Enhanced national surveillance of severe acute respiratory infections (SARI) within COVID-19 surveillance, Slovenia, weeks 13 to 37 2021.

We monitored trends of severe COVID-19 morbidity in Slovenia during weeks 13 to 37 2021. National weekly rates of severe acute respiratory infections (SARI) cases testing positive for SARS-CoV-2 at admission in all hospitals varied between 0.2 and 16.3 cases per 100,000 population. Of those without previous COVID-19 diagnosis, SARI COVID-19 admission rates ranged between 0.3 and 17.5 per 100,000 unvaccinated, and 0.0 and 7.3 per 100,000 fully vaccinated individuals. National SARI COVID-19 surveillance is essential in informing COVID-19 response.

The prevalence of and risk factors for healthcare-associated infections in Slovenia: results of the second national survey.

INTRODUCTION: In the second Slovenian national healthcare-associated infections (HAIs) prevalence survey, conducted within the European point prevalence survey of HAIs and antimicrobial use in acute-care hospitals, we estimated the prevalence of all types of HAIs and identified risk factors. METHODS: Patients from acute-care hospitals were enrolled into a one-day cross-sectional study in October 2011. Descriptive analyses were performed to describe the characteristics of patients, their exposure to invasive procedures and the prevalence of different types of HAIs. Univariate and multivariate analyses of association of having at least one HAI with possible risk factors were performed to identify risk factors. RESULTS: Among 5628 patients, 3.8% had at least one HAI and additional 2.6% were still being treated for HAIs on the day of the survey; the prevalence of HAIs was 6.4%. The prevalence of urinary tract infections was the highest (1.4%), followed by pneumoniae (1.3%) and surgical site infections (1.2%). In intensive care units (ICUs), the prevalence of patients with at least one HAI was 35.7%. Risk factors for HAIs included central vascular catheter (adjusted odds ratio (aOR) 4.0; 95% confidence intervals (CI): 2.9-5.7), peripheral vascular catheter (aOR 2.0; 95% CI: 1.5-2.6), intubation (aOR 2.3; 95% CI: 1.4-3.5) and rapidly fatal underlying condition (aOR 2.1; 95% CI: 1.4-3.3). CONCLUSIONS: The prevalence of HAIs in Slovenian acute-care hospitals in 2011 was substantial, especially in ICUs. HAIs prevention and control is an important public health priority. National surveillance of HAIs in ICUs should be developed to support evidence-based prevention and control.

Comparison of two commercial molecular tests for the detection of Clostridium difficile in the routine diagnostic laboratory.

Two commercial real-time PCR assays for the detection of Clostridium difficile, BD GeneOhm Cdiff assay (BD Diagnostics) and Xpert C. difficile assay (Cepheid), were compared to each other and to toxigenic culture, which was used as a gold standard, on a set of 194 clinical stools submitted for routine diagnostic analysis. Of 28 (14.4 %) toxigenic culture positive samples 23 were positive with both assays, the BD and the Cepheid real-time PCR assays, 4 were positive only by Cepheid Xpert C. difficile assay and 1 sample was negative by both PCR assays, resulting in sensitivity, specificity, positive predictive value and negative predictive value of 82.1, 98.2, 88.5 and 97.0 %, respectively, for the BD GeneOhm Cdiff assay, and 96.4, 97.3, 87.1 and 99.3 %, respectively, for the Cepheid Xpert C. difficile assay. Altogether 26 out of 194 (13.4 %) samples were reported invalid by Cepheid. Toxigenic C. difficile positive samples contained 15 different PCR ribotypes distributed into toxinotype 0 and 2 different variant toxinotypes (III, IV). Clinical data were available for 24 out of 28 (85.7  %) toxigenic C. difficile positive patients and 18 (75.0 %) of them were diagnosed with diarrhoea, while others had other symptoms or risk factors related to possible C. difficile infection (antibiotics, bloody stool, peritonitis, Crohn's disease).

False-positive result of a confirmatory human immunodeficiency virus line immuno assay in an apparently healthy individual--a case report.

A case of a false-positive result of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) confirmatory immunoblot-based assay is described. Repeatedly borderline reactive anti-HIV screening enzyme immunoassay result obtained in a local hospital resulted in directing the sample to the Slovenian HIV/AIDS Reference Laboratory. In the Reference Laboratory, both anti-HIV screening assays and confirmatory Western blot were negative, while a confirmatory test INNO-LIA HIV I/II Score (Innogenetics, Ghent, Belgium) was anti-HIV-1 positive due to sgp120 and gp41 reactivity. The results of serological testing of the second sample obtained three weeks later were completely identical, while in the third sample obtained 5 months later, seroreversion was observed. Due to a negative dynamics in anti-HIV serological profile and repeatedly negative results of the molecular tests for HIV-1 and HIV-2, HIV infection was excluded and the results of test INNO-LIA HIV I/II Score were finally interpreted as false positive.