Eur J Clin Microbiol Infect Dis
October 2024
Objective: The COVID-19 pandemic has had significant health and socioeconomic impacts worldwide. Extensive measures, including contact restrictions, were implemented to control the spread of the virus. This study aims to examine the factors that influenced private and professional contact behaviour during the COVID-19 pandemic.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: The SARS-CoV-2 pandemic presented a challenge for caregiving relatives in the home care setting. Caregivers can transmit SARS-CoV-2 to their relatives who are often at high risk for a severe course of COVID-19. Regular testing of asymptomatic caregivers for SARS-CoV-2 may reduce the risk of transmission.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFSpinal epidural abscess (SEA) can lead to a subacute onset of neurological deficits of the extremities and is commonly accompanied by spondylodiscitis if located anterior to the dura. is a fish pathogen that is occasionally found in poultry, cattle, and swine. It is a rare cause of infection in humans.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFLancet Infect Dis
May 2024
Background: High-frequency jet ventilation (HFJV) is used in pneumological endoscopy for rigid, diagnostic, and therapeutic bronchoscopies. It is unclear to what extent the unobstructed flow of respiratory gas from the patient's lungs causes microbial contamination of the surrounding air.
Material And Methods: After the start of the HFJV (15 min) in 16 rigid bronchoscopies, airborne pathogen measurements were taken directly at the distal endoscope outlet, at examiner height (40 cm above the endoscope outlet), at a 2 m distance from the endoscope in the room and at the supply air outlet of the examination room using an RCS air sampler.
Front Cell Infect Microbiol
November 2023
(heterotypic synonym: "") is a facultative anaerobic, newly described Gram-negative rod and belongs to the Yersineacea family. Here, we report the case of a 19-month-old female infant patient who presented to the emergency unit with somnolence and fever. was isolated from a positive blood culture, taken via an implanted Broviac catheter, proving a bloodstream infection by the pathogen.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe Two Weeks in the World research project has resulted in a dataset of 3087 clinically relevant bacterial genomes with pertaining metadata, collected from 59 diagnostic units in 35 countries around the world during 2020. A relational database is available with metadata and summary data from selected bioinformatic analysis, such as species prediction and identification of acquired resistance genes.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: In recent years, an increasing number of linezolid-resistant enterococci (LRE) was recognized at the German National Reference Centre (NRC) for Enterococci. National guidelines on infection prevention recommend screening for LRE in epidemiologically linked hospital settings without referring to a reliable and rapid diagnostic method. Since 2020, CHROMAgar™ provide a chromogenic linezolid screening agar, LIN-R, suitable to simultaneously screen for linezolid-resistant staphylococci and enterococci.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFInfect Control Hosp Epidemiol
December 2023
Objective: In the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, child and adolescent psychiatry wards face the risk of severe acute respiratory coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) introduction and spread within the facility. In this setting, mask and vaccine mandates are hard to enforce, especially for younger children. Surveillance testing may detect infection early and enable mitigation measures to prevent viral spread.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFFront Microbiol
May 2023
Extended spectrum beta-lactamases (ESBL) are frequently found in Enterobacterales isolates from Western Africa. However, information on the molecular epidemiology of regional ESBL-positive Enterobacterales strains is scarce. In order to provide epidemiological information, ESBL-positive isolates from stool samples of European soldiers with diarrhea deployed to a field camp in Mali were subjected to whole-genome sequencing (Illumina MiSeq and Oxford Nanopore MinION) and antimicrobial susceptibility testing.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFPurpose: The SeMaCo study (Serologische Untersuchungen bei Blutspendern des Großraums Magdeburg auf Antikörper gegen SARS-CoV-2), a prospective, longitudinal cohort study with four survey phases spanning 3-5 months each over a period of 22 months, extends the spectrum of seroepidemiological studies in Germany. We present here a careful characterisation of the initial survey phase of the cohort to provide baseline data on infection incidence and obtained from questionnaires, focussing in particular on the attitude towards COVID-19 vaccinations, the vaccination success and the vaccination acceptance.
Participants: A total of 2195 individual blood donors from the donor pool of the blood donation service of the University Hospital Magdeburg were enrolled in the initial survey phase from 20 January 2021 to 30 April 2021.
Front Cell Infect Microbiol
February 2023
In recent years, has gained clinical significance as an emerging diarrheagenic pathogen associated with poultry and water reservoirs. The full clinical significance of remains rather speculative due to variable virulence and antibiotic susceptibility of individual strains. The aims of the present study were (i) to identify antibiotic resistance genes (ARGs) in the genome sequences of two multidrug-resistant isolates, (ii) to use multilocus-sequence typing (MLST) to generate a guiding phylogeny of isolates collected in Kumasi, Ghana, (iii) to examine the distribution of ARGs in the test cohort, and (iv) to assess the strain's virulence and possible antibiotic treatment options for arcobacteriosis based on the genome sequences and the ARG distribution.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFFront Cell Infect Microbiol
November 2022
Objectives: To analyse the adherence and impact of quality-of-care indicators (QCIs) in the management of Staphylococcus aureus bloodstream infection in a prospective and multicentre cohort.
Methods: Analysis of the prospective, multicentre international S. Aureus Collaboration cohort of S.
After recovery, mild and severe COVID-19 diseases are associated with long-term effects on the host immune system, such as prolonged T-cell activation or accumulation of autoantibodies. In this study, we show that mild SARS-CoV-2 infections, but not SARS-CoV-2 spike mRNA vaccinations, cause durable atopic risk factors such as a systemic Th2- and Th17-type environment as well as activation of B cells responsive of IgE against aeroallergens from house dust mite and mold. At an average of 100 days post mild SARS-CoV-2 infections, anti-mold responses were associated with low IL-13 levels and increased pro-inflammatory IL-6 titers.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Post-operative infection is a common complication following abdominal surgery. The two most common infections are secondary peritonitis and surgical site infections, which lead to increased perioperative morbidity, prolonged hospitalization, higher mortality rates, and increased treatment costs. In addition to surgical procedures, treatment is based on effective antibiotic therapy.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFInfect Control Hosp Epidemiol
June 2023
Objective: Investigation of the origin of a outbreak in a neonatal intensive care unit.
Design: Retrospective case-control study.
Setting: Regional level 3 perinatal center in Germany.
Objectives: This study aimed to investigate whether neutropenia influenced mortality and long-term outcomes of Staphylococcus aureus bloodstream (SAB) infection.
Methods: Data from two prospective, multicentre cohort studies (INSTINCT and ISAC) conducted at 20 tertiary care hospitals in six countries between 2006 and 2015 were analyzed. Neutropenic and severely neutropenic patients (defined by proxy of total white blood cell count <1000/μl and <500/μl, respectively, at onset of SAB infection) were compared with a control group using a propensity score model and overlapping weights to adjust for baseline characteristics.
The function of T cells is critically dependent on their ability to generate metabolic building blocks to fulfil energy demands for proliferation and consecutive differentiation into various T helper (Th) cells. Th cells then have to adapt their metabolism to specific microenvironments within different organs during physiological and pathological immune responses. In this context, Th2 cells mediate immunity to parasites and are involved in the pathogenesis of allergic diseases including asthma, while CD8 T cells and Th1 cells mediate immunity to viruses and tumors.
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