Volume 11, Issue 8, August 2024

Post-exposure prophylaxis for HIV is underutilized globally. Drivers of that underutilization are multifactorial and interrelated, including patient- and provider-level barriers to PEP awareness and acceptability, as well as structural and systemic factors.

In 2023, multiple cases of donor-derived Bartonella quintana, a louse-borne bacterium, were acquired in Canada and the United States from deceased donors who had experienced homelessness. We discuss strategies to screen organ donors and monitor transplant recipients for B quintana infection.

We identified themes surrounding management of asymptomatic bacteriuria: an emphasis on ordering and interpreting urine tests, tension between guidelines and individual care for older adults, use of statistics to influence prescribing practices, self-developed talking points, and interest in educational materials.

• To explain poor health care seeking (<40%) for tuberculosis symptoms in India, we assessed the unknown relationship between symptom burden and health care seeking for tuberculosis.

• As the symptom burden increased, health care seeking for tuberculosis increased by 6.6 to 7.7 percentage points. The presence of cough and fever moderately explained health seeking while blood in sputum did not.

• Developing tailored risk communications to appraise symptom burden and elicit illness perceptions in the community could improve health care seeking for tuberculosis.

Among individuals with HIV and a suppressed viral load, switching to bictegravir-based antiretroviral therapy could be more effective in maintaining viral suppression than continuing dolutegravir-, efavirenz-, or raltegravir-based therapy.

The Xpert MTB/XDR assay performed favorably for the detection of isoniazid, fluoroquinolones, and injectable tuberculosis drug resistance in a reflex testing algorithm that dramatically reduced turnaround time in 2 high-throughput clinical laboratories.

Among stem cell transplant recipients, serial microbial cell-free DNA testing as an infection surveillance tool demonstrated high accuracy for cytomegalovirus monitoring as well as earlier pathogen detections than standard microbiologic testing (SMT) and increased yield when SMT was negative.

Veteran's Health Administration (VHA) performance in achieving human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) viral suppression exceeds the US' national HIV Care Continuum outcomes as reported by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) (93.5% vs 90.8%). Between 2019 and 2022, viral suppression among all those living with HIV decreased 5.2%.

The overall proportion of tuberculosis in Haiti that is isoniazid resistant is 7.7%; a higher proportion of resistance in younger cases suggests a rise in the fraction of incident tuberculosis that is resistant. Genomic analyses suggest transmission of isoniazid-resistant Mycobacterium tuberculosis in community settings.

This analysis of >600 000 blastomycosis, coccidioidomycosis, and histoplasmosis test results from a major national commercial laboratory suggests that these diseases are likely underdetected by public health surveillance.

Coccidioidomycosis in patients hospitalized in the intensive care unit are at increased risk of death. While antifungal use did not affect mortality outcome, older age, vasopressor or mechanical ventilation support, and liver cirrhosis were associated with increased mortality.

We assessed a mpox virtual outpatient model during the 2022 outbreak, when it was classified as a high consequence infectious disease (HCID). 86% patients were managed virtually, reducing admissions. This model could inform future HCID responses, enabling safe remote care.

Our center launched the first antimicrobial stewardship program in Peru. Significant achievements included increased audits for antimicrobial prescriptions, particularly for vancomycin and meropenem, and a proportion of recommendations for surgical prophylaxis exceeding 90%.

Among commercially insured adults, rural-urban status and type of outpatient setting significantly influenced antibiotic prescribing for acute sinusitis and guideline-concordant agent selection and duration.

An inpatient, infectious diseases provider–led initiative successfully removed more than one third of penicillin allergy labels from those evaluated. Efforts focused on patients who had been admitted for infections were particularly successful.

This large-scale retrospective cohort study reveals a significant association between chronic lung disease and the postacute sequelae of COVID-19, along with obesity, depression, female sex, and older age. The findings underscore the need for targeted interventions in these high-risk groups.

Clinically significant cytomegalovirus infection (CS-CMVi) after chimeric antigen receptor T-cell (CAR-T) therapy is common. CS-CMVi was an independent risk factor for nonrelapse mortality at 1 year after CAR-T therapy for patients with lymphoma and acute lymphoblastic leukemia.

Low rates of bacterial sexually transmitted infection screening and preexposure prophylaxis uptake were observed in United States Veterans with opioid use disorder at our institution, including in Veterans with a history of injection drug use.

SARS-CoV-2 monoclonal antibodies for preexposure prophylaxis offer promise for reducing risk of COVID-19 infection in patients who are immunocompromised, but they pose many logistical challenges. This article provides an organized framework to approach ethical allocation and administration of these medications.

This study represents a nationwide analysis of tuberculosis cases in Brazil, emphasizing the impact of prior treatment on patient outcomes. Furthermore, it investigates retreatment within the Brazilian healthcare system, providing insights for targeted tuberculosis control measures.

Real-world analysis in France demonstrated the effectiveness and tolerability of ceftolozane/tazobactam in people with cystic fibrosis, including lung transplant recipients and those with a history of hypersensitivity reaction to other β-lactam antibiotics.

Patients with a diagnosis other than acute myelogenous leukemia, a length of stay ≤30 days, a maximum grade <2 for graft-vs-host disease, and ≤5 days of corticosteroids are less likely to continue antifungal prophylaxis upon discharge after primary allogeneic hematopoietic cell transplantation.

Factors associated with nontuberculous mycobacteria lung disease (NTM-LD) included hemoptysis, postinfectious bronchiectasis, a greater radiological extent of bronchiectasis, and tree-in-bud. Acinetobacter baumannii and Escherichia coli were more prevalent in the NTM-LD than in the non-NTM group.

In the Northern Territory of Australia, patients on hemodialysis receive seasonal post-dialysis Trimethoprim-Sulfamethoxazole as melioidosis prophylaxis. This single-center study explored the effect of this intervention on rates of Staphylococcus Aureus bloodstream infections in this high risk group.

In a national population-based cohort of adult Singaporeans, during overlapping dengue and COVID-19 outbreaks driven by concurrent emergence of DENV3 and SARS-CoV-2 Delta/Omicron variants, increased risk of SARS-CoV-2 infection, hospitalization, and severe COVID-19 was observed following recent preceding dengue infection.

This study demonstrates benefit of an MF59-adjuvanted trivalent influenza vaccine compared with a high-dose vaccine in prevention of influenza-related medical encounters among high-risk individuals ≥65 years of age and comparable effectiveness in patients with no influenza high-risk factors.

The Antiretroviral Pregnancy Registry is an international, voluntary registry that prospectively gathers data on antiretroviral exposure. Despite its importance, only a minority of providers use the registry, resulting in significant gaps in critical information needed to guide prescribing practices during pregnancy.