Christmas 2014 Update

Now that you have digested your Christmas turkey, I thought that it would be a good time to send out an update. These articles have been posted since the last update:

Who’s harbouring CRE? (Published 22nd December 2014)
ECDC data shows progressive, depressing increase in antibiotic resistance in Europe (Published 16th December 2014)
Is deliberately seeding hospital rooms with Bacillus spores a good idea? No, I don’t think so either! (Published 8th December 2014)
Filling the gaps in the guidelines to control resistant Gram-negative bacteria (Published 2nd December 2014)
Journal Roundup November 2014: Journal Roundup: Ebola (again), The rise (and rise) and fall of MRDOs & Infection Prevention 2014 (Published 28th November 2014)
The inanimate environment doesn’t contribute to pathogen transmission in the operating room…OR does it? (Published 27th November 2014)
Being bitten by antibiotic resistant CRAB hurts! (Acinetobacter that is.) (Published 25th November 2014)
Reflections from HIS 2014, Part III: Education, communication, and antibiotic resistance (Published 21st November 2014)
Reflections from HIS 2014, Part II: Dealing with the contaminated environment (Published 20th November 2014)
Reflections from HIS 2014, Part I: Updates on C. difficile, norovirus and other HCAI pathogens (Published 19th November 2014)
What’s trending in the infection prevention and control literature? (Published 16th November 2014)
HIS Poster Round: Dealing with contaminated hands, surfaces, water and medical devices (Published 15th November 2014)
Carbapenem-resistant Enterobacteriaceae (CRE): so what should an infection prevention and control team do now? (Published 11th November 2014)
A postcard from Portugal: “Some days we don’t have any needles on the ICU” (Published 5th November 2014)
Ebola: infection prevention and control considerations (Published 30th October 2014)
ID Week 2014 as seen by an Infection Preventionist (Published 28th October 2014)
Selective Digestive Decontamination (SDD) is dead; long live faecal microbiota transplantation (FMT) (Published 27th October 2014)

I’m in a rather reflective mood, so time to remind you of some of the key themes from 2014: Ebola, MERS-CoV, universal vs. targeted interventions, faecal microbiota transplantation (FMT), whole genome sequencing (WGS), carbapenem-resistant Enterobacteriaceae (CRE), and some interesting developments in environmental science. And what will we be still talking about come Christmas 2015? Let’s hope it won’t be Ebola, and I think that WGS will be a lab technique akin to a Vitek machine rather than subject matter for NEJM. But I think we still have ground to cover on whether to go for universal or targeted interventions, FMT, and improving our study designs in infection prevention and control. I can also foresee important studies on the comparative and cost-effectiveness of the various tools at our disposal.

And finally, before I sign off for 2014, a classic BMJ study on why Rudolf’s nose is red (it’s to do with the richly vascularised nasal microcirculation of the reindeer nose, apparently).

Image: Christmas #27.