ECCVID platform is free for December

Haven’t had the chance to access all of the great on-demand ECCVID content?

ESCMID is offering access to the ECCVID platform for free during the month of December, to allow all of our colleagues to be able to access the more than 100 fantastic on-demand sessions. In a time when CM and ID professionals the world over are working more than ever, we hope that this open access will enable a much greater number of people the ability to be a part of the first ever ESCMID virtual conference.

Free access has started today, and will be available until 25 December, 2020.

Previously purchased registrations will still remain active, and industry-only registrations will be automatically converted to full scientific registrations.

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Open call to join the CMI editorial team: Viral Diseases

EUCAST Zoominar Days – 7 December 2020

EUCAST has arranged a series of web-based live updates and discussion forums. It is free and available to anyone with an interest in EUCAST guidelines and developments.

The next Zoominar day will take place on Monday, 7 December 2020 and is titled ”EUCAST MIC and zone diameter distributions and ECOFFs”.

The presentations will take place from 8.00-9.30 and 12.00-13.30 (CET).
NB. these times are different than those used for seminar 1 - 3. 

John Turnidge (Adelaide, Australia) and Gunnar Kahlmeter (Växjö, Sweden) will discuss MIC and zone distributions, the determination of ECOFFs, and the new software (recently released).

Find the links for the Zoominars on the EUCAST website.

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December 1 – World AIDS Day

Via UNAIDS: Every year, on 1 December, the world commemorates World AIDS Day. People around the world unite to show support for people living with and affected by HIV and to remember those who lost their lives to AIDS.

In 2020, the world’s attention has been focused by the COVID-19 pandemic on health and how pandemics affect lives and livelihoods. COVID-19 is showing once again how health is interlinked with other critical issues, such as reducing inequality, human rights, gender equality, social protection and economic growth. With this in mind, this year the theme of World AIDS Day is “Global solidarity, shared responsibility”.

Find out more on the World AIDS Day website.

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How does English language proficiency level influence ESCMID abstract/grant acceptance?

Language barriers may be potential contributors to difficulties encountered when accessing grants or presenting researches to events. The ESCMID Parity Commission will soon launch a survey that will aim to investigate the correlation between submitting members’ English language proficiency levels and outcomes of abstracts and grant proposal submissions to ESCMID. The questionnaire will explore four major areas: abstracts and grants submission outcomes, language competences, academic writing skills, and scientific background. The results of this project will provide the basis to design appropriate actions that contribute to the objectives of the ESCMID Parity Commission.

Stay tuned and find out more about latest news of the ESCMID Parity Commission!

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ESCMID Parity Commission: call for one new member!

ESCMID is happy to announce an open call for one ESCMID Parity Commission (PC) member position. Eligible for applying for the position are all ESCMID members who are sensitized in issues regarding parity and equity in the CM/ID professional area. Applicants with a record of active engagement in such subjects will be preferred. Important: In accordance with ESCMID policy, the PC aims to maintain geographic  distribution  among  their members. For this reason, applications from France, Switzerland and Italy will not be accepted.

Apply now by sending a motivation letter (max 500 words) along with a short CV (max 2 pages) at science@escmid.org

For further details, please visit the Parity Commission webpage

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CMI highlight: Time to blood culture positivity in Staphylococcus aureus bacteremia is useful to determine the risk for infective endocarditis

Patients with Staphylococcus aureus bacteremia (SAB) at risk for infective endocarditis (IE) need to be identified since they should undergo echocardiography. We validate previous scoring systems for IE-risk determination, and evaluate if time to blood culture positivity (TTP) could improve scoring systems.

This retrospective population-based study included adults with SAB in 2016 in a derivation cohort and those from 2017 in a validation cohort. TTP was compared between patients with and without IE. A new score, including TTP, was constructed using a least absolute shrinkage selection operator. The new POSITIVE score was compared to the previously described PREDICT and VIRSTA.

From the results obtained, it emerged that TTP, either by itself, or as part of the POSITIVE score can be used to identify patients with SAB at low risk for IE. Further validation is needed as TTP is sensitive to several external factors.

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