Outpatient antibiotic prescribing fell by almost 4% a year between 2011 and 2018, according to a study of prescribing patterns in the largest integrated health care system in the USA, being presented at the European Congress of Clinical Microbiology & Infectious Diseases (ECCMID) held online this year. Veterans Affairs (VA) facilities play a large role in the provision of outpatient care across the USA, providing care to over 9 million Veterans at more than 1,200 outpatient clinics. The researchers speculate that the downward trend may be related to the antibiotic stewardship programmes widely implemented across the Veterans ...

New research presented at this year's European Congress of Clinical Microbiology & Infectious Diseases (ECCMID) taking place online (9-12 July), suggests that three commonly prescribed classes of drugs that are not themselves antibiotics--proton pump inhibitors (PPIs), beta-blockers and antimetabolites--could lead to antibiotic resistant infections caused by bacteria from the Enterobacteriaceae family. These antibiotic resistant infections are in turn linked to longer hospital stays and potentially greater risk of death. The observational study underscores the importance of commonly used non-antimicrobial drugs (NAMDs) as a risk factor for antibiotic resistance, researchers say. Bacteria are thought to develop antibiotic resistance largely due to repeated exposure through over-prescribing, ...

*Note: this paper is being presented at the European Congress of Clinical Microbiology & Infectious Diseases (ECCMID) and is being published in The Lancet Public Health. Please credit both the congress and the journal in your stories* New research from Switzerland presented at this year's European Congress of Clinical Microbiology & Infectious Diseases (ECCMID), held online this year, shows that people living in poorer neighbourhoods were less likely to be tested for COVID-19 but more likely to test positive, be hospitalised, or die, compared with those in more wealthy areas. The study is by Professor ...

A new study (the ATOMIC2 trial), presented at this year's European Congress of Clinical Microbiology & Infectious Diseases (ECCMID) and published simultaneously in The Lancet Respiratory Medicine, shows the antimicrobial drug azithromycin - already approved for use in multiple infections - does not prevent mild COVID-19 cases progressing to hospitalisation or death. The study, by Dr Timothy Hinks, John Radcliffe Hospital and University of Oxford, UK, and colleagues, shows that azithromycin should not be used as a treatment for COVID-19 and all countries must stop using it for this purpose, to prevent resistance developing to azithromycin in other infections. The SARS-CoV-2 pandemic has not only started a rush to develop new treatments, but also investigations ...

For interviews with the report authors, please contact Dr Waasila Jassat, National Institute for Communicable Diseases of the National Health Laboratory Service, South Africa E) waasilaj@nicd.ac.za T) +27(0)82 927 4138 Alternative contact in the ECCMID Press Room: Tony Kirby T) + 44(0)7834 385827 E) tony@tonykirby.com or Rachael Davies T) +44(0)797 456 0784 E) rachaelvdavies@hotmail.co.uk Notes to editors: [1] Wave 1: (14721 deaths/59617625 SA population)*100,000 = 24.7 deaths per 100,000 people Wave 2: (28682 deaths/59617625 SA population)*100,000 = 48.1 deaths per 100,000 ...

New research presented at this year's European Congress of Clinical Microbiology & Infectious Diseases (ECCMID) shows the importance of receiving the second dose of a COVID-19 vaccine and also the need to constantly review and update vaccines to deal with new variants of concern. The study is by Dr Nicole Schneiderhan-Marra, Natural and Medical Sciences Institute at the University of Tübingen, Reutlingen, Germany, and colleagues. While vaccines have begun to bring the pandemic under control in certain countries, it remains unclear how effective these vaccines will continue to be as the virus mutates and evolves. The protection generated against the virus by vaccination is normally measured by antibodies, with a certain group ...

A presentation at this year's European Congress on Clinical Microbiology & Infectious Diseases (ECCMID), held online this year, will discuss the growing evidence that the beta SARS-CoV-2 variant first identified in South Africa is leading to more severe disease in people living with HIV, and that failure to clear SARS-CoV-2 infection in a patient with advanced HIV creates conditions that can lead to evolution of dangerous mutations in SARS-CoV-2. Control of HIV with antiretroviral therapy could be the key to preventing such evolution of SARS-CoV-2 in patients with advanced HIV, since clearance of the virus is compromised if HIV is allowed to replicate for ...

Nashville, Tenn. (4:14 p.m. EDT--July 9, 2021)--Orthopedic surgeons know that knee surgeries that require revisions have inferior outcomes compared with primary surgeries but until now, the reason for this was unknown. Today a team of orthopedic physicians reports that opting for a transtibial surgical approach and choosing an inference screw for femoral and tibial fixation will improve the patient's odds of having a significantly better six-year clinical outcome. The research was presented today at the American Orthopedic Society of Sports Medicine- Arthroscopy Association of North America Combined 2021 Annual Meeting by Rick Wright MD, ...

