successful.

With the threat of antibiotic-resistant infections rising, hospitals must recalibrate cleaning protocols to maximize people’s health and well-being while continuously mitigating infection risks.

When infection control slips, the consequences can be serious: patient harm, staff illness, fines from OSHA/local inspectors, and damage to your reputation. That’s why training isn’t optional; it’s essential.

Long-term wastewater surveillance revealed hidden SARS-CoV-2 transmission, detected variants early, and supported new EU public health mandates, demonstrating wastewater-based epidemiology as a critical early-warning tool for infection prevention, environmental hygiene, and outbreak preparedness.

Hospitals often champion high-reliability principles, yet overlook one of their most risk-sensitive disciplines: environmental services. EVS operates in clinical environments where a single missed step can trigger pathogen transmission, regulatory failure, or patient harm. True high reliability is impossible without recognizing EVS as a core contamination-control and patient-safety function.

Think you know your EVS science inside and out? This crossword puts your expertise to the test with clues drawn from disinfection practices, cleaning validation, and the terminology every EVS professional and infection preventionist should know. Grab a pen or a colleague and see how far your knowledge takes you.

Infection preventionists face a daily battle against unseen threats, yet the hardest struggle is often the fear of speaking up. When you spot a dangerous gap in practice, do you act or stay silent to avoid conflict. Real safety begins when IPs are empowered to stop the line without fear or hesitation.

The Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) has revised its long-standing recommendation for universal infant hepatitis B vaccination, shifting to an individualized, parent–provider decision-making model for babies born to hepatitis B–negative mothers. The change sparked intense debate among committee members.

Infection prevention has outgrown the idea that only bedside nurses belong in the role. Today’s IP work is epidemiology, data science, quality, and systems leadership—yet non-RN experts are still told they “don’t belong.” It is time to broaden the pipeline and value competence over a single professional credential and experience.

A large population study of more than 1,100 adults suggests there are really 2 biologically meaningful nasal states: noses dominated by Staphylococcus aureus and noses ruled by protective commensals like Corynebacterium and Dolosigranulum. Intermittent carriers fall in between, prompting researchers to rethink long-standing categories of S aureus colonisation and risk.

As financial pressures mount across U.S. health care, infection preventionists are increasingly caught in the crossfire of hiring freezes and sudden layoffs. The profession’s resilience is being tested, and for Saba Shaikh, MPH, an unexpected dismissal became both a stark wake-up call and the start of a healthier, more empowering new chapter.

Despite decades of progress transforming HIV from a fatal diagnosis into a manageable chronic condition, today’s antiretroviral therapies still face a stubborn barrier: They work brilliantly in theory but fall short when access, adherence, and real-world challenges get in the way. As long-acting injectables emerge and curative research accelerates, developers are being pushed to design interventions that perform not just in controlled trials, but in the complex realities of the communities most affected by HIV.

Whooping cough is surging across West Virginia just as vaccine misinformation and new exemption policies erode one of the state’s most reliable defenses against the disease, leaving infants and other high-risk residents increasingly vulnerable.

Hand, foot, and mouth disease is spiking across parts of the US, with some states reporting record numbers of outbreaks. Experts say environmental conditions, shifting immunity, and new viral strains may be driving this year’s rapid rise.

Thank you, IPC professionals, from Infection Control Today!

Missed opportunities, Graves warned, place patients at risk. Many surgical patients are immunocompromised, and a stethoscope may come near the incision. “Regardless of the scenario, [cleaning the stethoscope] each time is going to protect patients.”