Reply to Baird and Douglas

Clinical Infectious Diseases, vol. 72, pp. e436

Abstract

To the editor—We thank our colleagues Baird and Douglas [1] for their contribution. To their question as to whether “the proportion of bacteremia due to E. coli at a given institution could be used as a proxy for the success of infection control measures and whether migration of this proportion outside of usual zones could be used as a trigger for community or hospital level review,” we have the following response. As controlling one infection will lead to a proportional rise of another infection unless the same measures control all etiologies, we don’t consider proportions as reliable proxies for evaluating the effectiveness of infection-control measures. Incidence figures or sequential point-prevalence measures remain the standard for monitoring infection-control measures in time. Financial support. This work was supported by Janssen Vaccines & Prevention B. V., Leiden, The Netherlands. This work was also supported in part by the Office of Research and Development, US Department of Veterans Affairs. Potential conflicts of interest. J. T. P. was an employee of Janssen, Pharmaceutical Companies of Johnson & Johnson at the time of the study. For the submitted work T. V. and M. B. received consulting fees from Janssen, Pharmaceutical Companies of Johnson & Johnson; M. B. received a research grant from Janssen Vaccines & Prevention B.V. Outside the scope of the submitted work, S. G. received personal fees from Janssen Research & Development LLC. All authors have submitted the ICMJE Form for Disclosure of Potential Conflicts of Interest. Conflicts that the editors consider relevant to the content of the manuscript have been disclosed.

Authors 4

1. Marc J. M. Bonten

   Utrecht University · University Medical Center Utrecht

   Affiliation as printed

   Julius Center, UMC Utrecht, Utrecht University, Utrecht, The Netherlands

2. Thomas Verstraeten
   Affiliation as printed

   P95 Pharmacovigilance and Epidemiology Services, Leuven, Belgium

3. Stefan Gravenstein

   Brown University · Providence VA Medical Center

   Affiliation as printed

   Brown University and Providence Veterans Administration Hospital, Providence, Rhode Island, USA

4. JAN T. POOLMAN corresponding Aachen Bacterial Vaccine Discovery & Early Development

   Janssen (Netherlands)

   Affiliation as printed

   Bacterial Vaccine Discovery and Early Development, Janssen Vaccines and Prevention B. V., Leiden, The Netherlands