Journal of Urgent Care Medicine

CDC Offers Detailed Recommendations on Syphilis Lab Testing

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) released what the agency says are the first comprehensive recommendations on laboratory testing for syphilis. The extensive guidance covers laboratory-based tests, point-of-care tests (POC), processing of samples, and reporting of test results. In general, for symptomatic patients, nontreponemal tests are recommended for laboratory screening. Treponemal tests are used to validate nontreponemal results and to diagnose early syphilis infections not detectable by nontreponemal tests. Additionally, CDC notes that treponemal …

CDC Wants More Opioid Guidelines—but Will They Help?

Robert Redfield, MD took the reins at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in the midst of a national explosion in opioid addiction and death. As such, he vowed that tackling the problem would be a top priority for the CDC. Right now, that means demanding that his agency set new guidelines for prescribing opioids for short-term pain and implementing new systems to track overdoses in hospital emergency rooms. However, a study conducted and …

Youth Concussions May Be More Common than We Thought

More U.S. high school students self-report having had a concussion than is reflected in data from hospitals and school systems, according to a new study from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. About 15% of participants in the CDC’s latest Youth Risk Behavior Study (YRBS) say they have experienced at least one concussion related to sports or physical activity over a 1-year period. That prevalence, equating to 2.5 million children, is higher than what’s …

CDC: Antibiotics Are Still Being Overprescribed for Respiratory Infections—Including Flu

Far too many prescriptions are being written for patients with acute respiratory infections, including influenza, according to a new report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. As many as 41% of antibiotic prescriptions for ARIs were deemed “inappropriate” by the CDC. In addition, despite published guidelines, vigorous public awareness campaigns, and missives to prescribers, nearly 30% of patients who tested positive for viral flu infection were prescribed antibiotics. The data, published in JAMA …

Last Flu Season Was the Deadliest Ever for Children—and Most Victims Weren’t Vaccinated

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is reporting that the 2017-2018 flu season saw 172 children die from influenza—the most recent being just a week ago. It’s the deadliest flu season ever for children, a record made all the more tragic by the fact that 80% of the children who died were not vaccinated against the flu, according to the CDC. In addition to the flu being especially severe, it remained active in every …

Are You Vigilant for Signs Patients May Be Suicidal?

Recent suicides by high-profile celebrities are a reminder that most of us never know what struggles someone is dealing with. While it may be especially surprising when the person is someone the public perceives to “have it all,” a new report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reveals that suicide is far too common, and becoming more so. There was a 25% increase in suicide between 1999 and 2016 in the United States, …

Salmonella Outbreak May Have Started with Precut Melons from Indiana Plant

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says Salmonella outbreaks in Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Missouri, and Ohio could have all been caused by precut melons purchased at Costco, Kroger, Walmart and Whole Foods. Taking a step back along the supply chain, the CDC conjectures they could have all come from a Caito Food facility in Indiana. Caito has issued a recall notice for Georgia, Illinois, Kentucky, Michigan, Missouri, North Carolina, and Ohio. The Food and …

CDC: Expect a Boom Season for Insect-Borne Infections

No sooner do we close the books on one of the worst flu seasons in recent history than the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention tells us to expect a high volume of tick-, mosquito-, and flea-borne infections as the weather warms up. It’s not just greater numbers of the same diagnoses, either; new tickborne diseases like Heartland virus are showing up in the continental U.S. Tickborne diseases are climbing most in the Northeast, Upper …

CDC Warns ‘Unusual Antibiotic Resistance’ is Widespread

A new report published online in the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Vital Signs reveals that the CDC and health departments across the country identified more than 220 instances of germs with “unusual” antibiotic-resistant genes last year. Anne Schuchat, MD, principal deputy director of the CDC, called it “reassuring” that the resistant bacteria were identified because that’s the first step toward finding new ways to kill them. The report also notes that one in four germ …

Don’t Celebrate the ‘End’ of Flu Season Before the Second Act

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention may have spoken too soon when it declared the 2017–2018 influenza season to be on the wane. Now the agency says cases are mounting—though right now it’s influenza B, not the H3N2, A strain that is both more severe and less receptive to vaccines. In fact, with the week ending March 17 influenza B has usurped influenza A as the most dominant strain of the moment. It’s not …

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