Blog Topic: Infectious Disease

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  World Immunization Week 2018

  April 16, 2018

  Vaccines are widely recognized as one of the world’s most successful and cost-effective health interventions. Ahead of this year’s World Immunization Week – celebrated in the last week of April – we’re reviewing some of the most important vaccine breakthroughs in recent history, as well as a looking to the future of vaccine development for diseases like HIV/AIDS, Zika, and Herpes.

  Global Medicine Infectious Disease Public Health
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  Baby, It’s Cold (Season) Outside!

  January 05, 2018

  “Don’t go outside with wet hair, you’ll catch a cold!” We’ve all heard this and other “facts” about how you might catch a cold, but which ones are true and which are simply something to sneeze at? We sat down with Anne Norris, MD, an associate professor of Infectious Diseases, to find out.

  Infectious Disease Public Health General Interest
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  Cut and Dry Insights to Prevent Surgical Site Infections

  August 23, 2017

  In 1999, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention published guidelines on surgical site infection prevention. The update to that guideline began over five years ago, but Ebola, Zika and other national and international healthcare emergencies delayed its completion. The news blog checked in with Penn Medicine's Craig Umscheid to see what the major takeaways are from this guideline and how it can improve the safety of surgical procedures.

  Infectious Disease Surgery
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  Resident Physician Magazine Breaks Silence and Stigma through Creative Expression

  July 07, 2017

  When he was approached by a colleague about writing for a magazine with the theme “unspeakables and ineffables,” Lary Campbell had one idea for a personal essay that kept coming to mind. He had doubts about sharing it, though. The colleague, Lisa Jacobs, knew Campbell was an accomplished playwright and filmmaker who would be a talented contributor to the second issue of the magazine she had founded, Penndulum. She didn’t know that Campbell was HIV positive.

  Psychology Public Health LGBT Infectious Disease
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  How HIV Positive Men Safely Become Fathers

  June 28, 2017

  Last year, Helen Koenig, MD, an infectious disease expert at Penn Medicine, met a married couple faced with an uncommon fertility challenge they wanted to safely overcome: The husband is HIV positive and the wife is not. Every day, 400 babies are born HIV positive around the world, but with newer technologies and discoveries, having healthy, HIV-free children has become a reality for more and more couples.

  Infectious Disease Public Health
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  Addressing Adherence: PrEP’s Achilles Heel

  June 09, 2017

  Prevention is still our best weapon against HIV. One prevention method that has gained a lot of public attention in recent years is pre-exposure prophylaxis, also known as PrEP. Daily PrEP use can lower the risk of getting HIV from sex by more than 90 percent and from injection drug use by more than 70 percent—but the challenge with PrEP, like many other daily medications, is adherence. That’s where Penn Medicine's Helen Koenig and recent Perelman School of Medicine graduate Giffin Daughtridge come in.

  Basic Science Research Public Health Infectious Disease
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  Could Yellow Fever Rise Again?

  April 17, 2017

  Many people might not have heard of the Aedes aegypti mosquito until this past year, when the mosquito, and the disease it can carry – Zika – began to make headlines. But more than 220 years ago, this same breed of mosquito was spreading a different and deadly epidemic right here in Philadelphia and just like Zika, this epidemic is seeing a modern resurgence, with Brazil at its epicenter.

  Infectious Disease
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  Twitter’s Role in the Fight Against HIV

  January 23, 2017

  Twitter isn't just a platform to read news, engage with like-minded individuals, launch insults or give praise. It's also a far-reaching and revealing digital "petri dish" to study human behavior that may help predict disease outbreaks, like HIV, and inform public health efforts, as several studies and social media experts have shown over the last few years.

  Research Psychology Infectious Disease Big Data
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  Walking the Tightrope

  January 11, 2017

  All drugs have benefits and risks, and researchers have to study both sides to quantify them and map out the best, safest uses. This balancing act is part of a constant quest within the medical community.

  Cancer Experts Infectious Disease Transplant Big Data
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  The Give and Take of Health System Social Media

  January 06, 2017

  Just about everything on the Internet carries with it an inherent polarization—the highs are extraordinarily high, the lows extraordinarily low—and social media hasn’t proven any different. Thankfully, working for a health system that’s continually finding new and interesting ways to utilize the medium means I get to experience more of those extraordinary high points.

  Orthopaedics Cardiology Transplant Surgery Infectious Disease