Adapting and Evaluating a Rapid, Low-Cost Method to Enumerate Flies in the Household Setting.

Diarrhea is a leading cause of death among children under 5 years of age worldwide. Flies are important vectors of diarrheal pathogens in settings lacking networked sanitation services. There is no standardized method for measuring fly density in households; many methods are cumbersome and unvalidated.

Venturi atomizers as potential sources of patient cross-infection.

Venturi-principle atomizers, which rely on compressed air to aerosolize medications, are commonly used in clinical practice to apply topical anesthetics and vasoconstrictors to the mucous membranes of the nose and throat. Unfortunately, the mechanism by which these devices operate leads to aspiration of external contaminants back into the device at the end of the spray cycle. This "flaw" in design may make Venturi-principle atomizers unsafe for clinical practice because of the risk of patient cross-infection.