[Rhabdomyolysis with tetraparesis secondary to hepatitis E virus infection in a patient on statins]. / Rhabdomyolyse avec tétraparésie secondaire à une hépatite virale E chez un patient sous statines.

INTRODUCTION: Neurologic and muscular damage associated with acute hepatitis due to hepatitis E virus (HEV) are rare and may be underdiagnosed. CASE REPORT: We report the case of a 56-year-old man, presenting with flaccid tetraparesis secondary to an acute rhabdomyolysis induced by acute E virus hepatitis. He fully recovered after one month under supportive treatment. DISCUSSION: Rare cases of acute rhabdomyolysis induced by HEV infection have been reported in the literature. We discuss the potential adjuvant role of statin treatment in our patient. Unexplained acute neurological conditions should prompt the search for HEV infection.

Evaluation of the MRSA/SA ELITe MGB Assay for the Detection of Staphylococcus aureus in Bone and Joint Infections.

Bone and joint infections represent a potentially devastating complication of prosthetic orthopedic joint replacement, thus requiring both rapid and appropriate antibiotic treatment. Staphylococcus aureus is one of the most common pathogens involved in this pathology. Being able to assert its presence is the first step of efficient patient management. This monocenter study evaluated the MRSA/SA ELITe MGB assay for the molecular detection of S. aureus and methicillin-resistant S. aureus (MRSA) in bone and joint biopsy specimens and synovial fluids. This test, together with conventional techniques, including standard cultures and the 16S rRNA amplification assay, was performed on 208 successive perioperative samples collected prospectively for 1 year obtained from 129 patients. Using conventional techniques, we detected a microbial pathogen in 76 samples from 58 patients, 40 of which were identified as S. aureus. The limit of detection (LOD) of the MRSA/SA ELITe MGB assay was experimentally determined for bone and joint biopsy specimens and synovial fluids using negative samples spiked with S. aureus ATCC 43300. The sensitivities of S. aureus detection with the MRSA/SA ELITe MGB assay were 82.5% (33/40 samples) and 97.5% (39/40 samples) using the manufacturer's LOD and an experimentally determined LOD, respectively. Interestingly, using the osteoarticular specific LOD, 15 additional samples were determined to be positive for S. aureus DNA with the MRSA/SA ELITe MGB assay; in all cases, these samples were obtained from patients considered to be infected with S. aureus according to their clinical and microbiological records. The results were available within 24 h, which could help to expedite therapeutic decisions.

[Gestion of arboviral alerts: Experience feedback from the Secproch working group of the French "Haut Conseil de la santé publique" (2019-2021)]. / Gestion des alertes arbovirales : retour d'expérience du groupe de travail Secproch du Haut Conseil de la santé publique (2019­2021).

The Secproch working group (for "sécurité des produits issus du corps humain") was created in 2019 within the « Haut Conseil de la santé publique ¼ (HCSP) for addressing all the questions related to labile blood products, organs, tissues, cells (OTC) and gametes issued from human body. It is notably in charge of the management of alerts regarding arbovirus infections. These infections due to arthropod-transmitted viruses are responsible for emergence and reemergence, notably in the context of global warming. This review relates the alerts taken into consideration by the Secproch group between 2019 and 2021 following three pathologies due to Flaviviridae : dengue, West Nile virus (WNV) infection and tick-borne encephalitis (TBE). The dengue alerts have occurred in French Indies where the virus is endemic/epidemic, Reunion Island where the population was naïve until 2018 towards the virus, and the metropole where foci of autochthonous cases are observed sporadically. The WNV infection was responsible of both human and equine cases in 2019 in the South of France but with intensity much less than in 2018. At last, the TBE virus was at the origin of a cluster of about 40 cases in the Ain department following a contamination by crude non-pasteurized goat cheese. This review offers the opportunity to reevaluate the risks linked to these three viruses through blood products and organs/tissues/cells and to precise the means recommended by HCSP to secure these products.

SARS-CoV-2 infection: advocacy for training and social distancing in healthcare settings.

