Becker's Clinical Quality & Infection Control

7 INFECTION CONTROL Massachusetts hospital COVID-19 outbreak may be tied to employees eating together By Kelly Gooch A n outbreak of COVID-19 cases among Holyoke (Mass.) Medical Center employees in late October is believed to be linked to staff members eating together while on break, TV station WWLP reported. Spokesperson Rebecca MacGregor confirmed to Becker's that a cluster of employees began to show COVID-19 symptoms in early October, and 15 had since tested positive. She said 10 of the employees were exclusively connected to the emergency department, and at least two were medically cleared to return to work the week of Oct. 26. Hospital officials believe the outbreak originated in a break room where staff members were eating. CEO Spiros Hatiras told Western Mass News: "We think we traced it back to employees eating a meal together in a break room, and obviously when you are eating a meal, you take your mask off and they contracted it from one employee who was positive." Holyoke Medical Center has implemented new policies, according to Ms. MacGregor, including capacity limits in all break rooms. "We would like to stress that Holyoke Medical Center is con- tinuing to safely provide the high quality care our community expects. People should continue to feel comfortable choosing Holyoke Medical Center for their care," she said. The medical center has 1,200 employees, according to its website. n Some COVID-19 survivors may have antibodies that attack body instead of virus By Maia Anderson S ome COVID-19 survivors may carry antibodies that attack the body in- stead of the virus, similar to antibod- ies seen in lupus and rheumatoid arthritis patients, according to a study cited by e New York Times. e antibodies are called "autoantibod- ies," and they target genetic material from human cells instead of from a virus. Other viral illnesses also trigger autoantibodies, experts told the Times. Autoantibodies were found in almost half of 52 patients from Emory HealthCare in Atlan- ta in a study published Oct. 23 in the preprint server MedRxiv. As of Nov. 10, the study had yet to be published in a scientific journal. All of the study's patients had severe or critical COVID-19 and no history of autoimmune disorders. But Akiko Iwasa- ki, PhD, an immunologist at New Haven, Conn.-based Yale University, told the Times it's possible that people with moderate or mild COVID-19 could see the same kind of autoantibody response. e findings may explain why COVID-19 "long haulers" have lasting problems months aer the virus leaves their bodies, experts told the Times. By using tests that detect autoan- tibodies, physicians may be able to identify COVID-19 patients who could benefit from treatments for autoimmune diseases such as lupus and rheumatoid arthritis. Ann Marshak-Rothstein, PhD, an immunol- ogist and lupus expert at the University of Massachusetts Medical School in Worcester told the Times that if COVID-19 autoan- tibodies turn out to be long-lasting, they may result in lifelong problems for some COVID-19 survivors. n CDC issues guidelines for staph prevention in NICUs By Anuja Vaidya T he CDC in September released recom- mendations for prevention and control of Staphylococcus aureus infections in neonatal intensive care units. The recommendations are based on a systematic review of the best available literature through Au- gust 2019 as well as relevant literature published since that has been recommended by subject matter experts. The recommendations include performing active surveillance testing for staph infection among NICU patients when there is an in- creased incidence of infection or in the case of an outbreak and for methicillin-resistant S. aureus infection when there is evidence of ongoing healthcare-associated transmission within the unit. The agency suggests testing at regular intervals to identify newly infected patients promptly. The guidelines also suggest healthcare facilities consider targeted decolonization for infect- ed NICU patients in addition to appropriate infection prevention and control measures in the midst of an outbreak, when there is ongoing healthcare-associated transmission or there is an increase in the incidence of infection. n

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