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Clostridium difficile in England: can we stop washing our hands? - Authors' reply
- Source :
- The Lancet. Infectious diseases. 17(5)
- Publication Year :
- 2017
-
Abstract
- In their letter, Esther van Kleef and colleagues describe a mathematical model showing that hospital infection control interventions can preferentially reduce hospital-adapted strains over community-adapted strains within and outside hospitals, questioning our conclusion that restrictions in fluoroquinolone use were responsible for most of the decline in Clostridium difficile infection.1 “All models are wrong, but some are useful” (George E P Box). The key is not whether a model can reproduce findings from an empirical study, but whether the assumptions underpinning it are sufficiently plausible. Unfortunately, several features are implausible in van Kleef and colleagues' model, which seems more appropriate for meticillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA).
- Subjects :
- 0301 basic medicine
Cross infection
medicine.medical_specialty
Cross Infection
business.industry
Clostridioides difficile
030106 microbiology
Clostridium Infections
Clostridium difficile
Surgery
03 medical and health sciences
0302 clinical medicine
Infectious Diseases
England
Medicine
Humans
030212 general & internal medicine
business
Intensive care medicine
Hand disinfection
Hand Disinfection
Subjects
Details
- ISSN :
- 14744457 and 14733099
- Volume :
- 17
- Issue :
- 5
- Database :
- OpenAIRE
- Journal :
- The Lancet. Infectious diseases
- Accession number :
- edsair.doi.dedup.....60682b80017ba3604246e00eda85b9f8