This article reports the observed rate of infection with severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus-2 in healthcare workers (HCWs) who worked on wards dedicated to care of patients with coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) compared with HCWs who worked on non-COVID-19 wards. The infection rate was significantly higher among HCWs who worked on non-COVID-19 wards (odds ratio 2.3, P=0.005), illustrating the need to strengthen social distancing measures and training.

Impact of bedside diagnosis of influenza in the paediatric emergency ward.

OBJECTIVES: This prospective study performed in the paediatric emergency department of the University Hospital of Saint-Etienne aimed to measure the impact of the 24/7 bedside use of the Veritor™ System (Becton Dickinson) on the reduction of supplementary investigations, hospital stay and antimicrobial use. METHODS: Influenza virus A and B antigens were detected with a rapid influenza digital immunoassay (DIA) on nasopharyngeal aspirates (NPAs) sampled from the children consulting at the paediatric emergency department between January and March 2016 for influenza-like illness. The same NPA was tested by immunofluorescence and/or molecular routine assays. Before performing the DIA, the clinician filled in a questionnaire listing the tests that he/she would have prescribed in the absence of the rapid testing. The prescription of complementary investigations, antimicrobial treatments and hospital stay were also compared to those of the 3 previous years. RESULTS: A total of 514 children with flu-like symptoms were included. The use of the DIA at bedside decreased the prescription of blood puncture by 47.9% (21.2% to 6.6%), of chest X-rays by 69.0% (33.3% to 10.3%), of lumbar puncture by 77.8% (7.0% to 1.6%), of urine culture by 79.2% (23.3% to 4.9%), of antibiotic treatments by 70.1% (16.9% to 5.1%), and of hospital stay by 25.0% (27.2% to 20.4%), resulting in a reduction of medical costs estimated to more than €69 000 in a season. CONCLUSIONS: In addition to delivering a rapid aetiological diagnosis, this strategy saves medical costs and favours an antimicrobial stewardship strategy. However, further prospective studies are needed to confirm our findings.

Intracellular activity of antimicrobial compounds used for Staphylococcus aureus nasal decolonization.

Background: Staphylococcus aureus is able to invade mammalian cells during infection and was recently observed inside nasal mucosa of healthy carriers. Objectives: To determine the intracellular activity of antimicrobial compounds used for decolonization procedures using a cell model mimicking S. aureus nasal epithelium invasion. Patients and methods: HaCaT cells and human nasal epithelial cells (HNECs) recovered from nasal swabs of S. aureus carriers were visualized by confocal laser scanning microscopy to detect intracellular S. aureus cells. An HaCaT cell model, mimicking S. aureus internalization observed ex vivo in HNECs, was used to assess the intracellular activity against S. aureus of 21 antimicrobial compounds used for nasal decolonization, including mupirocin and chlorhexidine. Results: HaCaT cells and HNECs were found to internalize S. aureus with the same focal pattern. Most antimicrobial compounds tested on HaCaT cells were shown to have weak activity against intracellular S. aureus. Some systemic antimicrobials, including fusidic acid, clindamycin, linezolid, minocycline, ciprofloxacin, moxifloxacin, rifampicin and levofloxacin, reduced S. aureus intracellular loads by 0.43-1.66 log cfu/106 cells compared with the control (P < 0.001). By contrast, mupirocin and chlorhexidine reduced the S. aureus intracellular load by 0.19 and 0.23 log cfu/106 cells, respectively. Conclusions: These data indicate that most of the antimicrobial compounds used for nasal decolonization, including mupirocin and chlorhexidine, exhibit weak activity against intracellular S. aureus using the HaCaT cell model. This work emphasizes the need to better understand the role of the S. aureus intracellular reservoir during nasal colonization in order to improve decolonization procedures.

Transfusion-associated hazards: A revisit of their presentation.

