Wait! This isn’t a blog about another blah, blah, blah, SARS CoV2 vaccine… no way!
 
I’m REALLY bored of Covid-19… as I suspect you are too… so this week I’m going to write an update for a blog I wrote back in 2018. Do you remember 2018? Let me remind you:

• The 2018 Winter Olympics were held in Pyeongchang, South Korea
• Dawn Sturgess was murdered, and Charlie Rowley, Sergei Skripal and Yulia Skripal were all poisoned with Novichok by Russian agents in Salisbury, UK
• White rhinos became functionally extinct in the wild when the last male died in Kenya, Africa
• Harry and Megan got married in Windsor, UK
• Baby elephant Anjan was born unexpectedly to Thi Hi Way at Chester Zoo, UK… 

WARNING: ranting blog ahead!

Thursday is supposedly the day when everyone who works in a healthcare setting MUST have had their first Covid-19 vaccination dose. If not, they can no longer work in a patient facing role and will either be redeployed or made redundant according to UK Government policy. Mandatory vaccination is not the usual policy for the UK; in my opinion, forcing anyone to have a medical procedure against their will is highly unethical.
 
You can be forgiven for missing this abuse of Government power over the NHS and social care workforce… something more important keeps hogging the headlines, apparently the resident of No.11 has complained about the noise from the parties at No.10… or maybe No.11 just wasn’t invited to the party(s)… who knows…? 

There is a change coming to how you will see laboratory culture results reported, but will you know what it means?
 
Within the UK, as well as most of the rest of Europe, laboratories follow a standard procedure for testing whether bacteria are likely to respond to treatment with different antibiotics. You see this on reports where the laboratory says a bacterium is susceptible (or sensitive) to an antibiotic which they mark with an “S” or resistant to an antibiotic which they mark with an “R”.
 
But did you notice that sometimes the laboratory puts an “I” for intermediate? And if you did, did you know what intermediate means?

So, I thought I would start 2022 with a list of what I want from the year to come… and yes, like a lot of people, I want the impossible… an end to the Covid-19 pandemic.

Okay, I’m not talking about the X-men, Wolverine, Rogue and Professor Xavier, let’s talk about mutations in viruses instead; Omicron is one such mutant…has anyone else noticed Omicron is an anagram of “moronic”? (Just me then hey!).

“We have a septic lady who has just returned from a trip to India. She also has a headache and diarrhoea. We think she might have typhoid but want to cover for meningitis as well as this. What do you suggest?”
 
The Microbiologist listened as the Emergency Department (ED) Consultant expanded on the story with where exactly the patient had been in India, what she had been doing there and what pre-travel vaccinations she had had. It was a great presentation and showed that the Consultant had clearly been listening to the teaching on fever in a returning traveller that the Microbiologist had given the week before!
 
“Okay, she’s been to the North of India, we’d better cover for XDR typhoid as well as meningitis and other potential causes of sepsis. The best thing to do is start IV Meropenem 2g TDS, and if it’s not meningitis then we can reduce the dose to 1g later” replied the Microbiologist.
 
“Isn’t IV Ceftriaxone the normal first line for typhoid?” asked the ED Consultant.
 
“It is” replied the Microbiologist, “unless you have the XDR typhoid which is currently causing mayhem in Pakistan next to India, XDR is Ceftriaxone resistant and so you need Meropenem instead.”
 
“Crikey!” exclaimed the ED Consultant, “long gone are the days when I could treat this with Ampicillin…I’m sure Typhoid Mary would have accepted Ampicillin!”
 
“We all feel a little old these days, I find it’s more about the mileage not so much the years…!” said the Microbiologist.

“Hello Dad, how are you today?” asked Thor, the God of Thunder.
 
“To be honest son, I’m a bit under the weather really. I’ve managed to catch Covid-19 from Hela, your sister, and I’ve just called to let you know you’re a contact and need to test and self-isolate” said Odin.
 
“It’s okay father, I don’t need to worry. I will smite this dastardly virus with my mighty hammer, Mjolnir. No virus is going to get the God of Thunder so easily”

The scientist shuffled slowly into the dimly lit lab, his yellowing lab coat flapping against his legs as he moved between benches scattered with forgotten specimens and broken bits of equipment.
 
“I wonder what choice morsels you have for me today” he chattered to no one in particular.

Back in 1986 a certain ex-film star, and former President of the United States, set in motion an annual event known as International Infection Prevention Week (IIPW). I had no idea Ronald Reagan was the person who started this, but apparently, he was! Okay, so along with trying to save lives he was also keen on reducing the amount of money being spent dealing with healthcare associated infections, but let’s give him the benefit of the doubt and say it was mainly about saving lives.
 
Since its inception IIPW has spread around the globe and now is an annual event in such diverse places as Australia, the United Kingdom, the Middle East, and Southeast Asia.
 
Each year IIPW has a theme. Recent themes include Vaccines are Everybody’s Business in 2019, Protecting Patients Everywhere in 2018, Antibiotic Resistance in 2017 and Break the Chain of Infection in 2016.
 
This year’s theme is “Make Your Intention Infection Prevention” …catchy huh? Our Infection Control Team has been running around the hospital sporting fancy T-shirts looking like “professional footballers”!
 
They told me that the idea behind this year’s theme is to encourage everyone, the general population as well as healthcare workers, to put infection control practices at the heart of what they do; make them an instinctive and everyday part of how we go about our lives.
 
Now this may seem obvious, surely everyone does this already …but do they? How many people wash their hands regularly? How many people self-isolate when they are unwell? How many people carry tissues around in case they sneeze? My suspicion is …not many!
 
Let’s look at the elephant in the room …Covid-19 (clearly my favourite topic!).
 
Below is a graph from the Department of Health (UK) website showing the cumulative number of cases of Covid-19 in the UK since the pandemic began. 

Okay, it’s all over the News… no not the anxieties about Christmas shopping because of the lack of lorry drivers… although ECIC has just placed the turkey order! No I’m talking about the Parliamentary report from the Health and Social Care and Science and Technology Committees called “Coronavirus: lessons learned to date”… of course!