Infectious Disease

Survey findings indicate the program was an essential service during the pandemic.

Jessica Allegretti, MD, MPH, medical director of the Crohn's and Colitis Center, Brigham and Women's Hospital, reviews emerging therapeutics being investigated for the prevention and treatment of Clostridioides difficile infection (CDI).

Attendees at the Society for Healthcare Epidemiology of America (SHEA) 2023 Spring Conference heard presentations about using electronic health records to identify cases of Clostridioides difficile earlier, as well as an update about infection control strategies.

Although new guidelines from the CDC say that masks need not be worn in counties where transmission level for COVID-19 isn’t high, many health systems still plan to mask.

The cost savings for health plans would increase if the therapy were used after the first recurrence of Clostridioides difficile infection (CDI).

CMS finalizes plans to decrease overpayments to Medicare Advantage insurers; an experimental respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) vaccine is highly effective in infants when given to pregnant women; obesity may be influenced by different brain factors between men and women.

Jessica Allegretti, MD, MPH, medical director of the Crohn's and Colitis Center, Brigham and Women's Hospital, speaks on current indications for Rebyota (fecal microbiota, live-jslm) in the treatment of recurrent Clostridioides difficile infection (CDI), as well as coverage and access-related implications for the drug.

The Bill & Melinda Gates Medical Research Institute has multiple tuberculosis (TB) therapies and a prophylactic vaccine in development, and its chief medical officer, Michael W. Dunne, MD, remains optimistic long-term about the state of clinical care, especially in low-and-middle-income countries.

Jessica Allegretti, MD, MPH, medical director of the Crohn's and Colitis Center, Brigham and Women's Hospital, discusses the standard of care for the prevention and treatment of primary and recurrent Clostridioides difficile infection (CDI).

Candida auris was first reported in the United States in 2016; the highly contagious fungal infection has been labeled an “urgent threat” by the CDC, and its spread may have aided by underresourced public health systems.

The high court in North Dakota voted to protect abortion in that state; an outside panel of FDA expert advisors voted to support a full approval for Paxlovid; Sanofi follows competitors' price caps for insulin.

Risk of flare in patients with inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) was low after fecal microbiota transplantation (FMT) for the treatment of recurrent Clostridioides difficile infection (CDI).

Jessica Allegretti, MD, MPH, medical director of the Crohn's and Colitis Center, Brigham and Women's Hospital, spoke on antibiotic use and other risk factors for the development of Clostridioides difficile infection.

Researchers from Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Massachusetts General Hospital identified new targets for small molecule drugs to counter Clostridioides difficile colonization and infection (CDI) in the gut and provide a new approach to rapidly define microbial metabolism for other applications.

Incidence rates of health care-associated Clostridioides difficile infection were 3 times higher in patients with COVID-19 than those without coronavirus infection in a Serbian hospital.

Antiviral treatment was associated with lower health care resource utilization and costs in patients with type 2 diabetes and a diagnosis of influenza.

An increased risk of hospitalization for more than 6 days due to community-acquired infections was associated with male sex and admittance to the Pulmonology or Surgery department, with risk shown to differ according to pathogen.

The US Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) reaffirmed previous recommendations against routine serologic screening for genital herpes infection among asymptomatic adolescents and adults, including pregnant individuals.

Jessica Allegretti, MD, MPH, medical director of the Crohn's and Colitis Center, Brigham and Women's Hospital, discussed how the FDA’s approval of Rebyota for the prevention of recurrent Clostridioides difficile infection (CDI) may promote cost effective management of CDI for patients and health systems.

Data released in the CDC’s latest Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report indicate that patients with end-stage kidney disease on hemodialysis who are Black, Hispanic/Latino, or of lower socioeconomic status (SES) are at greater risk of Staphylococcus aureus bloodstream infections, with Hispanic/Latino ethnicity cited as an independent risk factor.

Vaccination was shown to lower risk of developing severe COVID-19 in both variants, with the largest difference in risk observed in patients aged 40 to 59 years.

HHS updated guidance for states using Medicaid managed care to manage nonmedical needs; anxieties surrounding new variants rise amidst underreported COVID-19 cases in China, which defended its counts; public health campaigns try new strategies to increase trust and promote immunizations.

The Chinese government warns of backlash for countries requiring COVID-19 testing of travelers from China; monoclonal antibody drugs show some promise against infectious diseases, but costs need to be lower; the role of FDA and Biogen in approving Alzheimer drug Aduhelm is detailed in a scathing Congressional committee report.

The top 5 most-read articles for infectious disease in 2022 explored preventive efforts and therapeutic innovations against Clostridioides difficile infections, as well as federal action on the COVID-19 pandemic.

Jessica Allegretti, MD, MPH, medical director of the Crohn's and Colitis Center, Brigham and Women's Hospital, explained the mechanism of action for Rebyota, the first fecal transplant therapy approved by the FDA for the prevention of recurrent Clostridioides difficile infection (CDI) in individuals 18 years and older, following antibiotic treatment for recurrent CDI.

Several therapeutic innovations in the management of Clostridioides difficile infection recurrence, current evidence on the efficacy of weight loss procedures in reversing nonalcoholic fatty liver disease, and an interview the use of artificial intelligence were spotlighted at Digestive Disease Week (DDW) 2022.

Use of direct-acting antiviral (DAA) treatment (without interferon) was shown to reduce liver and nonliver complications, as well as improve long-term overall survival among patients with chronic hepatitis C.

A cross-sectional study showed that patients experiencing homelessness were at more than 2-fold greater age-adjusted mortality risk due to COVID-19 compared with the general population, with these increased risks observed across race/ethnicity and sex status.

Patients with diabetes who reported use of sodium-glucose cotransporter-2 inhibitors, glucagon-like peptide-1 receptor agonists, or metformin prior to COVID-19 infection were associated with lower COVID-19–related adverse outcomes during hospitalization.

The monthly volume of human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine doses administered have returned to the level observed prior to the COVID-19 pandemic among children in an integrated health care system in California, but HPV vaccine coverage remains lower compared with prepandemic levels.