Impact of improving glove using on the hand hygiene compliance

International audienc

High frequency monitoring of pesticides in runoff water from a vineyard: ecotoxicological and hysteresis pattern analysis

Rainfall-induced peaks in pesticide concentrations can occur rapidly; therefore, low frequency sampling may largely underestimate maximum pesticide concentrations and fluxes. Detailed storm-based sampling of pesticide concentrations in runoff water to better predict pesticide sources, transport pathways and toxicity within the headwater catchments is actually lacking. High frequency monitoring (2 min) of dissolved concentrations and loads for seven pesticides (Dimetomorph, Fluopicolide, Glyphosate, Iprovalicarb, Tebuconazole, Tetraconazole and Triadimenol) and one degradation product (AMPA) were assessed for 20 runoff events from 2009 to 2012 at the outlet of a vineyard catchment in the Layon catchment in France. The pesticide concentrations reached 387 g/L. All of the runoff events exceeded the mandated acceptable concentrations of 0.1 g/L for each pesticide (European directive 2013/39/EC). High resolution sampling used to detect the peak pesticide levels revealed that Toxic Units (TU) for algae, invertebrates and fish often exceeded the European Uniform principles (25%). The instantaneous and average (time or discharge-weighted) concentrations indicated an up to 30- or 4-fold underestimation of the TU obtained when measuring the maximum concentrations, respectively, highlighting the important role of the sampling methods for assessing peak exposure. High resolution sampling combined with concentration-discharge hysteresis analyses revealed that clockwise responses were predominant (52%), indicating that Hortonian runoff is the prevailing surface runoff trigger mechanism in the study catchment. The hysteresis patterns for suspended solids and pesticides were highly dynamic and storm- and chemical-dependent. Intense rainfall events induced stronger C-Q hysteresis (magnitude). This study provides new insights into the complexity of pesticide dynamics in runoff water and highlights the ability of hysteresis analysis to improve the understanding of pesticide supply and transport

Impact of improving glove usage on the hand hygiene compliance

We assessed the impact of improving glove using on the hand hygiene (HH) compliance in a multicenter study including 9 chronic care settings. If gloves had been used correctly during the evaluation, the overall compliance with HH measured after contacts with patients or environment would have only increased from 66.3% to 68.7%. This weak impact suggests that improving glove usage is not in itself an alternative strategy to improve HH compliance

Local European cultivars as sources of durable scab resistance in apple

The Vf resistance gene has been widely used in apple breeding programmes to control Venturia inaequalis, the causal agent of scab, the major apple disease. Since the appearance of new strains that are able to overcome this major gene, research in Europe has been focused on durable resistance. The objective of one task of the European DARE project was to find cultivars which show a broad spectrum of resistance to the different scab races. This collaborative work involved 6 partners who tested 36 cultivars with various local scab inocula collected in the participating countries and with 8 monoconidial strains belonging to known races or isolated and characterized in the frame of the DARE project. Tests were performed each year from 1998 to 2001. Symptoms were assessed using macroscopic scoring scales. Some microscopic observations were performed; these resulted in a better knowledge of the host/pathogen interaction. Very diverse and complex resistance behaviours were found: the cultivars which showed the widest range of resistance were mostly local cultivars and some newly selected hybrids combining major genes and partial resistance. It would be worthwhile to include these individuals as parents in apple breeding programmes to improve the durability of scab resistance. Some methodologies and strategies to reach this goal will be proposed

Measurement of hand hygiene compliance and gloving practices in different settings for the elderly considering the location of hand hygiene opportunities during patient care

We monitored hand hygiene and gloving practices by direct observation in 8 health care settings for elderly persons in western France. Compliance with hand hygiene was better than that reported by previous studies, was better for single contacts and before or after a series of successive contacts than inside series, and was closely related to gloving practices. Practices differed among the settings

Reconstructing unseen transmission events to infer dengue dynamics from viral sequences.

For most pathogens, transmission is driven by interactions between the behaviours of infectious individuals, the behaviours of the wider population, the local environment, and immunity. Phylogeographic approaches are currently unable to disentangle the relative effects of these competing factors. We develop a spatiotemporally structured phylogenetic framework that addresses these limitations by considering individual transmission events, reconstructed across spatial scales. We apply it to geocoded dengue virus sequences from Thailand (N = 726 over 18 years). We find infected individuals spend 96% of their time in their home community compared to 76% for the susceptible population (mainly children) and 42% for adults. Dynamic pockets of local immunity make transmission more likely in places with high heterotypic immunity and less likely where high homotypic immunity exists. Age-dependent mixing of individuals and vector distributions are not important in determining spread. This approach provides previously unknown insights into one of the most complex disease systems known and will be applicable to other pathogens

Influence of socioeconomic factors on pregnancy outcome in women with structural heart disease

OBJECTIVE: Cardiac disease is the leading cause of indirect maternal mortality. The aim of this study was to analyse to what extent socioeconomic factors influence the outcome of pregnancy in women with heart disease.  METHODS: The Registry of Pregnancy and Cardiac disease is a global prospective registry. For this analysis, countries that enrolled ≥10 patients were included. A combined cardiac endpoint included maternal cardiac death, arrhythmia requiring treatment, heart failure, thromboembolic event, aortic dissection, endocarditis, acute coronary syndrome, hospitalisation for cardiac reason or intervention. Associations between patient characteristics, country characteristics (income inequality expressed as Gini coefficient, health expenditure, schooling, gross domestic product, birth rate and hospital beds) and cardiac endpoints were checked in a three-level model (patient-centre-country).  RESULTS: A total of 30 countries enrolled 2924 patients from 89 centres. At least one endpoint occurred in 645 women (22.1%). Maternal age, New York Heart Association classification and modified WHO risk classification were associated with the combined endpoint and explained 37% of variance in outcome. Gini coefficient and country-specific birth rate explained an additional 4%. There were large differences between the individual countries, but the need for multilevel modelling to account for these differences disappeared after adjustment for patient characteristics, Gini and country-specific birth rate.  CONCLUSION: While there are definite interregional differences in pregnancy outcome in women with cardiac disease, these differences seem to be mainly driven by individual patient characteristics. Adjustment for country characteristics refined the results to a limited extent, but maternal condition seems to be the main determinant of outcome