North Korea is located on the northern part of the Korean Peninsula in East Asia. While tick-borne pathogens of medical and veterinary importance have been reported from China and South Korea, they have not been reported from North Korea. To screen for zoonotic tick-borne pathogens in North Korea, ticks were collected from domestic goats. A total of 292 (27 nymph, 26 male, 239 female) Haemaphys...

BACKGROUND We conducted an assessment of knowledge about blood borne pathogens (BBP) and use of universal precautions at first level care facilities (FLCF) in two districts of Pakistan. METHODS We conducted a cross-sectional survey and selected three different types of FLCFs ; public, general practitioners and unqualified practitioners through stratified random sampling technique. At each fac...

OBJECTIVE Exposure of healthcare personnel to bloodborne pathogens (BBPs) can be prevented in part by using safety-engineered sharp devices (SESDs) and other safe practices, such as double gloving. In some instances, however, safer devices and practices cannot be utilized because of procedural factors or the lack of a manufactured safety device for the specific clinical use. In these situations...

OBJECTIVES Viral hepatitis is the second most often identified infectious illness acquired at work and it is mostly registered among health care personnel. This group of workers is at greater risk of exposure to blood and bloodborne pathogens, including hepatitis B and C viruses. The aims of this study were to evaluate the efficacy of methods promoting work safety in healthcare settings, to ass...

The spleen is one of the major immunological sites for maintaining blood homeostasis. Previous studies showed that heterogeneous splenic macrophage populations contribute in complimentary ways to control blood-borne infections and induce effective immune responses. Marginal metallophilic macrophages (MMMΦs) and marginal zone macrophages (MZMΦs) are cells with great ability to internalize blood-...

BACKGROUND The frequency of bloodborne pathogen healthcare-associated infections is thought to be high in developing Southeast Asian countries. The underlying social-cultural logics contributing to the risks of transmission are rarely studied. This report provides some insights on the social and cultural factors that shape hygiene practices in Cambodian health care settings. METHODS We conduc...

Background Blood culture contamination is a clinically significant problem that results in patient harm and excess cost. Methods In a prospective, controlled trial at an academic center Emergency Department, a device that diverts and sequesters the initial 1.5-2 mL portion of blood (which presumably carries contaminating skin cells and microbes) was tested against standard phlebotomy procedur...

The geographic ranges of ticks and tick-borne pathogens are changing due to global and local environmental (including climatic) changes. In this review we explore current knowledge of the drivers for changes in the ranges of ticks and tick-borne pathogen species and strains via effects on their basic reproduction number (R 0), and the mechanisms of dispersal that allow ticks and tick-borne path...

It is believed that over 40 different food-borne pathogens are responsible for human illnesses (Buzby and Roberts, 1996) and in the United Kingdom an average of 9.4 million food-borne illness cases are reported annually (Walker et al., 2003). It is estimated, by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that food-borne diseases cause between six and 81 million illnesses, 325,000 hospi...