An employee at Columbia-based University of Missouri Health Care has tested positive for tuberculosis, the academic health system said July 27. 

A new anesthesiologist-led approach to reducing surgical site infections and length of hospital stays in colorectal patients resulted in a 50 percent decrease in infection instances and a 46 percent decrease in stay length, according to new research from Austin Street, MD, study author and anesthesiologist at UT Southwestern Medical Center, Dallas and presented to the American Society of Anesthesiologists at a recent meeting. 

VCU researchers found that loss of smell and taste are no longer common symptoms of COVID-19.

Antibiotic resistance may be even more likely for patients infected with mixed strain pathogens, according to a report published July 12 in Nature.

Hospital leaders and health officials are still searching for the cause of a bacterial outbreak that has killed nine patients at Seattle-based Virginia Mason Medical Center.

Experts from five national medical groups partnered to revise infection prevention strategies in acute care settings, which were published July 11 in the Journal of Infection Control and Hospital Epidemiology. 

Researchers from Washington University in St. Louis have built an air sensory system capable of detecting any of the known COVID variants that may be inside a room in real-time, according to a July 10 news release. 

As bundles of severe echovirus infections pop up in at least three countries, U.S. infectious diseases experts are seeing a small increase in enterovirus cases, especially among children, NBC News reported July 6. 

Physicians are noting brain blood vessel issues and recurrence among the dozens of people who contracted fungal meningitis linked to two cosmetic clinics in Mexico, NBC News reported July 3. 

Here are 12 infection outbreaks, warnings and updates Becker's covered in June:

Falls Church, Va.-based Inova L.J. Murphy Children's Hospital eliminated central line-associated bloodstream infections among its patients for 300 days during 2021 and 2022. 

Cases of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, also known as MRSA, rose 41 percent during the pandemic and account for around 10 percent of hospital-associated infections. Its pandemic-induced rise has led experts to revise infection prevention guidelines for clinicians, according to a June 27 news release from the Society of Healthcare Epidemiology of America.

Twenty years after the U.S. noted eight locally acquired malaria cases, Florida has confirmed four malaria infections and Texas has seen one in the last two months, the CDC said June 26. 

Officials at Boston-based Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center are monitoring a COVID-19 outbreak among patients and staff members.

When it comes to healthcare-acquired infections, a perfect score is zero. But while trying to keep HAIs — such as central line bloodstream infections, catheter-associated urinary tract infections and Clostridioides difficile infections — as low as possible, the goal of zero remains elusive at hospitals.

Teams at Los Angeles-based Cedars-Sinai's Marina del Rey Hospital will soon undergo emergency department drills that will focus on infection control and prevention efforts if — or when  — a patient shows up with symptoms indicative of a highly contagious disease like Ebola. 

Physicians from Harvard Medical School, the Harvard Pilgrim Health Care Institute Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston published a dissenting opinion in the New England Medical Journal on the widespread removal of mask policies in medical settings across the country. Masking should be "strategic" they say, and remain in place for protection.

Hospitals nationwide continue to see a rise in HAIs, and technologies to aid infection control are increasingly coming on scene to help, but one nurse says that a combination of going "back to basics" along with these new innovations may be the best way to combat the issue.

St. Jude Children's Research Hospital in Memphis, Tenn., is creating a new department to study  how infectious disease agents interact with human hosts. 

A 53-year-old Florida man was hospitalized after a family member's bite resulted in the flesh-eating bacteria necrotizing fasciitis, NBC News reported June 9.