Active clinical trials for "Communicable Diseases"

Acute head and neck infections cause significant pain and discomfort for patients and impact on their quality of life. Effective antibiotic and surgical treatments have been developed for these infections but they are still able to develop into life-threatening diseases such as meningitis and sepsis. The direct cause of acute head and neck infections is often unknown but it has been suggested that they are due to a disturbance of the normal bacterial growing in the mouth or are from dental origin. The most common microorganisms identified from these infections in published studies are a group of bacteria known as viridans group streptococci (VGS). There are over 30 individual species of bacteria in the viridans group and VGS are difficult to identify to the level of a single species because of their variability. There is a lack of species identification within the hospital setting and this project aims to gain a deeper understanding of the microorganisms causing acute head and neck infections, focusing on identification of individual species of VGS bacteria. The investigators will analyse bacterial DNA to determine which species have been identified and will also look at patient data and clinical outcomes (eg. length of hospital stay) to determine if the species causing the infection has any effect on patients.

Orthognathic surgery describes a group of procedures aimed at correcting developmental or acquired deformities of the jaws and facial skeleton. The goal of these procedures is to improve speech, jaw and dental function, aesthetics, and symptoms of sleep apnea. This is accomplished by surgical repositioning of the upper jaw (maxilla) and lower jaw (mandible). The most common procedures are lefort I osteotomies (upper jaw repositioning) and bilateral sagittal split osteotomies (lower jaw repositioning). At our institution, almost all cases include one or both of these two procedures. The majority of cases include bilateral sagittal split osteotomies (BSSO). As access to the jaws is through the oral cavity, these procedures are considered to be clean-contaminated surgeries due to the high intra-oral bacterial load. The result is that surgical site infections (SSIs) occur in 10-15% of cases. Studies show that the vast majority of these infections occur in the lower jaw (BSSO sites), presumably due to pooling of saliva and debris. SSIs are associated with patient discomfort, prolonged hospital stays, increased morbidity, and increased cost to healthcare systems. The use of peri-operative antibiotics has been shown to significantly reduce the incidence of SSI following orthognathic surgery. There is currently no consensus on the dosing or specific antibiotic to be used. There is strong evidence that pre-operative antibiotics significantly decrease SSI compared to no antibiotics. However, to date, there is no good evidence to support the use of post-operative antibiotics to further decrease the rate of infection. Several studies have examined the use of post-operative antibiotics ranging between 1-7 days. The majority of studies were not able to demonstrate a statistically significant difference to justify the use of post-operative antibiotics. A systematic review by Danda and Ravi in 2011 suggested that there likely is a benefit to the use of post-operative antibiotics. Danda and colleagues in 2017 later conducted a trial comparing pre-operative antibiotics alone compared to pre-operative combined with post-operative antibiotics. A statistically significant difference was not found, however, they felt that this was due to a limited sample size. Overall, there is no robust data that supports the use of post-operative antibiotics. The World Health Organization guidelines currently recommend against the use of post-operative antibiotics in orthognathic surgery. However, they do comment that there is some weak evidence that suggests its use. It was deemed that this low quality evidence did not outweigh the potential harm of antimicrobial resistance, which results from inappropriate overuse of antibiotics. Antimicrobial resistance is a serious, growing problem which has deadly consequences. Our current protocol at the QEII Health Sciences Center for peri-operative antibiotic administration is a single pre-operative dose of 2g cefazolin IV, followed by further doses every 8 hours post-operatively for a total of 24 hours (3 post-operative doses). Our study aims to investigate whether there is a need for these additional post-operative doses. If there is a benefit to these additional doses, the research team aims to investigate whether this benefit outweighs the risks. This question is of great importance in order to avoid an unnecessary contribution to antibiotic resistance and unnecessary potential adverse effects. Participants will be assigned a study number and randomly allocated to one of two groups. Group A will receive a single pre-operative dose of 2g IV cefazolin. Group B will receive a pre-operative dose of 2g IV cefazolin, followed by an additional three doses post-operatively every 8 hours for a total of 24 hours. Informed consent will be obtained at each participant's pre-operative assessment in the days leading up to the procedure. The participant will then select a group designation from a sufficiently mixed jar, and group A or B will be assigned to their study number. For each patient, the procedures completed will be documented, along with age, sex, smoking status, length of procedures, and complications. Complications including medication adverse reaction (allergy, toxicity, side effects), surgical complications, and any other significant complications related to the medications or deemed to be relevant to infection risk will be documented. Procedures will be carried out in the standard fashion. Patients will receive the same post-operative instructions and will be discharged with a chlorhexidine mouth rinse to be used for two weeks. Patients will return for follow-up at 2 weeks, 4 weeks, and 6 weeks post-operatively. Surgical site infection diagnosis will be made according to the CDC criteria and will be reported as either superficial, deep, or organ/space infections. Date of occurrence, location of infection, and treatment provided will be recorded on a standard form provided to surgeons.

The purpose of this study is to evaluate the efficacy, safety, pharmacokinetics (PK), neutralizing antibody and antidrug antibody (ADA) response for TNM001 in infants entering their first RSV season.

