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.
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.
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.
Statistically speaking every fourth older German man suffers from prostate cancer with the mortality rate being 60,000 patients annually
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.
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.
Researchers at Imperial College London have discovered a new way in which a very common childhood disease could be treated.
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 €.
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.
A recent webinar, hosted by the American Association of Clinical Chemistry, featured doctors Duane Newton of the University of Michigan and Susan Novak-Weekly of Kaiser Permanente.
Despite receiving blood thinners and other clot prevention treatment, some patients still develop potentially lethal blood clots in the first month after their operations anyway, especially if they developed a surgical-site infection while in the hospital, according to results of a study at Johns Hopkins.
When country doctor Edward Jenner inoculated 8-year-old James Phipps with pus from a cowpox lesion on a milkmaid’s hand, little did he know that he had started a long lasting revolution in preventive medicine.
Hospital acquired infections (HAIs) are among the most common complications during a hospital and care home stay in the West (although they also occur in developing countries, with even an assumed higher incidence), causing enormous strain for those affected as well as high follow-on costs for healthcare systems.
The biggest cause of death for most adult women in industrialised nations is coronary heart disease (CHD). Why the disease affects the genders differently is still not fully understood. European Hospital Editor Brigitte Dinkloh asked Professor Rafaelle Bugiardini MD FESC, from the Department of Internal Medicine Department, University of Bologna, whether he could explain the reasons and what…
Prevention is better than a fight against an infected wound – but, to avoid a battle you must know your enemy – and the wound’s infection risk level. Unfortunately, there are no generally accepted definitions for those risk levels. Now, the introduction of a new clinical assessment score – named W.A.R. (wound at risk) – which makes standardised classification of ‘risky’ wounds…
Germany’s mammography screening programme, introduced in 2005, was rolled out across the country in 2009 for women between the ages of 50 and 69 years. The mammo screening coordination office, which heads up and monitors the country’s 94 screening units, has published for the first time an evaluation report with follow-up examinations after a twoyear period.
EH Paris correspondent Annick Chapoy, reports on a French study that confirms the relevance of a drug with a long history in the management of other diseases
By integrating all necessary pre-analytical and analytical steps into one solution, the recently CE-marked Unyvero system, which is now commercially available in Europe, provides pathogen identification and antibiotic resistance marker information without needing expert staff and a sophisticated infrastructure, its manufacturer Curetis reports. Of even greater interest is its range of targets.
Bacteria, viruses and fungi are killed on copper surfaces within seconds. This powerful germicidal effect, termed ‘contact killing’, is increasingly noted by hospitals due to several recent studies that confirm its antimicrobial effects.
For some, ‘life’s a bitch’ with unfairness and suffering an integral part of it. Many more people actually do not expect any better than the barrenness and misery in which they live, EH Malta Correspondent Moira Mizzi reflects.
Copper and its alloys reduce the rate of nosocomial infections in hospitals by 40%, according to an American study led by Michael Schmidt (University of South Carolina). For the first time in France, one hospital near Paris chose to bet on the antibacterial quality of copper on commonly touched items to lower risks of HAIs, which annually claim 3,500 lives in the country – comparable to the…
After breast screening and prostate screening there is currently a lively discussion around the introduction of a lung cancer screening programme in Europe. Study results from the US appear to back up the supporters of this early detection of cancer for smokers. Prof. Dr Jürgen Biederer, Consultant and head of the Division of Pulmonary Radiology at the Department of Diagnostic and Interventional…
The benfit of breast cancer screening for women over aged 50 is beyond doubt. However, what does a systematic search yield for breast cancer in women aged between 40 and 49? This question, which remains controversial, was raised again at ECR 2012.
The world’s first gene cancer therapy study of an innovative oral vaccine is underway at the Surgical Clinic of Heidelberg University Hospital.