As a therapy or a support to other therapies, despite being largely beneficial to patients in general, transfusion it is not devoid of some risks. In a moderate number of cases, patients may manifest adverse reactions, otherwise referred to as transfusion-associated hazards (TAHs). The latest French 2016 haemovigilance report indicates that 93% of TAHs are minor (grade 1), 5.5% are moderate (grade 2) and 1.6% are severe (grade 3), with only five deaths (grade 4) being attributed to transfusion with relative certainty (imputability of level [or grade] 1 to 3). Health-care providers need to be well aware of the benefits and potential risks (to best evaluate and discuss the benefit-risk ratio), how to prevent TAHs, the overall costs and the availability of alternative therapeutic options. In high-income countries, most blood establishments (BEs) and hospital blood banks (HBBs) have developed tools for reporting and analysing at least severe transfusion reactions. With nearly two decades of haemovigilance, transfusion reaction databases should be quite informative, though there are four main caveats that prevent it from being fully efficient: (ai) reporting is mainly declarative and is thus barely exhaustive even in countries where it is mandatory by law; (aii) it is often difficult to differentiate between the different complications related to transfusion, diseases, comorbidities and other types of therapies in patients suffering from debilitating conditions; (aiii) there is a lack of consistency in the definitions used to describe and report some transfusion reactions, their severity and their likelihood of being related to transfusion; and (aiv) it is difficult to assess the imputability of a particular BC given to a patient who has previously received many BCs over a relatively short period of time. When compiling all available information published so far, it appears that TAHs can be analysed using different approaches: (bi) their pathophysiological nature; (bii) their severity; (biii) the onset scheme; (biv) a quality assessment (preventable or non-preventable); (bv) their impact on ongoing therapy. Moreover, TAHs can be reported either in a non-integrative or in an integrative way; in the latter case, presentation may also differ when issued by a blood establishment or a treating ward. At some point, a recapitulative document would be useful to gain a better understanding of TAHs in order to decrease their occurrence and severity and allow decision makers to determine action plans: this is what this review attempts to make. This review attempts to merge the different aspects, with a focus on the hospital side, i.e., how the most frequent TAHs can be avoided or mitigated.

Hospital-acquired infections documented by repeated annual prevalence surveys over 15 years.

OBJECTIVE: To estimate the benefits of iterative prevalence surveys in detecting trends of hospital-acquired infections (HAIs). METHODS: On the basis of the French protocol for national prevalence studies, HAI data of 15 consecutive annual surveys performed at the same period by the same group of investigators was gathered in a single database to describe the trend of HAIs in a University Hospital over a 15-year period. RESULTS: A total of 20,401 patients were included. Overall, the prevalence of patients presenting with at least one HAI acquired in our University Hospital was 5.1% [95% CI, 4.8-5.4%]. The prevalence of HAIs and antimicrobial drug use significantly decreased over time (P<0.01). CONCLUSION: Despite limitations, repeated prevalence surveys can be a useful tool for promoting control measures to better prevent HAIs.

Carbapenemase-producing Acinetobacter baumannii: An outbreak report with special highlights on economic burden.

OBJECTIVE: We aimed to describe the management of a carbapenemase-producing Acinetobacter baumannii (CP-AB) outbreak using the Outbreak Reports and Intervention Studies of Nosocomial Infection (ORION) statement. We also aimed to evaluate the cost of the outbreak and simulate costs if a dedicated unit to manage such outbreak had been set-up. METHODS: We performed a prospective epidemiological study. Multiple interventions were implemented including cohorting measures and limitation of admissions. Cost estimation was performed using administrative local data. RESULTS: Five patients were colonized with CP-AB and hospitalized in the neurosurgery ward. The index case was a patient who had been previously hospitalized in Portugal. Four secondary colonized patients were further observed within the unit. The strains of A. baumannii were shown to belong to the same clone and all of them produced an OXA-23 carbapenemase. The closure of the ward associated with the discharge of the five patients in a cohorting area of the Infectious Diseases Unit with dedicated staff put a stop to the outbreak. The estimated cost of this 17-week outbreak was $474,474. If patients had been managed in a dedicated unit - including specific area for cohorting of patients and dedicated staff - at the beginning of the outbreak, the estimated cost would have been $189,046. CONCLUSION: Controlling hospital outbreaks involving multidrug-resistant bacteria requires a rapid cohorting of patients. Using simulation, we highlighted cost gain when using a dedicated cohorting unit strategy for such an outbreak.

