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HICSIG Sponsored Workshops and Publications See Past News for description of other recent HICSIG activities and Infection Control and Prevention news or use Search function on left- most efficient method.

See Featured content for relatively well-developed resource pages. Recent changes list.

Draft Australian Infection Control Guidelines: preventing and managing infection in health care

The National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) and the Australian Commission for Safety and Quality in Healthcare, has released for public comment the Draft of the Australian Infection Control Guidelines: preventing and managing infection in healthcare on 8 January 2010. The draft Guidelines are available on the NHMRC website at www.nhmrc.gov.au/guidelines/consult/aicg.htm for a 60 day period and submissions are requested during this time. Submit comments up until 10 March 2010 by emailing icg@nhmrc.gov.au; or written submission to: Stephanie Goodrick, Strategic Partnerships, GPO Box 1421, Canberra ACT 2601, Australia.

WHO Infection Control Webinar Series

A series of free monthly infection control webinars will take place during 2010. The inaugural lecture The global burden of health care-associated infections was presented on 19 January. The programme is here. The next webinar will be on 16 February at 15.00hrs Central European Time (Geneva time), 14.00hrs GMT. Don't miss this opportunity to hear an excellent lecture by Professor Didier Pittet on 'The Modern Approach to Infection Control'. You can sign up free of charge by going to https://www1.gotomeeting.com/register/582061024 (remember if this link does not take you directly to the web page, copy the address details into the URL line of an open web page). After you have registered your details you will receive full instructions on how to join the webinar.

ESCMID-SHEA-ASID: Comprehensive course in Hospital Epidemiology

This intensive course is running for the first time in Australia. It will be held at Port Douglas, QLD on 21-25 June 2010. Information is available on the ASID site.

ASID 2010 - Time to register

The ASID 2010 Annual Scientific Meeting is being held the Darwin Convention Centre from the 26-29 May 2010. The meeting will focus on tropical medicine, vaccinology, and microbial genomics and other sessions will cover topics including viral hepatitis, mycobacterial disease, infections in intensive care, clinical trials in infectious diseases and much more.

• Register now
• Abstract Submission Deadline - Wednesday 17 February 2010
• Detailed programme now available
• ASID HICSIG 2010 session program- an exciting 70 minute session!

Transatlantic Antibiotic Resistance Taskforce

A new transatlantic taskforce to take on antibitoic resistance has been established. President Obama and Swedish Prime Minister Reinfeldf recently signed an agreement that will look at cooperative ways in which the United States and European Union countries can combat the global antibiotic resistance. The full report is on Medical News Today.

International Outbreak Database

The website contains a database of worldwide outbreaks from 1956 to 2009. It has over 2200 published reports of outbreaks caused by more than 200 different pathogens. The database can be accessed through the External links page or by linking here. You are able to easily search the database for specific settings and pathogens and it can be used for education and scientific work. Have a look!

Recent Research into Reducing Post-surgical Infections

Two recent studies published in the New England Journal of Medicine have investigated the effects of surgical preparation on the rate of post-op infection rates. One study compared a combination of mupirocin nasal ointment/chlorhexidine soap pre-operatively versus a placebo on Staph aureus carriage and demonstrated that treating the carriage reduced infection rates. The other investigated chlorhexidine-alcohol versus povidone-iodine as a surgical scrub and showed that chlorhexidine-alcohol was more effective at reducing post-op infection rates. Links to the studies can be found at Strategies to prevent SSI.

Primary aims of HICSIG

• Facilitate collaboration and consensus among Infectious Diseases Physicians, Clinical Microbiologists, Infection Control nurse professionals, Pharmacists and other relevant groups about approaches to Healthcare Infection Control and Antibiotic Stewardship
• Develop and promote evidence-based practical approaches to practice
• Facilitate cross-institutional research relevant to infection control
• Conduct surveys of practice that can be used to drive standardisation of practice
• Conduct bi-annual meetings to discuss issues of controversy and consensus
• Provide a website for sharing of discussions, resources, guidelines and patient information materials

HICSIG Steering Committee Membership (2010)

• HICSIG Operational Guidelines- revised September 2009
• HICSIG Working Groups
• Minutes- Steering Committee meeting 11 Nov 09

Sharing materials and editing the wiki

• Please share your locally developed resources, policies, guidelines, reviews, recommended links: either upload onto this site (see menu link left for upload) and then copy the link to the document (pdf best) onto an appropriate page (place it on Clearing house if uncertain, or send to HICSIG [1]. If document is already on a website then the web address is preferred- that can be directly entered onto a page. Material must be in the public arena and not copyright.
• Members are welcome to directly add to or edit website content and/or add comments on the 'discussion' pages that lie behind every wiki page. If encountering difficulty, please contact HICSIG [2] or place a question on HICSIG Wiki FAQ. You must logon with a valid username to be able to edit the Wiki.
• Consult the User's Guide for information on using the wiki software.

Contacting HICSIG

• If experiencing logon problems or you wish to be enrolled as a HICSIG member, then please contact HICSIG, including your affiliation details [3] Once you have logged in, go to 'my preferences' top right and reassign your password. Please also register your full name and email address for updates.

Notification of changes, RSS feeds

• This is probably the easiest way to keep in touch, although the Convenor will be sending out regular updates to OZBUG and AICA listservs. To subscribe to an RSS feed of recent changes-paste this link into your web browser or RSS feed reader: http://www.asid.net.au/hicsigwiki/index.php?title=Special:Recentchanges&feed=rss. A google personalised homepage offers a way of installing RSS feeds easily -go to www.google.com.au/ig to start. Not sure what RSS is? Have a look at the Wikipedia RSS entry.