Clinicians' Biosecurity News* Archive: 2011
                     

• 12/16/2011. Transmission of 2009 Pandemic Influenza to Healthcare Workers: A recent study reinforces the importance of droplet precautions, PPE, and other prevention measures during a flu pandemic and as standard practice for all HCWs in all healthcare settings where daily prevention of nosocomial infection is essential.
• 12/2/2011. Does Asymptomatic H5N1 Influenza Infection Occur?: Asymptomatic H5N1 infection may be more common than thought. A new study suggests that standard methods to detect H5 antibodies are not sensitive enough; consequently, H5N1 seroprevalance may be higher and case fatality rates lower than established rates.
• 11/18/2011. Analysis of 21 Years’ Data on Melioidosis Pneumonia Patient Outcomes: This analysis of long-term patient outcome data offers insight into clinical presentation and management of melioidosis, which is caused by category B agent Burkholderia pseudomallei, and is, where endemic, a common cause of community acquired pneumonia.
• 11/4/2011. The Bio-Response Report Card: Some Progress, But More Work Needed: In mid-October, the Bipartisan WMD Terrorism Research Center, released its “Bio-Response Report Card.” The newly released report card was constructed to, “provide a strategic, end-to-end assessment of America’s bio-response capabilities.”
• 10/21/2011. Biosurveillance and Group A Streptococcal Pharyngitis: Fine et al. recently published a retrospective study to determine whether access to real-time prevalence data for the very common condition of group A streptococcal (GAS) pharyngitis could improve clinical care if incorporated into treatment algorithms.
• 10/3/2011. Center for Biosecurity Launches Rad Resilient City Initiative: The Rad Resilient City Preparedness Checklist converts the latest federal guidance and technical reports into clear, actionable steps for communities to take to protect residents from fallout exposure following a nuclear detonation.
• 09/16/2011. CDC Releases Strategic Plan for Public Health Preparedness: On September 9, 2011, the Office of Public Health Preparedness and Response (OPHPR) at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) released A National Strategic Plan for Public Health Preparedness and Response.
• 09/02/2011. Anthrax-like Disease Caused by Bacillus cereus: A man in Texas recently died of an anthrax-like illness that was caused by a toxin-producing strain of B. cereus. Of the Bacillus species known to cause human disease, only B. anthracis is generally recognized as capable of causing fulminant disease.
• 08/19/2011. Chinese Herbal Therapy Efficacious Against Influenza: Maxingshigan-yinqiaosan (MY), was used during the 2009 H1N1 pandemic in rural areas where drugs like oseltamivir were scarce. Wang et al. have now published the results of their clinical trial comparing oseltamivir with MY for treatment of H1N1 influenza.
• 08/05/2011. Invasion of Red Blood Cells by Francisella tularenesis: Although F. tularensis is known to invade other cell types in addition to phagocytes, the susceptibility of erythrocytes (RBCs)—the most numerous cell in the blood—to infection with this bacteria is not known.
• 07/22/2011. Can Systems Biology Improve Influenza Immunization Practice? With a systems biology approach, the changes that occur in gene expression and metabolic pathways after vaccination can be studied to identify specific alterations that predict response to vaccination.
• 06/24/2011. Does Antiviral Therapy Prevent Lower Respiratory Tract Complications in Influenza Patients? Oseltamivir’s efficacy in shortening the duration of influenza symptoms when administered promptly is widely accepted; however, the drug is also often used to prevent serious complications secondary to influenza, including bacterial pneumonia.
• 06/06/2011. E. coli Infection and Hemolytic-uremic Syndrome: On May 27, 2011, the World Health Organization (WHO) announced that Germany was investigating an unusually large outbreak of hemolytic-uremic syndrome (HUS). The causative agent is an uncommon and especially virulent strain of the bacterium E. coli.
• 06/03/2011. Influenza-Associated Heart Attacks: While the majority of deaths from influenza are caused by pneumonia and ensuing respiratory failure, influenza can also trigger many other potentially fatal conditions. The link between influenza and myocardial infarction has been difficult to establish.
• 05/20/2011. Redefining Influenza "Pandemic": Even a mild pandemic can have serious consequences, as can the terminology and definitions that are used to describe an outbreak. Applying the refined definition should serve to capture the essential characteristics of pandemics and inform planning.
• 05/06/2011. Absence of Smallpox "Take" May Not Indicate Revaccination Failure: Successful vaccination against smallpox is generally determined by inspection of the vaccine site approximately one week after vaccination. It has long been observed that people who are revaccinated have lower rates of vaccine takes.
• 04/15/2011. Dialysis in a Disaster Setting? During the response to the 2010 earthquake in Haiti, many patients were trapped under rubble for several days. The ensuing crush injury and development of myoglobinuria precipitated acute renal failure in a subset of patients.
• 04/01/2011. Hematopoietic Elements of Acute Radiation Sickness: This brief primer on the hematopoietic syndrome of acute radiation sickness highlights some of the clinical issues that arise in treating those with potentially survivable acute exposures to radiation.
• 03/31/2011. Radiation at Fukushima: Basic Issues and Concepts: Understanding the developments at Japan’s severely damaged Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant is challenging. This brief is intended to help explain and put into context some of the terminology and concepts associated with nuclear radiation.
• 03/18/2011. Distinguishing Bacterial Pneumonia from 2009 H1N1 Influenza Pneumonia: Distinguishing at presentation which patients with community-acquired pneumonia require antiviral treatment and droplet isolation for influenza is a difficult task made more so by the lack of a solid evidence base or prediction model for guidance.
• 03/03/2011. Social Network Analysis and Whole Genome Sequencing Aid in TB Outbreak Investigation: Researchers from British Columbia have just published results of a TB outbreak investigation in which the combined use of whole-genome sequencing and social-network analysis produced results not likely to have been achieved through traditional methods.
• 02/18/2011. Immunomodulation in 2009 H1N1: Before the 2009 pandemic, there was speculation about the potential for immunomodulation to improve the clinical course of severe influenza. However, the only evidence to support this theory was anecdotal reports on use in humans and lab-animal data.
• 02/04/2011. Healthcare Worker Mortality During the 1918 Influenza Pandemic: A team of researchers from the Australian Army, funded by the DoD’s Global Emerging Infections Surveillance and Response System (GEIS), recently published results of its study of mortality among nurses and physicians during the 1918 influenza pandemic.
• 01/20/2011. Airborne Transmission of Prions: The assumption that prion diseases spread exclusively by ingestion or direct inoculation has been challenged by results of a study by Haybaeck et al., who conducted experiments demonstrating airborne transmission of the prion disease, scrapie, to mice.
• 01/06/2011. Intravenous Immunoglobulin for Pandemic Influenza: In 1918-1919, passive immunotherapy (transfusions of convalescent sera) was used as a salvage therapy, reportedly with some success. Australian researchers published their study of the use of intravenous immunoglobulin (IVIG) during the 2009 pandemic.

*Formerly The Clinicians' Biosecurity Network Report; title changed in July 2011