Slide Show: Ebola: Determining the Cause of Death
The World Health Organization (WHO) helps train burial teams in Liberia to collect samples from dead bodies to determine cause of death. Dead bodies can be very contagious when it comes to Ebola, but that doesn’t mean that every deceased person has died due to the disease. In order to speed up the process to know the cause of death of each patient, WHO is working closely with the Liberia Institute for Biomedical Research to train burial teams on how to collect an oral swab from deceased patients safely. Since the last week of October, the safe burial teams of the Liberian Red Cross and Global Communities in Montserrado county, including Monrovia, have been safely collecting oral swab samples from people who have died. The collected swab samples are taken to the Liberia Institute for Biomedical Research for further analysis to find out if the deceased patient had Ebola.
Beyond the Surface: Rethinking Environmental Hygiene Validation at Exchange25
June 30th 2025Environmental hygiene is about more than just shiny surfaces. At Exchange25, infection prevention experts urged the field to look deeper, rethink blame, and validate cleaning efforts across the entire care environment, not just EVS tasks.
A Controversial Reboot: New Vaccine Panel Faces Scrutiny, Support, and Sharp Divides
June 26th 2025As the newly appointed Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) met for the first time under sweeping changes by HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr, the national spotlight turned to the panel’s legitimacy, vaccine guidance, and whether science or ideology would steer public health policy in a polarized era.
Getting Down and Dirty With PPE: Presentations at HSPA by Jill Holdsworth and Katie Belski
June 26th 2025In the heart of the hospital, decontamination technicians tackle one of health care’s dirtiest—and most vital—jobs. At HSPA 2025, 6 packed workshops led by experts Jill Holdsworth and Katie Belski spotlighted the crucial, often-overlooked art of PPE removal. The message was clear: proper doffing saves lives, starting with your own.
