Top Infectious Disease News Stories Week of September 27-October 3

2025 American Thoracic Society Clinical Practice Guideline Updates for the Diagnosis and Management of Community-Acquired Pneumonia

The 2025 ATS guidelines for community-acquired pneumonia update recommendations on imaging, antibiotic use, treatment duration, and corticosteroid use, emphasizing lung ultrasound as an alternative diagnostic tool, more selective empiric antibiotic prescribing, shorter courses of antibiotics for stable patients, and limited use of corticosteroids to severe inpatient cases.

Hepatitis: Summer 2025 Clinical Roundup

A June–September roundup spanning hepatitis research and surveillance data, FDA and ACIP policy moves, diet and diagnostics insights, and pipeline updates from screening innovations to HBV/HDV/HCV trials and approvals.

C difficile: Summer 2025 Clinical Recap

A June–September C diff roundup spanning diagnostics and stewardship debates, microbiome-based therapies and FMT optimization, prevention trials and funding, real-world outcomes, and persistent gaps in clinician practice and public awareness.

Contributing Factors to Respiratory Illness

An expert discusses how COVID-19 has disrupted traditional respiratory virus patterns with summer surges now preceding the typical winter influenza season, while declining vaccine uptake among younger populations threatens to leave vulnerable groups increasingly exposed to seasonal illness complications.

Two-Dose Antibiotic Regimen Offers Safer Alternative to Prolonged IV Therapy in Complicated Staph Aureus Infections

The DOTS randomized clinical trial compared dalbavancin, a long-acting intravenous lipoglycopeptide, with standard intravenous therapy for the completion of treatment in adults with complicated Staphylococcus aureus bacteremia.