Update: Interim Guidance for Health Care Providers regarding the Management Approach of Patients with Suspected E-cigarette, or Vaping, Product Use-Associated Lung Injury (EVALI)

Date: Thursday, November 21, 2019
Time: 2:00pm-3:00pm (Eastern Time)

CDC, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), state and local health departments, and public health and clinical stakeholders continue to investigate a national outbreak of electronic cigarette (e-cigarette), or vaping, product use–associated lung injury (EVALI).

EVALI remains a diagnosis of exclusion because, at present, no specific test or marker exists for its diagnosis, and evaluation should be guided by clinical judgment. Because patients with EVALI can present with symptoms similar to influenza or other respiratory infections (e.g., fever, cough, headache, myalgias, or fatigue), it might be difficult to differentiate EVALI from influenza or CAP (community-acquired pneumonia) on initial presentation, and EVALI may cooccur with respiratory infections. A large number of patients will be presenting to healthcare facilities with respiratory symptoms during the winter season who may not meet criteria for hospital admission, and this will be happening in the context of a national outbreak of EVALI.

During this COCA Call, US health care providers will learn recommendations for managing patients with suspected or known EVALI when respiratory infections such as influenza are more prevalent in the community, as published in MMWR on November 19, 2019.

If you are unable to attend this live COCA Call, it will be available on-demand a few days after the call.

Updated Guidance for Using Intravenous Artesunate to Treat Severe Malaria in the United States

Date: Tuesday, December 10, 2019
Time: 2:00pm-3:00pm (Eastern Time)

In the United States, about 2,000 cases of malaria are imported each year, 300 of which are severe. There is no FDA-approved drug available to treat severe malaria. Intravenous (IV) artesunate, which is neither FDA-approved nor commercially available, is currently the first-line drug to treat severe malaria in the United States. Since April 1, 2019, all U.S. clinicians must call CDC to obtain IV artesunate to treat cases of severe malaria.

During this COCA Call, clinicians will learn about CDC’s updated guidance for using IV artesunate—a life-saving drug—to treat patients with severe malaria in the United States, and will receive an update on CDC’s artesunate program. 

If you are unable to attend this live COCA Call, it will be available on-demand a few days after the call. Free Continuing Education (CE) will be available. 

Preventing the Spread of Novel or Targeted Multidrug-resistant Organisms (MDROs) in Nursing Homes through Enhanced Barrier Precautions

October 24, 2019

Enhanced Barrier Precautions are a new approach recently introduced by CDC that are recommended for preventing the transmission of novel or targeted MDROs in US nursing homes involved in a public health containment response. During this COCA Call, clinicians learned about Enhanced Barrier Precautions, with a detailed discussion of the residents and high-contact resident care activities for which they apply.

Free CE is available for this COCA Call. 

COCA is pleased to feature The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) as our November COCA Partner Spotlight!

CMS is a federal agency within the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services that administers the Medicare program and works in partnership with state governments to administer Medicaid, the Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIP), and health insurance portability standards. In addition to these programs, CMS has other responsibilities, including the administrative simplification standards from the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA), quality standards in long-term care facilities (more commonly referred to as nursing homes) through its survey and certification process, clinical laboratory quality standards under the Clinical Laboratory Improvement Amendments, and oversight of HealthCare.gov.

Partnerships with professional associations are vital to CDC’s ability to share information with clinicians about public health emergencies, CDC guidance, health alert messages, and training opportunities.

Welcome to the Clinician’s Corner! This month COCA is excited to feature Fatimah S. Dawood, MD who has presented during several COCA Calls. 

For nearly a decade, Dr. Dawood has been a medical epidemiologist in the Influenza Division in CDC's National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases.

Dr. Dawood received her undergraduate degree from Harvard College and obtained her medical degree and pediatric residency training at Johns Hopkins University. She subsequently completed a fellowship with the Epidemic Intelligence Service at CDC. During her tenure at CDC as a medical officer with the United States Public Health Service, Dr. Dawood has worked on analyses and studies in the United States, Thailand, India, and Central America that focused on describing the burden of influenza, identifying risk factors for severe outcomes with influenza virus infection, evaluating influenza vaccine efficacy, and effectiveness, and evaluating the efficacy of influenza antiviral medications.

Dr. Dawood is currently CDC principle investigator for the Pregnancy and Influenza Multinational Epidemiologic (PRIME) study, a large multinational prospective cohort study designed to evaluate the effect of influenza during pregnancy on pregnancy and perinatal outcomes, and a randomized controlled trial comparing the immunogenicity of egg-based and non-egg-based influenza vaccines among healthcare personnel in the US. 

Listen to Dr. Dawood present during a past COCA Call: 2019–2020 Recommendations for Influenza Prevention and Treatment in Children: An Update for Pediatric Providers. Free CE is available.