Paid Sick Leaves Could Reduce Risk of Spread of Flu Infection

The researchers made use of data from the US Bureau of Labor Statistics to simulate a flu epidemic in Pittsburgh and Allegheny County. The researchers calculated the number of people with paid sick days and the probability of them actually using them and found that if all the employees had access to paid sick leaves, then the spread of flu infection could drop by six percent.

The researchers also observed the effect of giving the employees extra days off especially when they had the flu and found that giving the sick employees one extra day cut down the flu infection spread by 25 percent and giving two days off cut down the spread by 40 percent. The study has been published in the American Journal of Public Health.

"Our simulations show that allowing all workers access to paid sick days would reduce illness because fewer workers get the flu over the course of the season if employees are able to stay home and keep the virus from being transmitted to their co-workers", lead researcher Supriya Kumar said.

Source-Medindia

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New Compounds to Curb Staph Infection Identified

Writing online in the Journal of the American Chemical Society, a group led by University of Wisconsin-Madison chemistry Professor Helen Blackwell describes agents that effectively interfere with the "quorum sensing" behavior of Staphylococcus aureus, a bacterium at the root of a host of human infections ranging from acne to life-threatening conditions such as pneumonia, toxic shock syndrome and sepsis.

"It's a whole new world for us," says Blackwell, whose group identified peptide-based signaling molecules that effectively outcompete the native molecules the bacterium uses to communicate and activate the genes that cause disease.

Bacteria use quorum sensing to assess their population density and coordinate certain behaviors. They do so through the use of pheromone-like chemicals, which bind to receptors either in the bacterial cell or on its surface and tell it if there are enough companion bacteria around to switch on genes that perform certain functions. In the case of Staphylococcus aureus, quorum sensing activates toxin production, manifesting disease in the host.

Interfering with bacterial quorum sensing to stymie disease is considered a promising new antibiotic strategy, says Blackwell. Staph, she adds, is an excellent target as the bacterium is not only a prevalent pathogen, but some strains, notably methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus or MRSA, have developed resistance to commonly used antibiotics such as penicillin and its derivatives.

The new compounds synthesized by Blackwell and her colleagues are peptides that work at very low concentrations by blocking the chemical receptors the bacterium uses to regulate quorum sensing. The new agents devised by Blackwell and her group work on the four subtypes of staph, all of which use different quorum sensing signals and are found in different infection types.

"We had not worked much in this area because the (signaling molecules) are somewhat challenging to synthesize," explains Blackwell. "We now have developed methods to make these molecules and analogs much more efficiently, which helped fuel this new study."

For now, the compounds devised by the Wisconsin team will have their greatest impact in the lab as research probes to further study the role of quorum sensing in Staphylococcus aureus. In addition, the gritty details of how these synthetic agents work in the cell need to be determined in order to optimize their potential use in both the lab and clinic. Such studies are ongoing.

"The impact of these new peptides could be significant because staph is an important and increasingly scary pathogen. There is plenty of scope," notes Blackwell.

Source-Eurekalert

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Infection and Sepsis-related Mortality Hotspots Identified Across US

Now, researchers at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania have created the first U.S. map that pinpoints hotspots for infection and severe sepsis related-deaths - with notable clusters located in the Midwest, mid-Atlantic, and the South. The research is a critical first step in helping to determine which areas of the country require vital public health resources to fight these deadly diseases. The new research will be presented at the annual meeting of Society for Academic Emergency Medicine in Atlanta, Ga.

"Infection-related deaths are a leading cause of morbidity and mortality in the U.S., affecting over 1 million people a year, and costing $17 billion annually," said lead study author David Gaieski, MD, an associate professor of Emergency Medicine at Penn. "And while our understanding of the causes of infection-related death rates has improved, we are still struggling to prevent these diseases and indentify individuals who are most susceptible. We need to be able to pinpoint the geographic distribution of infection-related death rates in order to further study how and why these infections are happening in these areas and the best methods to prevent these deaths."

Sepsis is the tenth leading cause of death in the United States. With an estimated 750,000 cases annually and a nearly 40 percent mortality rate, severe sepsis is also one of the most common causes of death in hospital critical care units.

To better understand what areas of the country are most at risk for severe sepsis and other infection-related deaths, the research team collected U.S. county death data from the 2010 Multiple Cause of Death data files (compiled by the National Center for Health Statistics) and combined it with 2010 Area Resource File demographic data for a comprehensive view of national variations. The authors note that previous research had only been able to identify potential trends on a state level.

Infection-related deaths were identified using ICD-10 primary cause of death codes for infection and severe sepsis. "Hotspots" were defined as regions where the infection death rate was significantly higher than the national mean and surrounding counties. The analysis revealed four hotspots: 1) two regions that had three times the national mean of infection-related deaths located across the Midwest and mid-Atlantic and 2) two regions that had four times the national death rate from severe sepsis, located in the South and mid-Atlantic.

In addition to the hotspots, the research team also indentified one "coolspot" cluster, an area that had disproportionately low rates of deaths caused by these infections. The coolspot cluster consisted of 157 counties located across the Southwest and Mountain states. The research team notes that these "coolspot" counties might yield important insights as well, including particular screening and treatment protocols that may be in place in these areas.

"This analysis may help target focused geographical interventions to improve the dissemination and implementation of evidence-based care," said senior study author Brendan G. Carr, MD, MA, assistant professor of Emergency Medicine, Surgery, & Epidemiology at Penn. "Further study is required to clarify the geographic variability we observed, but we believe this new resource will be a helpful tool for researchers and public health officials."

Source-Eurekalert

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