Prevalence of Chlamydophila pneumoniae and Mycoplasma pneumoniae IgM and IgG antibodies in Tunisian patients presenting with exacerbation of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.

OBJECTIVE: We aimed to assess the prevalence of Chlamydophila pneumoniae and Mycoplasma pneumoniae acute infections, using serological testing, in patients admitted to the emergency department for acute exacerbations of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). METHODS: We performed a prospective observational study of 100 consecutive patients. Serum specimens were collected at day 0 and day 15. C. pneumoniae and M. pneumoniae antibodies (IgM and IgG) were tested by commercial ELISA and immunofluorescence assay, respectively. RESULTS: We did not observe any acute M. pneumoniae infection; however, 11 patients (11%) showed a profile compatible with a recent C. pneumoniae infection (nine patients with specific IgM and two with an IgG antibody rise). Demographic and clinical parameters did not differ between patients with and without biological profile of recent C. pneumoniae infection. CONCLUSION: C. pneumoniae is a pathogen that requires specific antimicrobial treatment. Its detection must always be performed considering its prevalence in patients presenting with acute COPD exacerbations.

Decolonization of Staphylococcus aureus carriage.

Staphylococcus aureus nasal colonization is a well-known independent risk factor for infection caused by this bacterium. Screening and decolonization of carriers have been proven effective in reducing S. aureus infections in some populations. However, a gap remains between what has been proven effective and what is currently done. We aimed to summarize recommendations and current knowledge of S. aureus decolonization to answer the following questions: Why? For whom? How? When? And what are the perspectives?

Clinical severity and molecular characteristics of circulating and emerging rotaviruses in young children attending hospital emergency departments in France.

Group A rotavirus (RVA) is the leading cause of acute gastroenteritis in young children worldwide. A prospective surveillance network has been set up to investigate the virological and clinical features of RVA infections and to detect the emergence of potentially epidemic strains in France. From 2009 to 2014, RVA-positive stool samples were collected from 4800 children <5 years old attending the paediatric emergency units of 16 large hospitals. Rotaviruses were then genotyped by RT-PCR with regard to their outer capsid proteins VP4 and VP7. Genotyping of 4708 RVA showed that G1P[8] strains (62.2%) were predominant. The incidence of G9P[8] (11.5%), G3P[8] (10.4%) and G2P[4] (6.6%) strains varied considerably, whereas G4P[8] (2.7%) strains were circulating mostly locally. Of note, G12P[8] (1.6%) strains emerged during the seasons 2011-12 and 2012-13 with 4.1% and 3.0% prevalence, respectively. Overall, 40 possible zoonotic reassortants, such as G6 (33.3%) and G8 (15.4%) strains, were detected, and were mostly associated with P[6] (67.5%). Analysis of clinical records of 624 hospitalized children and severity scores from 282 of them showed no difference in clinical manifestations or severity in relation to the genotype. The relative stability of RVA genotypes currently co-circulating and the large predominance of P[8] type strains may ensure vaccine effectiveness in France. The surveillance will continue to monitor the emergence of new reassortants that might not respond to current vaccines, all the more so as all genotypes can cause severe infections in infants.

Plasma therapy against infectious pathogens, as of yesterday, today and tomorrow.

Plasma therapy consists in bringing to a patient in need - in general suffering a severe, resistant to current therapy, and even lethal infection - plasma or specific, fractioned, antibodies, along with other immunoglobulins and possibly healing factors that can be obtained from immunized blood donors; donors (voluntary and benevolent) can be either actively immunized individuals or convalescent persons. Plasma therapy has been used since the Spanish flu in 1917-1918, and regularly then when viral epidemics threatened vulnerable populations, the last reported occurrence being the 2013-2015 Ebola virus outbreak in West Africa. The precise action mechanism of plasma therapy is not fully delineated as it may function beyond purified, neutralizing antibodies.

[New viral risks in blood transfusion by 2016]. / Nouveaux risques viraux en transfusion sanguine à l'horizon 2016.

