Becker's Clinical Quality & Infection Control

16 INFECTION CONTROL West Virginia medical schools to create $1M statewide infection prevention network By Erica Carbajal T he medical schools at Huntington, W.Va.-based Marshall University and West Virginia University in Morgantown are collaborating on a $1 million initiative to establish a state- wide infection prevention network, the state's health and human resources department said March 25. As part of the effort, academic medical centers and public health schools will create regional centers and support services focused on infection prevention and control. Free training programs for epidemiologists and other healthcare professionals will also be created. "We envision this will support and guide practices in organizations, especially long-term care facilities, that are not affiliated with an academic center," said Shipra Gupta, MD, a principal investigator for the project and pediatric infectious disease specialist at WVU's medical school. "In coordination with local health departments and epidemiologists, the network will strengthen and support infrastructure for surveillance of emerging pathogens as well as continue education and training, so we are prepared to tackle in- fection outbreaks." n Survivor of 2014 Ebola epidemic likely source of new outbreak in West Africa, researchers say By Erica Carbajal A survivor of the 2014 Ebola epidemic in West Africa may have harbored the virus for at least five years and is likely the source of the 2021 outbreak, e New York Times reported March 12. Researchers performed genetic sequencing on virus samples from current patients and compared them to samples from the 2014-16 outbreak. Early findings, published March 12, showed they were very similar, the Times reported. "ese shared mutations make it unlikely that the new cases are a result of a spillover from the animal reservoir, but instead are directly linked to human cases in the 2013-2016 West Africa Ebola virus disease outbreak," the study found. Experts suspect the virus may have hidden in "immu- nologically privileged sites" of the body, or areas where the virus can hide itself and remain unaffected by the immune system. "We have no idea how oen this may be happening," William Schaffner, MD, infectious disease expert at Nashville, Tenn.-based Vanderbilt University, told the Times. Dr. Schaffner was not involved in the genetic analysis cited above. "As you can imagine, it's not easy to study hiding viruses in immunologically privileged sites, like the testicles, the eye and, rarely, the central nervous system. ose are not accessible places for easy study." A CDC spokesperson told the Times it has reviewed the sequencing data from the March 12 analysis. "While we can't be 100 percent certain, CDC agrees that data supports the conclusion that cases in the current outbreak are likely linked to cases in the area during the 2014-2016 West Africa Ebola outbreak," said omas Skinner, a spokesperson for the agency. "While we have seen outbreaks in the Democratic Republic of Congo linked to survivors, the length of time between the end of the 2014-16 outbreak and the emergence of this out- break is surprising and highlights the need for further research to better understand the complex epidemiolo- gy and ecology of Ebola." n Disinfection robots will stick around after pandemic, experts predict By Mackenzie Bean M any industries have turned to disinfection robots to auto- mate the cleaning of public spaces during the COVID-19 crisis, a trend that will likely not disappear once the pan- demic ends, The Washington Post reported in January. While hospitals have been using ultraviolet light disinfection ro- bots for years, a growing number of malls, airports and hotels are also turning to the technology to improve their cleaning process- es. Many analysts and technology firms said they think these ro- bots have gained a permanent foothold in the cleaning and sani- tation industry and predict their popularity will continue to grow, according to the Post. "I do believe there has likely been a slight paradigm shift in how people think about hygiene, as well as how corporations and gov- ernments approach sanitation-related issues," Tim Mulrooney, a commercial services equities analyst for the investment bank Wil- liam Blair, told the publication. While the CDC on April 5 acknowledged that COVID-19 is predom- inantly spread through airborne transmission, the pandemic has elevated Americans' focus on cleanliness, driving demand for the robots, analysts said. n

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