Volume 8, Issue 2, February 2021

Valley fever is an important disease in Arizona causing substantial morbidity and cost. We estimated lifetime costs for newly diagnosed cases of Valley fever in Arizona in 2019 at $671 million in direct costs and $65 million in indirect costs.

This prospective study evaluated a diagnostic strategy including systematic urine-LAM testing for all HIV patients in the medical wards regardless of their symptoms or CD4 count and found a large proportion of patients with tuberculosis at high risk of death.

We report a real-world experience using fluvoxamine for early COVID-19. Incidence of hospitalization was 0% (0/65) with fluvoxamine and 12.5% (6/48) with observation alone. At 14 days, residual symptoms persisted in 0% (0/65) with fluvoxamine and 60% (29/48) with observation.

Compared to controls, COVID-19 convalescent plasma (CCP) had higher distributions of IFN-γ, IL-10, IL-15, IL-21, and MCP-1 but lower IL-1RA, IL-8, IL-16, and VEGF-A. Between CCP with low versus high neutralizing antibody titers, IL-8, IL-15 and IP-10 distributions varied significantly.

Several decontamination methods were evaluated for N95 reprocessing, with regards to inactivation of multiple viruses, bacteria, and fungi and with regards to perseveration of filtration and fit. Moist heat and hydrogen peroxide vapor were the most effective methods.

Frequent combination anti-fungal therapy has not improved long-term survival in HM and HCT populations with IM. Larger, prospective studies are needed to study the incidence of IM and clinical outcomes of these ever increasing immune compromised hosts.

Herpes zoster ophthalmicus with ocular involvement (ocular HZO) was significantly undercoded. An NLP-based approach can be used with high accuracy to identify ocular HZO automatically. Older adults also have an increased chance of getting ocular HZO among herpes zoster patients.

People with HIV who newly enrolled in Medicaid had high engagement in care, but they had lower rates of viral suppression. The discordance may be due to medication access gaps associated with changes in logistics of medication procurement.

Among 703 patients with Candida endocarditis admitted to 179 medical centers, in-hospital mortality was 16.2%. Acute and subacute liver failure was the strongest predictor of in-hospital mortality in this cohort.

Antibody dynamics in 2 regimens of RTS,S/AS01 vaccinees were examined by a Biolayer Interferometry assay. Results highlight the interregimen differences in antibody specificity, magnitude, and avidity and identified trends associated with protection against controlled human malaria infection.

In a study of nonhospitalized COVID-19 patients, the oral fluid salivary sample type was insensitive compared to nasal-OP specimen types overall, but was improved with the addition of spit and most sensitive in the first 5 days after symptom onset.

Duration of symptoms before presentation is an independent predictor of poor patient outcomes in COVID-19 disease. Patients presenting in the first 3 days of symptoms have 2-fold increased odds of death. Moroever, SARS-CoV-2 Ct values are a predictor of mortality.

In this cross-sectional analysis of 17 current IDSA clinical practice guidelines comprised of 1042 unique recommendations produced with GRADE methodology, approximately half demonstrated discordance between strength of recommendation and quality of evidence.

In this meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials, colistin was associated with a nephrotoxicity rate of 36%. Nephrotoxicity risk was 140% higher with colistin compared to a beta-lactam-based regimen.

The global SARS-CoV-2 pandemic presents novel challenges to conducting high quality randomized clinical trials. Internet-based clinical trials are a possible avenue for surmounting some of these challenges. Here, we offer some of the lessons learned from conducting such a trial.

The control measures were implemented at different levels (country, province, and hospital) to contain the outbreak of COVID-19 in China. After the epidemic situation eased, normalized epidemic management accelerated the restoration of the order of work and life.

Among 3926 healthcare personnel in a multisite healthcare system, the minimal population prevalence of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) was 4.4% (bootstrap 95% confidence interval [CI], 3.7%–5.0%), reflecting community prevalence and hospital exposures but not specifically exposure on COVID-19 units.

We propose a broad translation perspective be applied to COVID-19 testing development with the goals of improving not only scalability, but also test dissemination, implementation, and reach.

In this brief report, we discuss the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on Infectious Diseases (ID) fellows in the United States, specifically with respect to the ID fellow’s role during the COVID-19 pandemic, teaching/learning, and research during fellowship.