Viral safety remains a major concern in transfusion of blood products. Over years, the control measures applied to blood products were made more and more sophisticated; however, the number of infectious agents, and notably of viruses, that can be transmitted by transfusion is increasing continuously. The aim of this review paper is to actualize that published in the same journal by the same authors in 2011 with more details on some of actual vs virtual viral threats that were identified recently in the field of blood transfusion. The main subjects that are covered successively concern the transmission via transfusion of hepatitis E virus, the frequency of transfusion transmitted arboviruses, transfusion at the time of the Ebola epidemics in West Africa, the debated role of Marseillevirus (giant viruses infecting amoebae and suspected to infect human blood latently), and, finally, the recent report of the identification in blood donors of a new member of the Flaviviridae family. The addition of these new viral risks to those already identified-partially controlled or not-pleads for the urgent need to move forward to considering inactivation of infectious agents in blood products.

Contamination of healthcare workers' mobile phones by epidemic viruses.

Mobile phones (MPs) are potential reservoirs of nosocomial bacteria, but few data are available concerning viruses. We aimed to evaluate the presence of virus RNA from epidemic viruses including metapneumovirus, respiratory syncytial virus, influenza viruses, rotavirus (RV) and norovirus on the MPs used by healthcare workers (HCWs) and to relate it to hygiene measures. An anonymous behavioural questionnaire about MP use at hospital was administered to the HCWs of four adult and paediatric departments of a university hospital. After sampling personal (PMP) and/or professional MPs (digital enhanced cordless telephone, DECT), virus RNAs were extracted and amplified by one-step real-time reverse transcription-quantitative PCR. The molecular results were analysed in a masked manner in relation to the behavioural survey. Questionnaires from 114 HCWs (25 [corrected] senior physicians, 30 residents, 32 nurses, 27 nurses' assistants) working either in adult (n = 58) or paediatric (n = 56) departments were analysed. Medical personnel used their PMP more frequently than paramedical HCWs (33/65 vs. 10/59, p <0.001). MPs were used during care more frequently in adult wards than in paediatric ones (46/58 vs. 27/56, p <0.001). Virus RNA was detected on 42/109 (38.5%) collected MPs, with RV found on 39, respiratory syncytial virus on three and metapneumovirus on one. The presence of virus RNA was significantly associated with MPs from the paediatric HCWs (p <0.001). MPs routinely used in hospital, even during care, can host virus RNA, especially RV. Promotion of frequent hand hygiene before and after MP use, along with frequent cleaning of MPs, should be encouraged.

Identification of a duplicated V3 domain in NS5A associated with cirrhosis and hepatocellular carcinoma in HCV-1b patients.

BACKGROUND: The NS5A protein of the hepatitis C virus has been shown to be involved in the development of hepatocellular carcinoma. OBJECTIVES: In a French multicenter study, we investigated the clinical and epidemiological features of a new HCV genotype 1b strain bearing a wide insertion into the V3 domain. STUDY DESIGN: We studied NS5A gene sequences in 821 French patients infected with genotype 1b HCV. RESULTS: We identified an uncharacterized V3 insertion without ORF disruption in 3.05% of the HCV sequences. The insertion comprised 31 amino-acids for the majority of patients; 3 patients had 27 amino-acids insertions and 1 had a 12 amino-acids insertion. Sequence identity between the 31 amino-acids insertions and the V3 domain ranged from 48 to 96% with E-values above 4e(-5), thus illustrating sequence homology and a partial gene duplication event that to our knowledge has never been reported in HCV. Moreover we showed the presence of the duplication at the time of infection and its persistence at least during 12 years in the entire quasispecies. No association was found with extrahepatic diseases. Conversely, patients with cirrhosis were two times more likely to have HCV with this genetic characteristic (p=0.04). Moreover, its prevalence increased with liver disease severity (from 3.0% in patients without cirrhosis to 9.4% in patients with both cirrhosis and HCC, p for trend=0.045). CONCLUSIONS: We identified a duplicated V3 domain in the HCV-1b NS5A protein for the first time. The duplication may be associated with unfavorable evolution of liver disease including a possible involvement in liver carcinogenesis.