Top 5 Infectious Disease News Stories: Week of August 2-August 9

WHO: Prepare to Identify Hypervirulent Pathogen

Saskia Popescu, PhD, MPH, MA, FAPIC, discusses the primary factors driving the global spread of hvKp ST23 strains. She explains, "diagnostics is a huge piece, which impacts surveillance, meaning that to bolster response and prevention, we need a robust laboratory capacity and surveillance network to help inform isolation and community contact tracing. A big piece to this is also healthcare worker education, to increase capacity for clinical suspicion/detection, followed by a key aspect of containment - infection prevention and control."

CDC Provides Additional Data on RSV Vaccines’ Safety, Rationale on Recommendations

The CDC has released its official guidance for RSV, including safety profiles for each approved vaccine. The agency reported on adverse effects, noting some serious but rare occurrences such as Guillain-Barré syndrome (GBS) and immune thrombocytopenia. A rare risk of these conditions was associated with the protein subunit RSV vaccines, specifically GSK’s Arexvy and Pfizer’s Abrysvo.

IDSA 2024 Guidance: Managing Antimicrobial-Resistant Gram-Negative Infections

The Infectious Diseases Society of America has issued updated guidance for managing antimicrobial-resistant (AMR) infections, including those caused by extended-spectrum β-lactamase-producing Enterobacterales (ESBL-E), AmpC β-lactamase-producing Enterobacterales (AmpC-E), carbapenem-resistant Enterobacterales (CRE), difficult-to-treat Pseudomonas aeruginosa (DTR P. aeruginosa), carbapenem-resistant Acinetobacter baumannii (CRAB), and Stenotrophomonas maltophilia. This new guidance replaces previous versions. Panel members Julie Ann Justo, PharmD, MS, FIDSA, BCPS, and Emily Heil, PharmD, MS, provided insights into the IDSA 2024 recommendations for treating antimicrobial-resistant gram-negative infections.

New USDA Rule Targets Salmonella in Poultry

José Emilio Esteban MD, PhD, under secretary for Food Safety at the USDA, discusses the agency's strategy for implementing the new Salmonella standards. “The effectiveness can be monitored in many ways through our data collection systems. As for practicality, we've been engaging in very open collaboration with both industry and consumer groups in trying to arrive at this proposed document,” he continues, “We don’t want to increase the price, we want to maintain quality. We just want to make sure that it’s safe. I truly believe that there is a way to balance both the improvements with a greater impact on consumer health.”

Effectiveness of Cranberry Supplements in UTI Treatment

Given that over 50% of women experience at least one urinary tract infection (UTI) annually and antimicrobial resistance is increasing, it's crucial to explore evidence for non-drug interventions. Cranberry juice, for instance, is known to help prevent UTIs due to its content of proanthocyanidins, which inhibit bacteria from adhering to the urinary tract walls. Amy Howell, PhD explains how cranberry demonstrates broader effectiveness, “bacterial adhesion may also be initiated by indirect effects, including inducing a protein called Tamm-Horsfall (THP) that is known to inhibit adhesion of one type of E coli (Type 1) that are associated with bladder infections. Interestingly, the positive AAA after intake of D-mannose was no different than that found in the background urines of participants prior to taking the supplement,” Howell explains. “So the effect may just be due to production of THP, not anything the D-mannose is doing.”