Infectious Disease

Fecal microbiota transplantation (FMT) has emerged as a highly successful therapeutic strategy for recurrent Clostridioides difficile infection (CDI) in recent years.

CDC Director Rochelle Walensky, MD, said she will leave the agency at the end of June, a few hours after the World Health Organization (WHO) ended the global emergency status for COVID-19 on Friday.

The authors of the study noted the importance of balancing resources available with efficient use of them and to use tailored tools so improve efficiency.

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.

For National Public Health Week this year, we sat down with Kristen Krause, PhD, MPH, instructor in the Department of Urban-Global Public Health and deputy director, Center for Health, Identity, Behavior and Prevention Studies, Rutgers School of Public Health.

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.