Shiloh
Editor, Senior Moderator
Source: http://www.cidrap.umn.edu/news-perspective/2017/01/news-scan-jan-04-2017
News Scan for Jan 04, 2017
Pakistani polio campaign; Health workers concerned about MERS
Filed Under:
Polio; MERS-CoV
[h=3]Pakistan launches polio vaccine campaign after sewage scare[/h] The Pakistani city of Quetta has launched a new 5-day vaccination campaign against polio targeted at children under the age of 5, Reuters reported today.
Last week, the World Health Organization (WHO) said that a rare vaccine-derived type 2 strain of polio was found in sewage samples taken from Quetta in November. No cases of this type 2 polio have been reported in humans so far.
Pakistan, along with neighboring Afghanistan and Nigeria, is one of three countries where polio is still endemic. Last year, there were 19 cases of the paralyzing childhood illness in Pakistan, all from wild polio virus type 1.
Approximately 400,000 children will be targeted during the campaign, and Muslim clerics have been asked to help promote the vaccination efforts. Quetta, and other cities in southwestern Pakistan, has been home to religious resistance to vaccination and even violence.
Jan 4 Reuters story
Dec 27 WHO statement
[h=3][/h] [h=3]70% of Saudi healthcare workers concerned about MERS[/h] A new survey of healthcare workers (HCWs) in three Saudi Arabian tertiary hospital shows that the vast majority (70%) are concerned about contracting MERS-CoV. The results were published yesterday in the journal BMC Infectious Diseases.
Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus (MERS-CoV) first appeared in Saudi Arabia in 2012, and has been associated with several healthcare-centered outbreak clusters. HCWs can contract the disease from patients, and many have asymptomatic infections diagnosed through post-exposure surveillance measures.
In this study, HCWs in three hospitals that experienced MERS-CoV outbreaks answered a self-administered questionnaire addressing their concerns about contracting MERS. A total of 1,031 HCWs answered the survey, the majority (59.1%) were nurses. While only 7% of participants said they would consider leaving their job because of the MERS-CoV crisis, 70.4% said they felt at risk for contracting MERS-CoV at the workplace. Over half (60.9%) said they felt obliged to care for all sick patients, and 87.7% said patients with MERS-CoV should be isolated in special hospitals.
The authors concluded their study by noting that the concern displayed by the HCWs, "?[c]ould have an adverse effect on the management of suspected or confirmed cases of MERS, and on the overall effectiveness of HCWs during the outbreak."
Jan 3 BMC Infect Dis study
News Scan for Jan 04, 2017
Pakistani polio campaign; Health workers concerned about MERS
Filed Under:
Polio; MERS-CoV
[h=3]Pakistan launches polio vaccine campaign after sewage scare[/h] The Pakistani city of Quetta has launched a new 5-day vaccination campaign against polio targeted at children under the age of 5, Reuters reported today.
Last week, the World Health Organization (WHO) said that a rare vaccine-derived type 2 strain of polio was found in sewage samples taken from Quetta in November. No cases of this type 2 polio have been reported in humans so far.
Pakistan, along with neighboring Afghanistan and Nigeria, is one of three countries where polio is still endemic. Last year, there were 19 cases of the paralyzing childhood illness in Pakistan, all from wild polio virus type 1.
Approximately 400,000 children will be targeted during the campaign, and Muslim clerics have been asked to help promote the vaccination efforts. Quetta, and other cities in southwestern Pakistan, has been home to religious resistance to vaccination and even violence.
Jan 4 Reuters story
Dec 27 WHO statement
[h=3][/h] [h=3]70% of Saudi healthcare workers concerned about MERS[/h] A new survey of healthcare workers (HCWs) in three Saudi Arabian tertiary hospital shows that the vast majority (70%) are concerned about contracting MERS-CoV. The results were published yesterday in the journal BMC Infectious Diseases.
Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus (MERS-CoV) first appeared in Saudi Arabia in 2012, and has been associated with several healthcare-centered outbreak clusters. HCWs can contract the disease from patients, and many have asymptomatic infections diagnosed through post-exposure surveillance measures.
In this study, HCWs in three hospitals that experienced MERS-CoV outbreaks answered a self-administered questionnaire addressing their concerns about contracting MERS. A total of 1,031 HCWs answered the survey, the majority (59.1%) were nurses. While only 7% of participants said they would consider leaving their job because of the MERS-CoV crisis, 70.4% said they felt at risk for contracting MERS-CoV at the workplace. Over half (60.9%) said they felt obliged to care for all sick patients, and 87.7% said patients with MERS-CoV should be isolated in special hospitals.
The authors concluded their study by noting that the concern displayed by the HCWs, "?[c]ould have an adverse effect on the management of suspected or confirmed cases of MERS, and on the overall effectiveness of HCWs during the outbreak."
Jan 3 BMC Infect Dis study