Risk factors for methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus colonization in the neonatal intensive care unit: A systematic review and meta-analysis.

Context: Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) causes a significant burden of illness in neonatal intensive care units (NICUs) worldwide. Identifying infants colonized with MRSA has become an important infection control strategy to interrupt nosocomial transmission.

Objective: Assess risk factors for MRSA colonization in NICUs via a systematic review and meta-analysis.

Association of visitation policy and health care-acquired respiratory viral infections in hospitalized children.

Visitor restriction policies are meant to prevent health care-acquired viral infections; however, data on their efficacy in hospitalized children are limited. We report a 37% reduction in health care-acquired respiratory viral infections in a children's hospital following standardization of the visitation policy that limited the number of visitors during a patient's hospitalization.

Demographics of Hepatitis C in Southwest Ohio (2010 to 2015).

Background: Cases of acute hepatitis C virus (HCV) have been rising across the United States, and southwest Ohio is no exception.

Objectives: To describe the rise in cases of HCV in our region, the Ohio Disease Reporting System was reviewed for all cases of positive HCV testing from 2010 through August 2015.

Methods: 29,018 cases were reviewed, with 18,678 (64.

A novel peptide inhibitor of classical and lectin complement activation including ABO incompatibility.

Previous experiments from our laboratories have identified peptides derived from the human astrovirus coat protein (CP) that bind C1q and mannose binding lectin (MBL) inhibiting activation of the classical and lectin pathways of complement, respectively. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the function of these coat protein peptides (CPPs) in an in vitro model of complement-mediated disease (ABO incompatibility), preliminarily assess their in vivo complement suppression profile and develop more highly potent derivatives of these molecules. E23A, a 30 amino acid CPP derivative previously demonstrated to inhibit classical pathway activation was able to dose-dependently inhibit lysis of AB erythrocytes treated with mismatched human O serum.