An online service called inSPOT allows patients who test positive for STDs to use a website to notify sexual partners, anonymously if they so choose, of the possibility that the partners were infected. A report done by the San Francisco Department of Public Health finds that since 2004, 30,000 people have used the service to….
Continue ReadingInfections
Adults Slack on Vaccinations
Laura Landro, in her column “The Informed Patient,” discusses the problem of adults neglecting to get vaccinated for new illnesses. Not only that, but adults forget or are unaware that some childhood vaccinations lose efficacy after some time and need to be re-done. Skipping pre-travel vaccinations is also a common error. Part of the problem….
Continue ReadingAdvocacy Groups Seek Repeal of Needle Exchange Laws
One-third of new HIV cases in the U.S. are due to injection drug use, and HIV/AIDS has decimated the African-American community in particular. That is why it is no surprise that the NAACP and other advocacy groups chose Thursday–which was National Black HIV/AIDS Awareness Day–to call on Congress to repeal a ban on federal funding….
Continue ReadingMRSA Transmittable Through Some Sexual Activity
MRSA or methicillin-resistant staphylococcus aureus, a “superbug” infection usually contracted in hospitals, is now being transmitted during male-male sexual encounters. This news comes just a few months after MRSA was discovered in some Virginia schools. As the linked pages note, MRSA is highly drug resistant and can be deadly. It comes in many strains and….
Continue ReadingChecklists to Save Lives in the ICU
An article in the New Yorker by Atul Gawande highlights the simple ways in which hospitals can be made less dangerous places for their patients. A checklist to make sure intensive care doctors and nurses handle catheters correctly has been proven to dramatically reduce the risk of deadly infections. Gawande focuses on the work of….
Continue ReadingMRSA Discovered in Virginia Communities: What You Need To Know
Recently, a 17-year-old in Bedford County, Virginia died of an infection known as MRSA . MRSA stands for “methicillin-resistant staphylococcus aureus” and is also referred to as a “staph infection” or a “superbug.” MRSA is a particular kind of staph infection that is resistant to common antibiotics. The MRSA bacteria was found in many other….
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