"In an ideal world, we would enable children to avoid these pathogens altogether."
"When it becomes possible to avoid the infection completely - for example, by vaccinating against chicken pox or measles - this will always be the preferred option."
#TeamVorsicht
Must-read. 🙏
Icymi- My latest post looks at early childhood infections
There’s some infections you simply can’t avoid
So when’s the best time to get them?!
People tend to think in one of two way - and both are wrong!
#IDSky #Pedsky
Avoiding infections is good
But some simply cannot be avoided - multiple exposures over the life course are inevitable
In which case, when is the best time to get infected for the first time? 🤔
Avoiding infections is good
But some simply cannot be avoided - multiple exposures over the life course are inevitable
In which case, when is the best time to get infected for the first time? 🤔
“If you think your child has swallowed a magnet, please do go and get checked out.” 🏥
Prof Nigel Hall was on the ITV Good Morning Britain sofa this morning 🎥💙
His research found 300 youngsters were admitted to A&E in a single year after swallowing magnetic toys.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=hllM...
The jagged frontier with LLMs is so weird
2 tasks I thought they’d excel at both failed today
1. Exporting multiple emails from outlook into one single document
2. Formatting an author list and affiliations based on a spreadsheet
Should’ve just done it manually (I did in the end 😭)
Cleaning data may not be sexy... or exciting... or enjoyable... or lucrative... or respected... or rewarded... or recognized... but at least it's... sorry, what were we talking about?
In more promising outbreaks news…
Following a dramatic explosion of cases in 2022, rates of invasive GAS are currently at their lowest rates since the pandemic finished, despite it currently being peak season
Like other post pandemic blips, things have now returned to normal
t.co/rdTvOhR7Cn
The outbreak of meningococcal disease was a terrible thing to happen
Increasing the uptake of the routine teenage MenACWY vaccine would be a welcome silver lining - ensuring we prevent future outbreaks from these serogroups
If you want to know more about meningococcal disease and this recent outbreak, I have written an explainer in my newsletter which can be found at the link below
A short, but dramatic outbreak of meningococcal disease - glad that it all seems to be winding down
Huge thanks to the incredibly hard working people at
@ukhsa.bsky.social
who organised the response with vaccination and prophylactic antibiotics 🙏
Good article on meningitis and the UK outbreak that has caused 2 deaths
Meningitis cases have recently been confirmed on campuses in NZ too
Reminder that in NZ U25s in "close living situations" like halls of residence can get MenB and MenACY vaccines FREE. Most uni health services can provide this
This is a brilliant piece of work, especially in explaining why we should be sceptical about calls for national vaccination.
My new post looking at the meningococcal outbreak in south east England
What is meningococcus?
What’s happened in this outbreak?
What’s the deal with the vaccination program?
My new post looking at the meningococcal outbreak in south east England
What is meningococcus?
What’s happened in this outbreak?
What’s the deal with the vaccination program?
I have a new post out tomorrow on my take on the meningococcal outbreak (fwiw!)
You can sign up here if you’d like to read it
open.substack.com/pub/alasdair...
So @apsmunro.bsky.social and I wrote something about where the concept of immunity debt can help explain resurgent pathogens after lockdown without any need to invoke general damage to the immune system, but rather from temporary lack of specific immunity.
academic.oup.com/cid/article/...
Something particularly satisfying about treating invasive infections with good ol’ Amoxicillin too
What made this stick for me was imagining a trial of something we know a priori is incredibly unlikely to work, which generates (by chance) a 95% CI which doesn’t include null
Clearly there is not a 95% subjective probability this CI contains the true mean difference, and that is important!
Except it’s not true if you know literally anything at all about the population estimate beforehand as the Bayesian interpretation requires completely uninformative priors!
I ran a clinical research “taster” session for first year medical students this afternoon
The session finished at 4.30 and the whole group stayed for an extra 30 mins to ask more questions
Actually very inspiring, has left me more enthusiastic about my job
I really like teaching
Not ideal given cephalexin doesn’t reliably cover S anginosus group
"The Primary Endpoint ... Was Not Met" - that's all we need to know! No "Favorable Trend", no "clinically meaningful reduction", the trial was negative! No shame in that - we learned something and can spend limited resources on interventions that work.
investors.grail.com/news-release...
PhD position (Manchester, UK)
Modelling reactive response in outbreaks of respiratory infections in vulnerable settings
with Lorenzo Pellis, Ian Hall, Thomas House
at University of Manchester
More details: http://iddjobs.org/jobs/2462
Respiratory PCR testing has exploded since the pandemic, but tests are expensive and sometimes used indiscriminately
We produced a statement for our regional paediatric network to help guide testing and improve diagnostic stewardship
#IDSky #PedsID
I get so confused when residents want to get the big panels in the primary care setting.
As you state in the guideline multiplex for when it will impact management! Which in primary care is almost never.
Respiratory PCR testing has exploded since the pandemic, but tests are expensive and sometimes used indiscriminately
We produced a statement for our regional paediatric network to help guide testing and improve diagnostic stewardship
#IDSky #PedsID
Pleased to share my new post looking at the recent successes and turbulence in the development of therapeutics for infant RSV protection
Much progress made - but there’s more to do still!
#IDSky #PedsID 🧪
"we haven't been able to give them the vaccine ... there hasn't been enough data for the regulators ... this trial is looking at getting this additional data that we need so that hopefully in the future we'll be able to offer the vaccine to children younger than two." - @apsmunro.bsky.social