UPFRONT

Wash your hands, doc! Patients getting fatal infections

Around 100,000 Americans die each year from an infection passed on by doctors who didn’t wash their hands between seeing patients. Most of the deaths happen in hospitals; around 75,000 patients die in US hospitals every year from an infection spread by a doctor or nursing staff.

Overall, 722,000 hospital patients pick up an infection from medical staff in the US every year—that’s around one in every 25 patients—including 30 percent of all patients in intensive care units (ICUs).

And it’s all so avoidable, say researchers from the Roy J and Lucille A Carver College of Medicine in Iowa. Hospital staff just have to wash their hands, especially if they’re moving from a ‘dirtier’or more contaminated environment to a cleaner one.

But after observing staff in ICUs for nine months, only half were washing their hands after working in a dirtier environment, the researchers noted. The rate of proper hygiene practices was worst when staff were wearing surgical gloves.

Proceedings of the European Congress of Clinical Microbiology & Infectious Diseases, Amsterdam, April 15, 2019

"Around one in 25 patients picks up an infection from medical staff"

ANTI-VAX? NO, JUST CAN’T GET AN APPOINTMENT

Low vaccine uptake rates have little to do with ‘anti-vax’ messages on social media—and much more to do with the practicalities of making a doctor’s appointment and availability of staff, a leading public health consultant has said.

Anti-vax messages are being censored on social media, but they are influencing only “a tiny minority of parents,” says Jamie Lopez Bernal, a Public Health England (PHE) consultant at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine.

Parents’ confidence in immunization is high, says Bernal. Surveys by PHE have discovered that “the proportion of parents with concerns that would make them consider not having their child immunized has been at an all-time low for the past three years.”

The major factor behind why children aren’t being immunized is simply down to access: parents who can’t meet appointment times and staff who aren’t around when parents can make it to the facility. These practical problems are in stark contrast to the views of the World Health Organization, which has listed ‘vaccine hesitancy’—fueled by anti-vax messages—as being one of the 10 major health threats today.

Pharm J, April 26, 2019

The sleep myths you can ignore

A good night’s sleep is important to all of us—but some of us may believe a few ‘sleep myths’ that stop us from getting our required seven hours or so.

The first myth is that we can get by on just four to five hours of sleep a night—to the contrary, we really do need those seven hours.

Another is that having an alcoholic drink just before we go to bed will help us sleep better, say researchers at New York University School of Medicine, who reviewed over 8,000 websites to identify the top 20 assumptions being made about sleep.

One of the most persistent was that five hours of sleep was enough, especially if it was supplemented with a short nap during the day, but there isn’t much science that supports the belief, the researchers say.

Another myth is that snoring is harmless. In and of itself it may be, says lead researcher Rebecca Robbins, but it could also be a symptom of sleep apnea, and this could be serious as it affects the way we breathe