It is with great pleasure that I ask your attention for this article that appeared in the Economist. Yes, we still have low resistance rates in our hospitals and if you’re interested in how that happened, read it. The prosaic composition contains two parts; a very realistic thriller-like opening, followed by a second part with a rather unrealistic explanation. Both parts are separated by a short sentence of absolute nonsense. Time for a review. Continue reading
contact precautions
Making MRSA carriage a crime?
A new chapter has been added to our successful MRSA Search and Destroy policy. Yesterday, a healthcare professional, providing homecare to elderly, testified on Dutch television (item starts @ 12.30 minutes) how unnoticed MRSA carriage had influenced her and her family’s life. It is very laudable that she was willing to share her experience, but it was kind of spooky that she felt that she could only do this if unrecognizable, as if the underworld was still after her and her family. Apparently, MRSA carriage has become a criminal or shameful thing. Continue reading
Contact Precautions for Endemic MRSA and VRE
by Andreas Voss and Eli Perencevich,
intentionally posted on “Reflections” and “Controversies” at the same time as a reaction to the JAMA Viewpoint by Morgan, Wenzel & Bearman
During the recent ICPIC 2017 and a pre-meeting think tank, the sense and non-sense of RCTs looking at various infection control measures was a major point of discussion during many sessions. Data from well-designed quasi-experimental studies, epidemiological evidence, and logic seems to vanish, whenever a new RCT is published, even if the results are not applicable to situations that are non-endemic, have higher or lower compliance with the preventive measures in question, or whether the intended measures were actually applied within the intended patient group. Some studies seem to assume that the transmission during the first days of admission are of no consequence. Others assume that given endemicity and a high patient load, the intended measures such as single-room isolation can’t be applied, even if a patient was randomized to receive those measures.
Reflections on Infection Prevention and Control 