Measuring Pandemic Impact: Vital Signs From Vital Statistics.

Kiang and colleagues' study emphasizes that deaths directly related to SARS-CoV-2 infection tell only part of the story. Many deaths are likely to be attributable to indirect consequences of the pandemic, including those associated with disruptions in health care systems and the economic and social hardships endured by many people. The editorial discusses the importance of national vital statistics to health and emergency preparedness systems in the United States.

Developing Vaccines for SARS-CoV-2 and Future Epidemics and Pandemics: Applying Lessons from Past Outbreaks.

The COVID-19 pandemic is a stark reminder of the heavy toll that emerging infectious diseases (EIDs) with epidemic and pandemic potential can inflict. Vaccine development, scale-up, and commercialization is a long, expensive, and risky enterprise that requires substantial upfront planning and offers no guarantee of success. EIDs are a particularly challenging target for global health preparedness, including for vaccine development.

The new vaccine frontier.

Vaccines are one of the greatest public health achievements and have had a tremendous impact on people's health and survival around the world. Nevertheless, highly prevalent infectious disease threats unresponsive to traditional immunization strategies, emerging and re-emerging threats, and non-communicable diseases amenable to immunization remain critical global health challenges. Scientific advances will reveal solutions, but it will take political, social and economic commitment from all stakeholders for these solutions to achieve their health protection benefit among the people who need them most.

Healthcare epidemiology: past and future.

Healthcare epidemiology is a robust and adaptable profession with the noble mission of protecting patients and their healthcare providers from infectious diseases and other threats. Change is the constant that links the successes of our field in each decade of our history. Although it is not possible to predict what specific challenges the next decade will bring, the themes of the Sixth Decennial International Conference in 2020 are likely to reflect the most prominent drivers of change that are affecting our profession, including globalization, sustainability, and consumer empowerment.

Streptococcus suis meningitis, United States.

Meningitis, United States

Pandemic preparedness: pigs, poultry, and people versus plans, products, and practice.

Influenza pandemic preparedness planning is critical for reducing human suffering and negative effects on the economy and society. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is working to ensure a rapid, efficient, and successful response to an outbreak if, when, and where it appears. The CDC's context for strategic planning is based on experiences with seasonal influenza and what is known about past influenza pandemics.

Measuring the public's health.

Allocation of public health resources should be based, where feasible, on objective assessments of health status, burden of disease, injury, and disability, their preventability, and related costs. In this article, we first analyze traditional measures of the public's health that address the burden of disease and disability and associated costs. Second, we discuss activities that are essential to protecting the public's health but whose impact is difficult to measure.

Management of occupational and nonoccupational postexposure HIV prophylaxis.

The principles of managing patients with recent HIV exposures are similar whether the exposure occurs in an occupational or nonoccupational setting. For both settings, clinicians should 1) assess the likelihood that HIV and other bloodborne viruses will be transmitted as a consequence of the exposure; 2) advise the patient about the risks and benefits of treatment; 3) choose an appropriate antiretroviral treatment regimen (if the decision is made to treat); 4) screen for other illnesses that may complicate treatment or follow-up; 5) counsel patients about the importance of adhering to treatment; 6) promote safe-sex practices and methods to avoid future exposures; 7) follow the patient for potential side effects of treatment; 8) provide follow-up care including repeat HIV testing for seroconversion, surveillance for primary HIV infection, and reinforcement of counseling messages.

Low colonization prevalence of Staphylococcus aureus with reduced vancomycin susceptibility among patients undergoing hemodialysis in the San Francisco Bay area.

Background: Staphylococcus aureus exhibits varying degrees of reduced vancomycin susceptibility, and strains with intermediate levels of resistance are thought to emerge by antibiotic selection of subpopulations in heterogeneously resistant precursor strains exposed to this antibiotic. We sought to determine the prevalence of and risk factors for carriage of potential heterogeneous vancomycin-intermediate S. aureus (hVISA).

Steps on the critical path: arresting HIV/AIDS in developing countries.

The director of the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention gives a personal view of how the world should tackle the HIV pandemic

Assessing the status of infection control programs in small rural hospitals in the western United States.

Background: Organized infection control (IC) interventions have been successful in reducing the acquisition of hospital-associated infections. Rural community hospitals, although contributing significantly to the US health care system, have rarely been assessed regarding the nature and quality of their IC programs.

Methods: A sample of 77 small rural hospitals in Idaho, Nevada, Utah, and eastern Washington completed a written survey in 2000 regarding IC staffing, infrastructure support, surveillance of nosocomial infections, and IC policies and practices.