Public Policy Updates

The CDC Clinician Outreach and Communication Activity (COCA) Network is hosting a webinar on Tuesday, December 20 on “Ebola: Clinical Presentation, Evaluation, and Infection Prevention.” The call will be at 2:00 – 3:00 pm ET. Click here for more information and to link to the webinar.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has identified an unprecedented global increase of cholera infections, with large outbreaks currently occurring in Haiti, Malawi, and Syria. Currently, CDC considers 25 countries to have active cholera transmission. Thus far in 2022, 8 travelers with cholera have returned to the United States from Pakistan, Iraq, and Bangladesh. … Continued

CDC published an investigation of a cluster of Burkholderia stabilis (B.stabilis) infections in MMWR. The article, Outbreak of Burkholderia stabilis Infections Associated with Contaminated Nonsterile, Multiuse Ultrasound Gel — 10 States, May–September 2021 | MMWR (cdc.gov), reports on a cluster of eight invasive infections among hospitalized patients in 2021 that were traced to use of … Continued

The CDC and the Council of State and Territorial Epidemiologists (CSTE) have developed a new surveillance case definition for multisystem inflammatory syndrome in children (MIS-C). MIS-C is a rare but severe condition that may occur 2-6 weeks after acute SARS-CoV-2 infection. The new definition will become effective January 1, 2023. CDC will hold a webinar … Continued

The CDC has reviewed and updated Core Infection Prevention and Control Practices for Safe Healthcare Delivery in All Settings and posted it on the CDC Infection Prevention and Control website. This guidance document was originally compiled by the Healthcare Infection Control Practices Advisory Committee (HICPAC) and posted on the HICPAC website in 2014, but is … Continued

The FDA released its updated guidance for the use of fecal microbiota for transplantation (FMT) to treat Clostridioides difficile (C. difficile) infection not responding to standard therapies. The updated guidance clarifies that, due to safety concerns, FDA oversight protections do not include FMT obtained from stool banks. Read the FDA guidance.

The FDA authorized the following new diagnostic tests:

NIOSH has revoked seven approval numbers (provided below) issued to Honeywell Int’l. Inc. that were labeled as Sperian SAF-T-FIT filtering facepiece respirators (FFRs) due to Honeywell’s failure to control the design, labeling, and quality management required by federal law. Revocation means that respirators bearing any of the NIOSH approval numbers listed below may no longer be used, manufactured, assembled, sold, … Continued

The CDC released the 2021 annual National and State Healthcare-Associated Infections (HAI) Progress Report, which provides a summary of select HAIs across four healthcare settings: acute care hospitals (ACHs), critical access hospitals (CAHs), inpatient rehabilitation facilities (IRFs) and long-term acute care hospitals (LTACHs). This report, along with the detailed technical tables, provides national- and state-level data about HAI … Continued