HIV and ID Observations

October 27th, 2014

IDSA Opposes Mandatory Quarantine of Healthcare Workers, and Andy Borowitz Is A Very Funny Person

From the Infectious Diseases Society of America (IDSA): Strategies to limit the potential for Ebola virus disease transmission from returning healthcare and humanitarian aid workers as well as from other travelers should be based on the best available medical, scientific and epidemiological evidence; be proportional to the risk; balance the rights of individuals and the community; minimize […]

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October 19th, 2014

Almost Filovirus-Free (That is, Ebola-Free) ID Link-o-Rama

If you’re an ID doctor right now, the filovirus of the moment Ebola is consuming a big chunk of all of your non-clinical time — and this is particularly true for those heavily involved in Infection Control, who are spending every waking hour responding to public hysteria, to various clinicians who seem to have all the answers, and to ever […]

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October 15th, 2014

Second U.S. Healthcare Worker with Ebola Further Underscores Urgent Need for Enhanced Preparedness — and Perhaps Designated Care Centers

If you’re like most of us, when you heard that a healthcare worker in Dallas had been diagnosed with Ebola virus disease, you assumed that the exposure occurred during his first visit to the hospital. That is, before he was diagnosed with Ebola, and before infection precautions had been instituted. But no, it happened after he was […]

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September 13th, 2014

In These Challenging Times for ID Doctors, a Little Comic Relief

I was passing a colleague in the hall the other day — he’s a general internist by training, now an important hospital administrator — and he briefly stopped me to get my take on the flurry of ID-related news bombarding the world right now. Him:  Hey, Paul, good to see you. Me:  Hi Jerry. Him:  Quite […]

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August 10th, 2014

Waiting (and Preparing) for Ebola

For Infectious Diseases doctors, there’s a certain life cycle to the big ID topics that make their way to the lay press, and it’s playing out right now big time with the terrible Ebola outbreak in Western Africa. It goes like this: Someone reports an outbreak in a venue like ProMED. Almost synchronously, it is covered by the […]

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