IMDA eNews 051623

The latest news affecting you and your customers…

from the Independent Medical Specialty Dealers Association

TB cases on the rise

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported 8,300 cases of tuberculosis in 2022 – a five percent increase from the year before, according to the Washington Post. This reflects a 26% increase in TB diagnoses in children 4 or younger — from 160 cases in 2021 to 202 last year. The CDC says this is especially concerning, as cases in this age group are usually the result of recent transmission rather than reactivation of a long-standing latent infection. Still, the overall 2022 tally did not reach the pre-pandemic count of 8,895 TB cases in 2019.

Obstructive sleep apnea associated with long COVID

People who have obstructive sleep apnea may be more likely to experience symptoms of long COVID than those without the sleep disorder, according to a study supported by the National Institutes of Health (NIH). Multiple analyses of electronic health records (EHR) suggested that adults with sleep apnea may have up to a 75% higher risk of developing long COVID. The research, taken from EHR data of over 2.2 million Americans with COVID-19, suggests close monitoring after a COVID-19 infection may help adults with sleep apnea, as well as suggest why some people are more likely to develop the post-viral syndrome after acute infection.

SunMed acquisition of Vyaire completed

SunMed, a North American manufacturer and distributor of consumable medical devices for anesthesia and respiratory care, announced the completion of its acquisition of Vyaire Medical’s business unit, which manufactures and markets respiratory and anesthesia consumables. Terms of the acquisition were not disclosed. SunMed products include Salter Labs®, Ethox Medical™, Ventlab™and Westmed™. The respiratory and anesthesia consumables business of Vyaire, which Vyaire purchased from Becton Dickinson in 2018, covers airway management and operative care technology, including AirLife™ oxygen therapy and VitalSigns™ anesthesia circuits.

Data update may support COVID-19 surveillance efforts

In a ‘Medicine and Public Issues’ column recently published in the Annals of Internal Medicine, authors from Tufts Medical Center, Veterans Affairs Boston Healthcare System, Harvard Medical School and the Massachusetts Department of Public Health advocate for the inclusion of both the total number of COVID-19 hospitalizations daily and the number of inpatients who received dexamethasone at any point during their hospital stay, according to the American College of Physicians. The addition of this data could aid COVID-19 surveillance efforts by conveying the real-time burden of a rapidly changing infection in healthcare settings more accurately, note the authors. Administering dexamethasone has been shown to correlate with disease severity and be sensitive to the changing epidemiology of new immune-evasive COVID-19 variants.

It's Orlando in March for 2023-2024 conference

Rosen Shingle Creek in Orlando, Florida, will be the site of the 2024 IMDA/HIRA Conference. Golfers will tee off Monday morning, March 4, and the conference will begin that afternoon. We’ll finish at noon on Wednesday, March 6.