Infectious Disease

Warmer weather has arrived, and with it the season of tick-borne illnesses. Here’s the latest about Lyme disease and some surprising new scourges of spring.

What brings patients to your office-and not the specialty office down the street? Insights in this slideshow.

Can you identify the most common symptoms of Löfgren syndrome ?

Tuberculosis, measles, and influenza have declined over the years but not gone away. See the slides that follow for key facts and figures on the current state of these ongoing public health threats.

Two small children, two opportunities to administer the live MMR vaccine. Who gets the shot and who does not?

The sutures that were placed after this boy cut his toe with a piece of glass were removed after the wound became infected. What’s going on?

When parents play out worst case scenarios in protest against routine vaccination, maybe one or two of these 6 options for response will come in handy.

Do we, in resource-rich countries, have the will and the resources to spend on HIV or HCV eradication? We have the tools (medications), but the goal of eradicating both infections seems as elusive as ever.

Oral etidronate, IV pamidronate, and then zoledronate caused bone markers to normalize in this 80-year-old woman-temporarily. What’s going on? Answer this and questions on 3 other topics in this week’s quiz.

Parental fears and misinformation about vaccines can be overcome, says this expert. Here are some suggestions.

Here are the signs and symptoms of the measles in a classic case-in order of their appearance:

Abrasions, ecchymoses, and a 3-cm laceration led to infection with Morganella morganii. What do you know about this pathogen? In this quiz: questions on wounds that resulted from falls.

There has been an explosion of diagnostic and therapeutic discoveries affecting the liver. In this slide show: key points on 5 important clinically relevant areas.

The number of measles cases has hit an all time high since it was declared to be eliminated in the US back in 2000. Here's why.

What flu vaccine should you recommend this year for children over age 2? A look at the data . . .

Primary care clinicians take note: here’s a case for routine screening and treatment of early cryptococcal infection, given its prevalence and sequelae in patients with HIV/AIDS.

Subungual infection; “raccoon eyes;” bed bug bites. . . a quiz to challenge you.

This self-limited albeit recurrent condition is often triggered by antigenic stimuli, including infections, most often HSV, and medications.

New drugs that treat stubborn illness seen often in primary care lead this group of Top 5 Papers for 2014. Type 2 diabetes, cryptogenic stroke, and hep-C are key targets.

Reactions range from mild and localized to life-threatening and even fatal. All bites must be treated as true emergencies.

Here’s a quiz about enterovirus, PFO, diastematomyelia, the depression/asthma connection, and an HIV complication. Can you answer the 5 questions correctly?

Few primary care clinicians in the US are likely to face this rare but deadly disease in daily practice. But if one of your patients had symptoms or was infected, would you make the decision to help treat?

While it is unlikely that Ebola will become a problem for most clinicians in the US, it is prudent to be prepared. Test your knowledge of this rare, but deadly disease with a clinical scenario.

This is the first Ebola outbreak in an urban setting, which has made control more difficult without the better barrier protection available in the developed world.