A bacteriophage-based validation of a personal protective equipment doffing procedure to be used with high-consequence pathogens.

Objective: To determine if the high-level personal protective equipment used in the treatment of high-consequence infectious diseases is effective at stopping the spread of pathogens to healthcare personnel (HCP) while doffing.

Background: Personal protective equipment (PPE) is fundamental to the safety of HCPs. HCPs treating patients with high-consequence infectious diseases use several layers of PPE, forming complex protective ensembles.

Connecting pathogen transmission and healthcare worker cognition: a cognitive task analysis of infection prevention and control practices during simulated patient care.

Background: Relatively little is known about the cognitive processes of healthcare workers that mediate between performance-shaping factors (eg, workload, time pressure) and adherence to infection prevention and control (IPC) practices. We taxonomised the cognitive work involved in IPC practices and assessed its role in how pathogens spread.

Methods: Forty-two registered nurses performed patient care tasks in a standardised high-fidelity simulation.

Enteric Populations of are Likely to be Resistant to Phages Due to O Antigen Expression.

There is a surfeit of bioinformatic data showing that bacteriophages abound in the enteric microbiomes of humans. What is the contribution of these viruses in shaping the bacterial strain and species composition of the gut microbiome and how are these phages maintained over time? To address these questions, we performed experiments with and phages isolated from four fecal microbiota transplantation (FMT) doses as representative samples of non-dysbiotic enteric microbiota and develop and analyze the properties of a mathematical model of the population and evolutionary dynamics of bacteria and phage. Our models predict and experiments confirm that due to production of the O antigen, in the enteric microbiome are likely to be resistant to infection with co-occurring phages.