The primary objective of this study is to demonstrate the validity of the Microbial- ID test to aid in diagnosis of periprosthetic joint infection (PJI) in terms of sensitivity and specificity.

This is a multisite study to evaluate the safety, tolerability, and efficacy of LMN-201 in participants recently diagnosed with CDI who are scheduled to receive or are receiving SOC antibiotic therapy against C. difficile.

Having bacteria in the blood can be very dangerous. This is called bacteraemia (or bacteremia) or bloodstream infection. It can lead to problems across the whole body, which is what happens in sepsis. Bacteria called Staphylococcus aureus (S. aureus) cause one kind of bacteraemia. Up to a third of people with this condition die within three months, even with antibiotics. One reason for such severe problems is that the bacteria can spread almost anywhere in the body, and hide in places where they are very hard to find. When people with S. aureus bacteraemia come into hospital and have had antibiotics, doctors sometimes cannot tell if they still have an infection source (called a 'focus') hiding in their body. The focus can be like an abscess and may need removing or the pus draining out. A focus might be obvious, if there is pain or swelling, or it might be hidden and deep. If these 'foci' can be found, then doctors can treat them and this helps to cure patients. To improve survival for patients with these life-threatening infections, it is vital that doctors find the focus of S. aureus bacteraemia as quickly as possible. However, the research team do not know the best way to do this. Most patients with S. aureus bacteraemia have a chest X-ray and a scan of the heart valves. Patients may go to the scanning department lots of times while doctors try to work out where these foci are. This is uncomfortable and takes a lot of time. In about 1 in 5 cases the doctors still cannot find the focus. This is very worrying for patients, their relatives and doctors. This study has been designed by researchers, doctors and patient advocates. It aims to work out if fewer patients may die when a specific type of scan called a 'PET/CT' is done quickly, because it finds more foci. To do this the team plan to do a clinical trial in patients with S. aureus bacteraemia. Half of the patients will receive the usual tests that patients currently get and the other half will receive an extra scan as soon as possible. The patients will be chosen randomly (like the flip of a coin) to go into one of the 2 groups. A year into the trial, an independent committee will check the results to make sure the extra scan is finding more foci. If this is the case, the trial will carry on. At the end of the study, we will share the results globally. The findings are expected to change the way this dangerous condition is managed, so patients do better.

In the proposed study, the investigators plan to evaluate the efficacy and safety of Ceftazidime Sodium and Sulbactam Sodium for Injection(2:1) for the treatment of respiratory and urinary tract acute bacterial infection.

Tuberculosis (TB) is one of the top ten causes of death worldwide with approximately 10 million cases globally and 1.2 million deaths. Sub-Saharan Africa carries the highest burden of TB. South Africa has one of the highest HIV and TB rates worldwide with an HIV prevalence rate in adults of 19% and a TB case notification rate of 615/100,000 in 2019. Over many years, focus has been paid to pulmonary TB and extrapulmonary TB (EPTB) has received only little attention even though it accounts for almost a quatre of all TB cases. The diagnosis of EPTB remains challenging simply because sample collection requires invasive procedures in the absence of a blood-based diagnostic test. Spinal TB (spondylitis or spondylodiscitis caused by Mycobacterium tuberculosis) - often known as Pott's disease - accounts for up to 10% of EPTB and affects young children, people with HIV-coinfection and elderly, and often leads to lifelong debilitating disease due to devastating deformation of the spine and compression of neural structures. Little is known with regards to the extent of disease and isolated TB spine as well as a disseminated form of TB spine have been described. The latter presents with a spinal manifestation plus disseminations to other organs such as the lungs, pleura, lymph nodes, the GIT or urinary tract or even the brain. In the Spinal TB X cohort, the investigators aim to describe the clinical phenotype of spinal TB using whole body PET/CT and identify a specific gene expression profile for the different stages of dissemination and compare findings to previously described signatures for latent and active pulmonary TB. A blood-based test for spinal TB would lead to earlier diagnosis and treatment in all settings globally and improve treatment outcome of this devastating disease.

Anal cancer is overrepresented among gay, bisexual and other men who have sex with men (MSM), particularly those living with HIV. Australia was the first country to introduce a publicly funded national HPV vaccination program in 2007. This program was expanded to include schoolboys aged 12-13 years in 2013; with a 2-year catch-up for boys aged up to 15 years. The goal of the HYPER4 study is to determine the prevalence of anal, genital and oral HPV among 500 young gay and bisexual men aged 21-25 years who were eligible for the school-based gender-neutral quadrivalent vaccination program. Participants will be required to complete a questionnaire and provide samples for HPV testing. No follow-up visits will be required.

The emotional and work changes of the staffs and the on-site counter staffs will have a certain impact during this pandemic period. Because a large number of critically ill patients are obstructive in emergency and critical care uint. It will induce a huge impact on the deployment of medical team manpower The purpose of this study is to understand the situation of emergency and intensive care unit personnel after covid-19 infection. It will help the hospital superintendent to understand the impact of emotional adjustment on its own work, understand the emotional situation of on-site personnel, future planning and r deployment.