Search

The author reflects on the reduction of blood culture contamination. It tackles the methods for the reduction of contamination rates which include cleaning the top of the blood culture bottle, avoiding arterial punctures and using trained phlebotomists and blood culture collection kits. It also discusses a trial that assesses the effectiveness of routine use of sterile gloves during peripheral venipuncture to reduce blood culture contamination.

The author presents information on the recognition of novel infectious diseases related to the Borrelia miyamotoi, bacteria. He informs that B. miyamotoi infection was detected in 46 Russian patients by using species-specific polymerase chain reaction (PCR). He further informs that the full spectrum of illness needs to be defined in case of infection from this bacterium.