PLoS medicine
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Illness and death from diseases caused by contaminated food are a constant threat to public health and a significant impediment to socio-economic development worldwide. To measure the global and regional burden of foodborne disease (FBD), the World Health Organization (WHO) established the Foodborne Disease Burden Epidemiology Reference Group (FERG), which here reports their first estimates of the incidence, mortality, and disease burden due to 31 foodborne hazards. We find that the global burden of FBD is comparable to those of the major infectious diseases, HIV/AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis. ⋯ Thus, the burden of FBD is borne particularly by children under five years old-although they represent only 9% of the global population-and people living in low-income regions of the world. These estimates are conservative, i.e., underestimates rather than overestimates; further studies are needed to address the data gaps and limitations of the study. Nevertheless, all stakeholders can contribute to improvements in food safety throughout the food chain by incorporating these estimates into policy development at national and international levels.
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Systemic inflammation is a whole body reaction having an infection-positive (i.e., sepsis) or infection-negative origin. It is important to distinguish between these two etiologies early and accurately because this has significant therapeutic implications for critically ill patients. We hypothesized that a molecular classifier based on peripheral blood RNAs could be discovered that would (1) determine which patients with systemic inflammation had sepsis, (2) be robust across independent patient cohorts, (3) be insensitive to disease severity, and (4) provide diagnostic utility. The goal of this study was to identify and validate such a molecular classifier. ⋯ SeptiCyte Lab is a rapid molecular assay that may be clinically useful in managing ICU patients with systemic inflammation. Further study in population-based cohorts is needed to validate this assay for clinical use.
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Outpatient parenteral antimicrobial therapy (OPAT) is accepted as safe and effective for medically stable patients to complete intravenous (IV) antibiotics in an outpatient setting. Since, however, uninsured patients in the United States generally cannot afford OPAT, safety-net hospitals are often burdened with long hospitalizations purely to infuse antibiotics, occupying beds that could be used for patients requiring more intensive services. OPAT is generally delivered in one of four settings: infusion centers, nursing homes, at home with skilled nursing assistance, or at home with self-administered therapy. The first three-termed healthcare-administered OPAT (H-OPAT)--are most commonly used in the United States by patients with insurance funding. The fourth--self-administered OPAT (S-OPAT)--is relatively uncommon, with the few published studies having been conducted in the United Kingdom. With multidisciplinary planning, we established an S-OPAT clinic in 2009 to shift care of selected uninsured patients safely to self-administration of their IV antibiotics at home. We undertook this study to determine whether the low-income mostly non-English-speaking patients in our S-OPAT program could administer their own IV antimicrobials at home with outcomes as good as, or better than, those receiving H-OPAT. ⋯ S-OPAT was associated with similar or better clinical outcomes than H-OPAT. S-OPAT may be an acceptable model of treatment for uninsured, medically stable patients to complete extended courses of IV antimicrobials at home.
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Amir Attaran and Kumanan Wilson propose a compensation system for vaccine injuries, based on no-fault principles, to ensure that recipients of Ebola vaccines are fairly compensated in cases of iatrogenic harm.