Bmc Infect Dis
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Health care workers' (HCWs) influenza vaccination attitude is known to be negative. The H1N1 epidemic had started in mid 2009 and made a peak in October-November in Turkey. A national vaccination campaign began on November 2nd, 2009. Despite the diligent efforts of the Ministry of Health and NGOs, the attitudes of the media and politicians were mostly negative. The aim of this study was to evaluate whether HCWs' vaccination attitudes improved during the pandemic and to assess the related factors. ⋯ Vaccination rates increased substantially in comparison to the previous influenza season. However, vaccination rates could have been even higher since hesitation to be vaccinated increased dramatically within one week (only 60% of those willing and the minority of those indecisive were finally vaccinated). We speculate that this may be connected with negative media at the time.
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Healthcare-associated pneumonia (HCAP) has more similarities to nosocomial pneumonia than to community-acquired pneumonia (CAP). However, there have only been a few epidemiological studies of HCAP in South Korea. We aimed to determine the differences between HCAP and CAP in terms of clinical features, pathogens, and outcomes, and to clarify approaches for initial antibiotic management. ⋯ For HCAP patients with different backgrounds, various pathogens and antibiotic resistance of should be considered, and careful selection of patients requiring broad-spectrum antibiotics is important when physicians start initial antibiotic treatments.
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We examined the utility of serum levels of soluble triggering receptor expressed on myeloid cells-1 (sTREM-1) for the diagnoses, severity assessments, and predicting the prognoses of patients with sepsis and compared sTREM-1 values with those of C-reactive protein (CRP) and procalcitonin (PCT). ⋯ Serum sTREM-1 levels reflected the severity of sepsis more accurately than those of CRP and PCT and were more sensitive for dynamic evaluations of sepsis prognosis.
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Management of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) bacteremia remains a challenge. The emergence of MRSA strains with reduced vancomycin susceptibility complicates treatment. ⋯ Among patients with MRSA bacteremia treated with vancomycin, reduced vancomycin susceptibility and vancomycin tolerance were not associated with mortality after adjusting for patient factors. Patient factors including severity of illness and underlying co-morbidities were associated with the mortality.
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Most guidelines have been proposing, for more than 15 years, a β-lactam combined with either a quinolone or a macrolide as empirical, first-line therapy of severe community acquired pneumonia (CAP) requiring ICU admission. Our goal was to evaluate the outcome of patients with severe CAP, focusing on the impact of new rather than old fluoroquinolones combined with β-lactam in the empirical antimicrobial treatments. ⋯ Our results suggest that, when combined to a β-lactam, levofloxacin is associated with lower mortality than ofloxacin or ciprofloxacin in severe pneumococcal community-acquired pneumonia.