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A new study from Columbia University School of Nursing supports a growing body of evidence that women are less likely to contract bloodstream or surgical site infections than their male counterparts. Researchers investigated the incidence of infection in thousands of hospitalized patients and...
Circadian rhythms can boost the body’s ability to fight intestinal bacterial infections, UC Irvine researchers have found.
This suggests that targeted treatments may be particularly effective for pathogens such as salmonella that prompt a strong immune system response governed by circadian...
Using germ-killing soap and ointment on all intensive-care unit (ICU) patients can reduce bloodstream infections by up to 44 percent and significantly reduce the presence of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) in ICUs. A new Department of Health and Human Services-funded study...
CDC provides tools to help all U.S. dialysis facilities reduce potentially deadly infections The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has released results of its Dialysis Bloodstream Infection Prevention Collaborative showing a 32 percent decrease in overall bloodstream infections...
Bacteria are life forms, which, like all other life forms, struggle for the best living conditions for themselves. Therefore they will try to avoid getting attacked by the human immune system, and therefore they have developed various ways to protect themselves from the human immune system. When...
Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center and University of Washington scientists have identified a class of immune cells that reside long-term in the genital skin and mucosa and are believed to be responsible for suppressing recurring outbreaks of genital herpes.
These immune cells also play a...
Engineers at the University of California, San Diego have invented a "nanosponge" capable of safely removing a broad class of dangerous toxins from the bloodstream - including toxins produced by MRSA, E. coli, poisonous snakes and bees. These nanosponges, which thus far have been studied in...
In Africa and Thailand, communities that worked together on HIV-prevention efforts saw not only a rise in HIV screening but a drop in new infections, according to a new study presented this week at the Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections in Atlanta. The U.S...
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Clostridium difficile infections have developed into a virtual pandemic over the past two decades. The outcome of standard antibiotic treatment is unsatisfactory: the recurrence rates are high with every relapse increasing the risk of further follow-ups. Faecal microbiota transplantation offers...
Recurrence of middle ear infection can be prevented by boosting levels of antimicrobial proteins that are already there, as well as eliminating bacteria's DNA The finding came from a team in The Research Institute at Nationwide Children's Hospital who set out to observe how an immune defense...
An individual hospital's infection control efforts have a ripple effect on the prevalence of a deadly and highly infectious bacterium in hospitals throughout its surrounding region, a multi-center research group led by the University of Pittsburgh demonstrated in a computer simulation-based...
The Society for Healthcare Epidemiology of America (SHEA) and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) have each released new tools and information to help track deadly healthcare-associated infections (HAIs) in nursing homes and other long-term care settings. Potentially deadly HAIs...
A new "smart catheter" that senses the start of an infection, and automatically releases an anti-bacterial substance, is being developed to combat the problem of catheter-related blood and urinary tract infections, scientists reported at the 244th National Meeting & Exposition of the American...
Rather than trying to kill bacteria outright with drugs, Universite de Montreal researchers have discovered a way to disarm bacteria that may allow the body's own defense mechanisms to destroy them. "To understand this strategy one could imagine harmful bacteria being like Darth Vader, and the...
The World Health Organization (WHO) has issued its first guidance to nations considering providing ARVs (antiretrovirals) to HIV-negative, high risk people. HIV is a retrovirus. Retroviruses are composed of RNA, not DNA; they have an enzyme (reverse transcriptase) which allows them to transcribe...
Uncircumcised boys are at higher risk of urinary tract infection, regardless of whether the urethra is visible, found a new study published in CMAJ (Canadian Medical Association Journal). Urinary tract infections are one of the most common serious bacterial infections in children and, if not...
A drug candidate that is nearing clinical trials against a Latin American parasite is showing additional promise as a cure for hookworm, one of the most widespread and insidious parasites afflicting developing nations, according to a collaborative study at UCSF and Yale University. The drug...
Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus (MRSA) nasal colonization is associated with longer hospital stays and an increase in surgical site infections (SSI) in patients undergoing major gastrointestinal surgery, according to a new study from Scott and White Memorial Hospital, Temple, TX...
A new study published Online First in The Lancet Oncology reveals that from 7.5 million cancer deaths in 2008, about 1.5 million were due to infections that could have either been prevented or treated. Leading researchers, Catherine de Martel and Martyn Plummer from the International Agency for...