Tuberculosis Screening, Testing, and Treatment of US Health Care Personnel: ACOEM and NTCA Joint Task Force on Implementation of the 2019 MMWR Recommendations

[Tuberculosis Infection Control & Hygiene - Recommendations of the DZK]

Preventing the spread of the disease is an essential goal in the care and treatment of tuberculosis. In addition to early diagnosis and effective therapies, isolation of infectious patients and adequate hygiene measures are of particular importance for infection prevention. The present recommendations replace the previous recommendations "tuberculosis infection control" from 2012 and take into account the current national and international recommendations and as well as new scientific findings. After a description of the infection and the transmission pathways, the necessary prevention and hygiene measures in health care facilities are comprehensively presented. Since the last revision of the recommendations on infection prevention, international recommendations and the KRINKO recommendation on ending isolation have been changed. In accordance with this, under certain conditions in the case of sensitive tuberculosis, de-isolation in health care facilities can take place after 14 days without taking the sputum findings into account. The second part of the recommendations explains in detail the measures to be taken in special situations and areas, such as general practitioners, ambulance services and care facilities. Here, the recommendations on respiratory protection have been simplified; for staff, an FFP2 mask is now generally considered sufficient.

Singleplex, multiplex and pooled sample real-time RT-PCR assays for detection of SARS-CoV-2 in an occupational medicine setting

For workplaces which cannot operate as telework or remotely, there is a critical need for routine occupational SARS-CoV-2 diagnostic testing. Although diagnostic tests including the CDC 2019-Novel Coronavirus (2019-nCoV) Real-Time RT-PCR Diagnostic Panel (CDC Diagnostic Panel) (EUA200001) were made available early in the pandemic, resource scarcity and high demand for reagents and equipment necessitated priority of symptomatic patients. There is a clearly defined need for flexible testing methodologies and strategies with rapid turnaround of results for (1) symptomatic, (2) asymptomatic with high-risk exposures and (3) asymptomatic populations without preexisting conditions for routine screening to address the needs of an on-site work force. We developed a distinct SARS-CoV-2 diagnostic assay based on the original CDC Diagnostic Panel (EUA200001), yet, with minimum overlap for currently employed reagents to eliminate direct competition for limited resources. As the pandemic progressed with testing loads increasing, we modified the assay to include 5-sample pooling and amplicon target multiplexing. Analytical sensitivity of the pooled and multiplexed assays was rigorously tested with contrived positive samples in realistic patient backgrounds. Assay performance was determined with clinical samples previously assessed with an FDA authorized assay. Throughout the pandemic we successfully tested symptomatic, known contact and travelers within our occupational population with a ~ 24-48-h turnaround time to limit the spread of COVID-19 in the workplace. Our singleplex assay had a detection limit of 31.25 copies per reaction. The three-color multiplexed assay maintained similar sensitivity to the singleplex assay, while tripling the throughput. The pooling assay further increased the throughput to five-fold the singleplex assay, albeit with a subtle loss of sensitivity. We subsequently developed a hybrid 'multiplex-pooled' strategy to testing to address the need for both rapid analysis of samples from personnel at high risk of COVID infection and routine screening. Herein, our SARS-CoV-2 assays specifically address the needs of occupational healthcare for both rapid analysis of personnel at high-risk of infection and routine screening that is essential for controlling COVID-19 disease transmission. In addition to SARS-CoV-2 and COVID-19, this work demonstrates successful flexible assays developments and deployments with implications for emerging highly transmissible diseases and future pandemics.

Gastrointestinal bleeding caused by syphilis: A case report

BACKGROUND

Syphilis is a chronic, classic sexually transmitted disease caused by Treponema pallidum, which can invade almost all organs of the body and produce various symptoms and signs. Although there are some cases of colorectal bleeding caused by syphilis, small intestinal bleeding caused by syphilis is still rare.

CASE SUMMARY

A 58-year-old man had experienced recurrent abdominal pain and melena for 3 years. Repeated gastroenteroscopy and computed tomography angiography examinations failed to find bleeding lesions. During the same admission, multiple intestinal ulcers were found by capsule endoscopy, and syphilis was also diagnosed. With a history of atrial fibrillation and chronic pancreatitis, he had undergone mitral valve replacement and tricuspid valvuloplasty for valvular heart disease. After anti-syphilis treatment, the melena and abdominal pain disappeared and his hemoglobin gradually increased. It is considered that gastrointestinal bleeding, chronic pancreatitis, atrial fibrillation, and heart valvular disease may have been caused by syphilis.

CONCLUSION

This case report found that syphilis can mimic systemic disease and cause intestinal bleeding. In addition, treatment of the disease requires both sexual partners to be treated. Finally, although syphilis is easy to treat, it is more important to consider that bleeding could be caused by syphilis.