Shorter antibiotics hold up, oral care prevents ward pneumonia, and mpox PCR over-calls

The edition in brief

Six findings for infectious diseases physicians and hospital prescribers. The HAPPEN stepped-wedge trial across three Australian hospitals found a structured oral-care bundle cut non-ventilator hospital-acquired pneumonia, with a cumulative hazard ratio of 0.40, a cheap and deliverable prevention. A DR Congo study estimated that about 35% of mpox qPCR positives with a cycle threshold below 40 were consistent with environmental viral DNA rather than true infection, and that lowering the cutoff sharply improved specificity with little loss of sensitivity. The CABU-EICO cluster trial in Burkina Faso and DR Congo cut community Watch-group antibiotic use with a behavioural bundle, adjusted prevalence ratio 0.33, without harming patient management. On the regulatory front, the FDA cleared a supplement for a generic tigecycline, an administrative supply approval rather than a new indication. A pearl covers evidence-based short antibiotic courses. The practice-changer is SOLARIO: in patients who had surgery for orthopaedic infection with a local-antibiotic carrier implanted, a short systemic course of seven days or less was non-inferior to four weeks or more for treatment failure at one year, and caused far fewer drug-related symptoms.