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University of Alabama at Birmingham researchers have made the first direct demonstration that fecal donor microbes remained in recipients for months or years after a transplant to treat the diarrhea and colitis caused by recurrent Clostridium difficile infections -- a serious and stubborn cause of diarrhea after an antibiotic treatment for some other illness.

Most business and leisure travelers in the United States can't identify a bed bug, and yet the tiny pest evokes a stronger response in hotel guests than any other potential room deficiency--putting the hospitality industry in a difficult spot. In a survey of U.S. travelers conducted by researchers at the University of Kentucky, 60 percent said they would switch hotels if they found evidence of bed bugs in a guest room. Meanwhile, no more than a quarter said they would switch hotels for factors such as signs of smoking or dirty towels or linens. In the same survey, however, just 35 percent of business travelers and 28 percent of leisure travelers correctly identified a bed bug in a lineup of other common insects. The results of the research are soon to be published in American Entomologist, the quarterly magazine of the Entomological Society of America.

Imagine wearing a device that continuously analyzes your sweat or blood for different types of biomarkers, such as proteins that show you may have breast cancer or lung cancer. Rutgers engineers have invented biosensor technology – known as a lab on a chip – that could be used in hand-held or wearable devices to monitor your health and exposure to dangerous bacteria, viruses and pollutants.

The healthcare landscape is, of course, very different today than it was 40 years ago, when a landmark study first called for the involvement of an individual tasked with paying attention to infections in the hospital environment. As Dhar, et al. (2016) observe, "Infection prevention programs (IPP), now a standard in healthcare, saw their inception in the1970s and 1980s after studies (such as the CDC’s Study on the Efficacy of Nosocomial Infection Control [SENIC]) showed a 32 percent reduction in HAIs in hospitals with established programs compared with the 18 percent increases in infection in hospitals without." In the ensuing years, the National Nosocomial Infection Surveillance System for voluntary reporting of surveillance data was created, the Joint Commission has introduced accreditation into the picture, and, as Dhar, et al. (2016) point out, "Since this time, there have been several groups that have had direct influence on the development of IPP ranging from professional societies, government agencies, nonprofit organizations, and payors. This complex landscape for infection prevention has led to the development of quality initiatives, legislative reforms, shifts in payment for HAIs, and an increased demand for transparency through public reporting of HAI data."

The perspectives of more than 4,000 infection preventionists (IPs) have been captured by the Association of Professionals in Infection Control and Epidemiology (APIC) in its MegaSurvey conducted in 2015 to chronicle the progress that the profession is making in developing strategies to support comprehensive infection prevention practice.

Results of a five-year study in 20 countries on three continents have found that bats harbor a large diversity of coronaviruses (CoV), the family of viruses that cause Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus (SARS) and Middle East Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus (MERS). Findings from the study--led by scientists in the USAID-funded PREDICT project at the Center for Infection and Immunity (CII) at Columbia University's Mailman School of Public Health and the University of California, Davis' One Health Institute in the School of Veterinary Medicine--are published in the journal Virus Evolution. PREDICT is a globally coordinated effort to detect and discover viruses of pandemic potential and reduce risk for future epidemics.

The engagement of key organizational senior leaders in infection prevention and control is essential to ensure optimal patient care and to promote quality throughout the healthcare institution. One such stakeholder is the chief nursing officer (CNO), with whom the organization's infection preventionist(s) should cultivate a collegial relationship. As IPs monitor how healthcare workers implement infection prevention and control-related principles and practices, the CNO can help ensuring resource and both clinical and administrative leadership support as the foundation to successfully implement these prevention measures. As Nelson, et al. (2011) observe, "Leaders play a pivotal role in hospital initiatives to improve quality … It is essential for those personnel in leadership to work collaboratively in order to not only enhance healthcare environments but also make it safer for patients."

Q:  We reprocess vaginal specs for some local doctors' offices. I recently learned that once the office staff receives the instruments, they are then opening up the individual sterile peel pouches and then place the “unprotected” vaginal speculums into the exam table to be ready for use by the provider. Is there anything we can purchase to use for transportation purposes that will save us time and money and skip the sterilization process of these items?A:  This is an excellent question, especially with many sterile processing departments (SPDs) now processing devices for offsite clinics and doctors' offices.  Vaginal speculums fall under the semi-critical devices category (Spaulding).

ICT spoke with Karen Swanson LPN, CSPM, CFER, manager of the central sterile department at Connecticut Children's Medical Center and chairman of the board of directors of the Certification Board for Sterile Processing (CBSPD), regarding the challenges that face sterile processing professionals and the importance of building key skill sets.

The National Institutes of Health has awarded researchers at Albert Einstein College of Medicine, The Rockefeller University, The City University of New York Graduate School of Public Health and Health Policy (CUNY), a $7.5 million grant for the Center for AIDS Research focused on preventing HIV transmission and ending the AIDS epidemic.

Globally, an estimated 71 million people are living with chronic hepatitis C virus (HCV). Over decades of infection, chronic HCV infection results in progressive damage to the liver and an increased risk for end stage liver disease and liver cancer, making the virus the leading cause of liver-related deaths in the United States today. While effective combination therapies have recently been developed, HCV can evolve to become resistant to these antiviral drugs, potentially resulting in treatment failures. Resistance is particularly important for one class of medications used in treatment, for which the mechanism by which it stops growth of the virus is poorly understood. For the first time, researchers at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill have identified how the class of antiviral drugs known as NS5A inhibitors interacts with the virus, and their findings show a difference between strains of HCV. These results were published in PLOS Pathogens.

A new study of infection by a virus that causes brain inflammation and seizures in a mouse model has shown increased levels of complement component C3. The C3 was produced by immune cells in the brain called microglia within the first few days after infection. C3 showed the greatest increase in expression in the brain compared to a variety of other complement components, cytokines, chemokines, and antigens measured in the study that is published in Viral Immunology, a peer-reviewed journal from Mary Ann Liebert, Inc., publishers.