Elements of influenza vaccination programs that predict higher vaccination rates: results of an emerging infections network survey.

Introduction: To address suboptimal influenza vaccination rates among health care workers, the Healthcare Infection Control Practices Advisory Committee and the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices recently issued recommendations designed to increase the number of health care workers vaccinated against influenza. The purpose of the present study was to determine how widely these recommendations have been implemented and to identify important elements of successful influenza vaccine programs.

Methods: The Infectious Diseases Society of America Emerging Infections Network surveyed 991 infectious diseases consultants.

Anti-IFN-gamma autoantibodies in disseminated nontuberculous mycobacterial infections.

Although many patients with disseminated nontuberculous mycobacterial disease have molecular defects in the IFN-gamma/IL-12 axis, recent case reports have shown autoantibodies against IFN-gamma associated with severe nontuberculous mycobacterial infections. To check this finding in an independent population, we screened 35 patients with either disseminated or pulmonary nontuberculous mycobacterial infections for whom no molecular defect was known. We identified high-titer-neutralizing anti-IFN-gamma IgG in the plasma of six patients.