Volume 65, Issue 5, 1 September 2017

Hepatitis B and C viruses are leading causes of liver disease. The United States should engage in a coordinated effort to eliminate viral hepatitis as a public health problem, which requires special attention to populations often seen by infectious disease clinicians.

Human immunodeficiency virus preexposure prophylaxis (PrEP) could lead to reductions in bacterial sexually transmitted infections (STIs) among men who have sex with men if clinicians fully implement the Center for Disease Control and Prevention’s STI screening recommendations for PrEP users.

Our review of 30 studies found that influenza vaccination in children affords indirect protection to unimmunized persons of all ages in closely connected communities against laboratory-confirmed influenza, household members against illness compatible with influenza, and the elderly in wider communities against influenza-related mortality.

We found a significantly lower risk of nontargeted infectious disease hospitalizations for children aged 16 through 24 months if the last type of vaccine they received prior to hospitalization was live-only compared with receipt of inactivated-only vaccines.

A whole-genome sequencing approach predicted phenotypic resistance to extended spectrum β-lactams for 4 leading causes of gram-negative bacteremia in neutropenic cancer patients at a level equal or superior to data generated in the clinical microbiology laboratory.

Vaccine-specific helper T-cell type 1 and 2 responses are associated with increased and decreased odds of clinical malaria, respectively, in children and infants vaccinated with the malaria vaccine RTS,S/AS01E in a phase 3 trial in Africa.

Although overall incidence is low, MSM are at increased risk of meningococcal disease compared to men not known to be MSM (non-MSM). HIV infection may play a key role in this increased risk.

Anthelmintic treatment reduces soil-transmitted helminth prevalence, total IgE, and eosinophil count, but has no effect on insulin resistance (IR) at the community level. In helminth-infected subjects, treatment significantly increases IR, highlighting the need for careful metabolic health monitoring with deworming programs.

Among patients with suspected drug resistant tuberculosis, treatment with a later generation fluoroquinolone versus earlier generation or no fluoroquinolone significantly reduced mortality risk after adjusting for risk factors typically associated with poor outcomes.

In a Botswana national meningitis survey, we observed a high 2013–2014 incidence of cryptococcal meningitis, particularly in men in their fourth or fifth decade, highlighting the need to target populations at high risk for advanced HIV and adopt differentiated care models.

In immunocompetent adults ≥65 years of age, 13-valent pneumococcal conjugate vaccine elicits significant increases in opsonophagocytic activity titers and IgG concentrations. Responses were sustained for 2 years postvaccination for subjects in each age stratum and comorbidity group.

Between 1996 and 2015, prevalence of transmitted drug resistance (TDR) increased significantly among HIV-infected people who use drugs in Vancouver, mainly driven by increases in nonnucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitor–related TDR, strongly supporting baseline resistance testing to guide antiretroviral selection.

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) surgical site infection (SSI) risk adjustment models do not adjust for patient comorbidities. We developed risk adjustment models using electronically-available comorbidities. The CDC should strongly consider adopting comorbidity-based risk adjustment.

Analysis of US surveillance data demonstrates that both severe and clinically significant pertussis illnesses are less common among patients who have received age-appropriate vaccination for pertussis, demonstrating that the positive impact of pertussis vaccination extends beyond decreasing risk of disease.

Significantly higher plasma levels of IL6, IL1β, and sIL1Rα were associated with increased risk, whereas plasma IFNβ levels were associated with a decreased risk of TB recurrence in TB Recurrence upon Treatment with HAART (TRuTH) cohort, based in Durban, South Africa.

Existing evidence of a male herd protection impact from female human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccination comes from genital-wart and HPV infection studies. This is the first evidence from population-level immunity changes supporting an indirect effect in males temporally associated with female vaccination.

This study provides population-based incidence of norovirus from a tropical region. We noted substantially higher rates in children aged <2 years. Inclusion of vomiting syndromes resulted in higher capture of norovirus cases. Norovirus rate among controls was similar to rates reported globally.

The first decade of postlicensure data from 24 countries demonstrates that both globally recommended rotavirus vaccines are effective against severe rotavirus gastroenteritis across a range of mortality settings, supporting the World Health Organization recommendation for global use of rotavirus vaccines.