Sea otters are the smallest marine mammal. As cold-water dwellers, staying warm is a top priority, but their dense fur only goes so far. We have long known that high metabolism generates the heat they need to survive, but we didn't know how they were producing the heat -- until now. Researchers recently discovered that sea otters' muscles use enough energy through leak respiration, energy not used to perform tasks, that it accounts for their high metabolic rate. The finding explains how sea otters survive in cold water. Physiologist Tray Wright, research assistant professor in Texas A&M University's College of Education & Human Development, conducted the study along with colleagues ...

In the United States, nearly every pediatric doctor's visit begins with three measurements: weight, height and head circumference. Compared to average growth charts of children across the country, established in the 1970s, a child's numbers can confirm typical development or provide a diagnostic baseline to assess deviations from the curve. Yet, the brain, of vital importance to the child's development, is merely hinted at in these measurements. Head circumference may indicate a head growth issue, which could be further investigated to determine if there is an issue with brain size or extra fluid. But now, in the age of ...

Growth impairment, a common complication of Crohn's disease in children, occurs more often in males than females, but the reasons are unclear. Now, a physician-scientist from Weill Cornell Medicine and NewYork-Presbyterian and colleagues at eight other centers have found that factors associated with statural growth differ by sex. Their recent publication, identified as the "Editor's Choice / Leading Off" article and receiving a mention on the cover of the June issue of Inflammatory Bowel Diseases, underscores the need for investigating and developing sex-specific treatment strategies for children with Crohn's disease, an approach that is not currently part ...

Nashville, Tenn., (3:40 EDT--July 9, 2021)--An analysis of MRI images of the tissue grafts used for patients who underwent surgery to repair the anterior cruciate knee ligament suggests grafts used from the quadriceps may be superior to tissue grafts from the hamstring. The research was presented today at the American Orthopaedic Society for Sports Medicine - Arthroscopy Association of North America Combined 2021 Annual Meeting. Younger patients who required ACL reconstruction surgery have historically been treated with a hamstring graft to replace the injured ACL, but preliminary evidence suggests a graft from the quadriceps may be superior. Researchers from the Hospital for Special Surgery in New ...

Why do some Europeans discriminate against Muslim immigrants, and how can these instances of prejudice be reduced? Political scientist Nicholas Sambanis has spent the last few years looking into this question by conducting innovative studies at train stations across Germany involving willing participants, unknowing bystanders and, most recently, bags of lemons. His newest study, co-authored with Donghyun Danny Choi at the University of Pittsburgh and Mathias Poertner at Texas A&M University, was published July 8 in the American Journal of Political Science and finds evidence of significant discrimination against Muslim women during everyday interactions with native Germans. That evidence comes from experimental interventions set up on train platforms ...

Plants have microscopically small pores on the surface of their leaves, the stomata. With their help, they regulate the influx of carbon dioxide for photosynthesis. They also use the stomata to prevent the loss of too much water and withering away during drought. The stomatal pores are surrounded by two guard cells. If the internal pressure of these cells drops, they slacken and close the pore. If the pressure rises, the cells move apart and the pore widens. The stomatal movements are thus regulated by the guard cells. Signalling pathways in these cells are so complex that it is difficult for humans to intervene with them directly. However, researchers of the Julius-Maximilians-Universität (JMU) Würzburg in ...

A research team co-led by UCL (University College London) has solved a decades-old mystery as to how Jupiter produces a spectacular burst of X-rays every few minutes. The X-rays are part of Jupiter's aurora - bursts of visible and invisible light that occur when charged particles interact with the planet's atmosphere. A similar phenomenon occurs on Earth, creating the northern lights, but Jupiter's is much more powerful, releasing hundreds of gigawatts of energy, enough to briefly power all of human civilisation*. In a new study, published in Science Advances, researchers combined close-up observations of Jupiter's environment by NASA's satellite Juno, which is currently orbiting the planet, with simultaneous X-ray ...

Two factors that play a key role in climate change - increased climate warming and elevated ozone levels - appear to have detrimental effects on soybean plant roots, their relationship with symbiotic microorganisms in the soil and the ways the plants sequester carbon. The results, published in the July 9 edition of Science Advances, show few changes to the plant shoots aboveground but some distressing results underground, including an increased inability to hold carbon that instead gets released into the atmosphere as a greenhouse gas. North Carolina State University researchers examined the interplay of warming and increased ozone levels with certain important underground organisms - arbuscular ...

