10 Tips to Prevent Infections

It may seem a daunting task to keep yourself and your loved ones free of infections. Beyond the obvious—steering clear of runny noses and hacking coughs—you may be wondering about some other practical ways of staying infection-free. Your skin acts as a natural barrier against harmful microbes that cause infections, but smart “bugs” have found alternative routes to get into your body and cause infection. By making a few simple behavioral changes (which ultimately reduce their access into your body), you can easily prevent the spread of many infectious diseases.

1. Wash your hands frequently. Did you know that microbes can live on inert surfaces anywhere from a few minutes to several months? Imagine these disease-causing microbes living on your computer keyboard, your light-switch, or even on the pedestrian-crossing button next to the crosswalk!Surprisingly, most people don’t know the best way to effectively wash their hands. The CDC recommends washing thoroughly and vigorously with soap and water for at least 20 seconds, followed by hand-drying with a paper towel. In the absence of running water, an alcohol-based hand gel or wipe will suffice, although nothing beats good ol’ soap and water. This takes about as long as it does to sing “Happy Birthday”, so some hospitals recommend washing your hands for the duration of this simple tune!
2. Don’t share personal items. Toothbrushes, towels, razors, handkerchiefs, and nail clippers can all be sources of infectious agents (bacteria, viruses, and fungi). In kindergarten, you were taught to share your toys, but keep your hands to yourself. Now try to remember to keep personal items to yourself as well!
3. Cover your mouth when you cough or sneeze. In a similar vein, good personal hygiene includes not only personal cleanliness, but also the age-old practice of covering your mouth when you cough or sneeze. Why is this important if you aren’t sick? For most infections, the disease-causing microbe has already started growing and dividing long before any symptoms begin to show. Coughing or sneezing can spread these germs through microscopic droplets in the air. The current recommendation is to cover your mouth with your arm, sleeve, or crook of the elbow, rather than using your hands. Read more »

Definition of Infectious Diseases

Infectious disease is disease caused by a pathogen which enters the body and triggers the development of an infection. Infectious diseases have a range of causes, and they can be found all over the world. These diseases are considered contagious or communicable, meaning that they can be passed from person to person. It is also possible for such diseases to spread indirectly through unhygienic conditions, or from animals to people, in which case they are known as zoonotic diseases.

A variety of pathogens can be responsible for infectious disease, including viruses, bacteria, fungi, protozoans, and prions. Within these large categories of infectious organisms, there are numerous modes of transmission and a colorful assortment of symptoms, although surprisingly few organisms cause infectious disease, when one considers the diversity of viral, bacterial, fungal, and protozoan life. In order to treat an infectious disease, doctors must be able to knock out the source of the infection and repair the damage it has done to the body. Many infectious diseases make the body vulnerable to secondary infections, in which other organisms move in to take advantage of a weakened immune system, and this can be very problematic.

The study of infectious disease is known as epidemiology. Epidemiologists work to determine the source of an infectious disease so that they can develop new treatment approaches. They also identify emerging outbreaks, which may develop into epidemics or pandemics, and areas where a disease is endemic, meaning that it occurs regularly. Malaria, for example, is endemic to some regions of Africa and Southeast Asia. Read more »

From the infectious diseases meeting: What’s with the vaccine-o-phobia?

PHILADELPHIA – For the folks who promote vaccination, these are trying times. Recently, CNN hosted a segment titled: “Virus or Vaccine: Which is Worse?”

It’s enough to set Paul Offit to ranting, which he did this week at a meeting of the Infectious Diseases Society of America. Offit, a physician who heads the infectious disease division at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, has devoted a career to fighting illness. In his job, vaccines are often the most reliable weapon available, and cost-effective to boot. And although it’s astonishingly more dangerous to contract a disease than it is to get vaccinated for it, that message seems to have gotten lost somewhere along the way.

Offit traces this detour back to 1982, when DPT — the shot that prevents diphtheria, tetanus and pertussis – was (wrongly) linked to brain damage. “Three people believed their kids were harmed by the vaccine,” he says.

Offit has compassion for families who have a child who has suffered, whatever the cause may be, known or unknown. But since 1982, it’s been one accusation after another against vaccines. People tried to link the HIB vaccine to diabetes (no evidence), the hepatitis B vaccine to multiple sclerosis (all but one study found no link), and other vaccines to SIDS or autism. Recently, the HPV vaccine — which prevents cervical cancer – got linked to heart attacks and strokes (no proof).

And now the seasonal flu vaccine and H1N1 flu vaccine are being skipped by millions of people who somehow distrust the science that went into making them, even though the illnesses they cause can be fatal. Read more »

Male circumcision reduces risk of HIV transmission from women

In the study, published in the Feb. 15 issue of The Journal of Infectious Diseases, now available online, Jared Baeten and colleagues from the United States and Kenya collected detailed sexual data from a group of male Kenyan truckers and, using statistical models, developed infectivity measures that estimate the per-sexual-act probability of HIV transmission. The study is the first to calculate the probability of infection for men who have multiple, concurrent heterosexual partners, which was found to be significantly higher than infectivity rates calculated in the past from studies of monogamous couples. Their results may help explain the rapid spread of HIV in settings where circumcision is not common and multiple sexual partnerships are.

Between 1993 and 1997, 745 male employees of trucking companies based in Mombasa, Kenya were followed for the study. Initially they were evaluated for circumcision status and HIV-negativity. Over the length of the study the men were asked to give information concerning the number of sexual encounters with three different partner types–wives, casual partners, and prostitutes–and were screened for HIV and other sexually transmitted infections. At the end of the study the probability of infection was calculated using a statistical model that incorporated published data to estimate the rates of HIV infection among the three types of sexual partners.

For the men in the study, the overall probably of becoming HIV-infected following a single act of intercourse was calculated to be .0063, or one in 160. Uncircumcised men had a more than two-fold increased risk of infection per sexual act compared with circumcised men–one in 80 versus one in 200. Read more »

Malaria

Background
Malaria, which predominantly occurs in tropical areas, is a potentially life-threatening disease caused by infection with Plasmodium protozoa transmitted by an infective female Anopheles mosquito vector. Individuals with malaria may present with fever and a wide range of symptoms.

The 4 Plasmodium species known to cause malaria include Plasmodium falciparum, Plasmodium vivax, Plasmodium ovale, and Plasmodium malariae. A fifth species, Plasmodium knowlesi, has recently been identified as a clinically significant pathogen in humans. Timely identification of the infecting species is extremely important, as P falciparum infection can be fatal and is often resistant to standard chloroquine treatment. In some cases, individuals with malaria are infected with multiple Plasmodium species. P falciparum and P vivax are responsible for most new infections. Each Plasmodium species has a defined area of endemicity, although geographic overlap is common. Species can usually be distinguished by morphology on a blood smear. P falciparum is distinguished from the rest of plasmodia by its high level of parasitemia and the banana shape of its gametocytes.

Malaria in travelers typically manifests weeks after the individual leaves the endemic area. Presentation more than 4 weeks after returning from the endemic area is unusual. In some individuals, disease manifests months or years later, usually due to the presence of P vivax or P ovale hypnozoites, which can remain dormant in the liver and reactivate years after infection. Relapse with P vivax or P ovale infection is rare more than 5 years after initial infection. Because symptomatic delay is common, history of even a remote exposure to an endemic area should be elicited. Symptoms of malaria are nonspecific, and, because timely diagnosis and treatment are necessary, malaria should be considered in all patients from tropical areas who present with fever. Read more »