Engineering bacteria to design vaccines
The EU-funded MycoSynVac project combines gene engineering and biotechnology to design a novel veterinary vaccine chassis based on the bacterium Mycoplasma pneumoniae.
Prevention
Article • Nosocomial infections
Hygiene begins between the ears
"Infection prevention and control is a matter of awareness and continuous education," says Dr Ernst Tabori, Medical Director of the German Consulting Centre for Hospital Epidemiology and Infection Control (BZH), at the University Hospital Freiburg, specialises in building hygiene in hospitals and outpatient healthcare facilities, as well as surgical units. Report: Anja Behringer
Article • Hygiene
Meet Mr Clean Hand
They call him Mr Clean Hand. Professor Didier Pittet MD, Specialist in Infection Prevention and Control at the Hôpitaux Universitaires de Genève and Head of the Clean Care is Safer Care programme of the World Health Organisation (WHO), is known as the ‘Father of Modern Hand Hygiene’. Report: Michael Krassnitzer
News • Twitter
Twitter can predict rates of coronary heart disease
Twitter has broken news stories, launched and ended careers, started social movements and toppled governments, all by being an easy, direct and immediate way for people to share what's on their minds. Researchers from the University of Pennsylvania have now shown that the social media platform has another use: Twitter can serve as a dashboard indicator of a community's psychological well being…
Endogenous bacteria
Is chlorhexidine still the best decolonisation method? For many decades decolonisation – be it selective intestinal, oral or skin decolonisation – has been the accepted procedure to prevent infections by endogenous bacteria. Report: Brigitte Dinkloh
Zero percent and other illusions
Professor Tobias Welte MD, President of the 24th International Congress of the European Respiratory Society, gave EH some personal views on the symposium ‘New perspectives in the management of nosocomial pneumonia’. Interview: Ralf Mateblowski
It’s cool, Man!
Evidence is scant on the cooling of comatose patients who have suffered cardiac arrest, stroke or traumatic brain injuries; nevertheless, new methods for cooling patients are continuously being developed.
Partnership optimises uniform processes
By recognition and early intervention against the most significant risk factors, many heart diseases can be prevented.
How to end gender discrimination
According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), mental illness is associated with a significant burden of morbidity and disability.
Smokers with mental health issues cost UK nearly £2.5 billion a year
Smoking prevalence is 50% higher in this group; Researchers say that more effort is needed to help them quit.
Aggression in hospitals
A receptionist threatened with a butcher’s knife in Bourgoin-Jallieu (Isère); gunshots in an emergency unit in Delafontaine, at Saint-Denis, near Paris; a nurse wounded with a knife in a Marseille hospital – three separate incidents in just one week last August brought into sharpe focus what has become a worrying phenomenon.
Dirt, danger and germs are killers for allergies and asthma
Infants exposed to rodent and pet dander, roach allergens and a wide variety of household bacteria in the first year of life appear less likely to suffer from allergies, wheezing and asthma, according to results of a study conducted by scientists at the Johns Hopkins Children’s Center and other institutions.
Statistics: Where is there safety in numbers?
Doctors slam claims of 18,800 preventable hospital deaths in just one EU country.
'Women have a right to make informed decisions'
Breast cancer hurt her but after a long treatment, she is now 10 years past the day she heard "You have cancer."
Tackling MRSA
Decontaminating every patient in an intensive care unit is a far more effective approach to controlling infections in hospitals, according to a new study, Mark Nicholls reports.
Cardiac disease death rates fall in the EU
Death rates from cardiac disease have more than halved in many EU countries since the early 1980s, according to new research published in the European Heart Journal.
MERS-CoV: Global action needed?
The World Health Organisation (WHO) recently formed an international emergency committee to decide whether Middle East Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus (MERS-CoV) should be ascribed Public Health Emergency of International Concern (PHEIC) status, amid reports of a lack of information from the worst affected countries.
Violence in the hospital
Aggression and violence towards hospital staff by patients and their relatives and visitors alike is an under-reported and an under-discussed issue. A French webside wants to inform employees how they can prevent and react on aggressions.
Hygiene: Fighting infections
The motive was clear. Lowering Germany’s comparatively high nosocomial infection rate – the reason for an amendment to the Hygiene Act passed in 2011 – called for improved hygiene management within the hospitals.
A clever(t) fusion for prostate diagnosis
Statistically speaking every fourth older German man suffers from prostate cancer with the mortality rate being 60,000 patients annually
Investigating the HFN1 virus
Dutch virologist Ron Fouchier and his colleagues around the world stopped their research into the bird flu virus H5N1 for a whole year to allow an international debate surrounding the benefits and risks of their work.
Shunning the flu vaccine
Although receding since late March, the 2012-13 seasonal flu epidemic in metropolitan France, appears to be the longest in some 30 years, even if it did not strike the highest numbers, according to the monitoring network Sentinelles-Inserm.
Researchers pioneer treatment for viral infection
Researchers at Imperial College London have discovered a new way in which a very common childhood disease could be treated.
New price for hospital hygiene und infection prevention
In 2013, the Robert‐Koch‐Stiftung will for the first time award a prize for excellent scientific research and practical measures in the field of hospital hygiene und infection prevention. Healthcare institutions such as hospitals and rehabilitation facilities and research institutes as well as individuals are invited to apply for the prize which is endowed with 50,000 €.
Marriage reduces the risk of heart attack
A large population-based study from Finland has shown that being unmarried increases the risk of fatal and non-fatal heart attack in both men and women whatever their age.