A survey offered to transgender and nonbinary people across six continents and in thirteen languages shows that during the first months of the COVID-19 pandemic, many faced reduced access to gender-affirming resources, and this reduction was linked to poorer mental health. Brooke Jarrett of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Baltimore, Maryland, and colleagues present the findings in the open-access journal PLOS ONE on July 9. Gender-affirming resources, which can include health care such as surgery and/or hormone therapy as well as gender affirming services and products --are well-known to significantly ...

Trust in science - but not trust in politicians or the media - significantly raises support across US racial groups for COVID-19 social distancing. INFORMATION: Article Title: The role of race and scientific trust on support for COVID-19 social distancing measures in the United States Funding: The authors received no specific funding for this work. Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist. Article URL: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0254127 ...

A specific police action, an arrest or a shooting, has an immediate and direct effect on the individuals involved, but how far and wide do the reverberations of that action spread through the community? What are the health consequences for a specific, though not necessarily geographically defined, population? The authors of a new UW-led study looking into these questions write that because law enforcement directly interacts with a large number of people, "policing may be a conspicuous yet not-well understood driver of population health." Understanding how law enforcement impacts the mental, physical, social and structural health and wellbeing of a community is a complex challenge, involving many academic and research ...

Meningitis is associated with high mortality and frequently causes severe sequelae. Newborn infants are particularly susceptible to this type of infection; they develop meningitis 30 times more often than the general population. Group B streptococcus (GBS) bacteria are the most common cause of neonatal meningitis, but they are rarely responsible for disease in adults. Scientists from the Institut Pasteur, in collaboration with Inserm, Université de Paris and Necker-Enfants Malades Hospital (AP-HP), set out to explain neonatal susceptibility to GBS meningitis. In a mouse model, they demonstrated that the immaturity of both the gut microbiota and epithelial barriers such as the gut and choroid plexus play a role in the susceptibility of newborn infants to bacterial meningitis caused by ...

The Delta variant was detected for the first time in India in October 2020 and has since spread throughout the world. It is now dominant in many countries and regions (India, the UK, Portugal, Russia, etc.) and is predicted to be the most prevalent variant in Europe within weeks or months. Epidemiological studies have shown that the Delta variant is more transmissible than other variants. Scientists from the Institut Pasteur (CNRS joint unit), in collaboration with Hôpital Européen Georges Pompidou (part of the Paris Public Hospital Network or AP-HP), Orléans Regional Hospital and Strasbourg University Hospital, studied the sensitivity of the Delta variant ...

To enable tissue renewal, human tissues constantly eliminate millions of cells, without jeopardizing tissue integrity, form and connectivity. The mechanisms involved in maintaining this integrity remain unknown. Scientists from the Institut Pasteur and the CNRS today revealed a new process which allows eliminated cells to temporarily protect their neighbors from cell death, thereby maintaining tissue integrity. This protective mechanism is vital, and if disrupted can lead to a temporary loss of connectivity. The scientists observed that when the mechanism is deactivated, the simultaneous elimination of ...

New Brunswick, N.J. (July 9, 2021) -- A massive volcanic eruption in Indonesia about 74,000 years ago likely caused severe climate disruption in many areas of the globe, but early human populations were sheltered from the worst effects, according to a Rutgers-led study. The findings appear in the journal PNAS. The eruption of the Toba volcano was the largest volcanic eruption in the past two million years, but its impacts on climate and human evolution have been unclear. Resolving this debate is important for understanding environmental changes during a key interval in human evolution. "We were able to use a large number of climate model simulations to resolve what seemed like a paradox," said lead author Benjamin Black, an assistant professor in the Department ...

Changing climate patterns have left millions of people vulnerable to weather extremes. As temperature fluctuations become more commonplace around the world, conventional power-guzzling cooling and heating systems need a more innovative, energy-efficient alternative, and in turn, lessen the burden on already struggling power grids. In a new study, researchers at Texas A&M University have created novel 3D printable phase-change material (PCM) composites that can regulate ambient temperatures inside buildings using a simpler and cost-effective manufacturing process. Furthermore, these composites can be added to building materials, like paint, or 3D printed as decorative home accents to seamlessly integrate into different indoor environments. "The ability to integrate phase-change materials ...

We know that turning goals into a game can increase people's physical activity. We also know that financial incentives can be effective, especially when they're framed in a way where people lose money if they don't reach their goals. But a new Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania study adds to evidence that combining the two can result in significant gains. Researchers affiliated with Penn Medicine's Center for Health Care Innovation showed that a group of veterans who were overweight or obese and receiving care from a Philadelphia hospital were able to increase their daily step counts by more than 1,200, on average, when their personalized goals were paired with a game in which they received support from a buddy, all while they stood ...