What Steps Can Healthcare Professionals Take to Avoid C. Diff Infections in Their Patients?

Stopping empiric antibiotics early nearly tripled antibiotic-free days in neutropenic fever, and 5-day oseltamivir prophylaxis matched 10 days in hospital exposures.

In an ECOSPOR III analysis, all-cause hospitalization by week 4 fell to 3.4% with fecal microbiota spores vs 16.1% with placebo in recurrent C difficile infection.

Karen B. Jacobson, MD, MPH, of Kaiser Permanente Northern California, presented data at IDWeek 2026 showing 58.2% of children younger than five years exposed to active hepatitis B in the home were exposed by someone other than their birth mother, a risk maternal screening alone would miss under the CDC’s revised birth dose recommendation.

In the phase 3b ENCORE trial, adding amikacin liposome inhalation suspension (ALIS) to azithromycin and ethambutol significantly improved culture conversion in newly diagnosed MAC lung disease, while treatment-emergent amikacin (2.2%) and macrolide (1.1%) resistance stayed rare. Kevin Winthrop, MD, provides insights around the study.

In the phase 2 RePreve trial, Lumen Bioscience’s investigational oral biologic LMN-201 plus standard antibiotics achieved global cure in 83.3% of patients with C difficile infection vs 36.4% with placebo, and cut recurrence sixfold (9.1% vs 55.6%) with no drug-related serious adverse events.

Projected disease burden from declining childhood vaccine coverage shows increases in vaccine-preventable diseases. Benjamin Lopman, PhD, provides insights on how VaxImpactMap works and the potential long-term disease consequences of decreased immunization rates.