View clinical trials related to Respiratory Tract Infections.
Filter by:In the past 70 years antibiotics have served as the first line of defense against infectious diseases. However, antibiotics are only effective against bacterial infections and are not the solution for infections caused by viruses such as common colds or flu. Despite their contribution to healthcare, antibiotics are currently recognized as the most misused drugs in the world with global overuse estimated at 40%-70%, mostly due to the ineffectiveness of current diagnostic solutions to distinguish between bacterial and viral infections. Antibiotics misuse often causes preventable adverse events that impact patient care and lead to the emergence of antibiotic-resistant bacteria, one of the major threats to global health today. To address these challenges, MeMed has been developing the ImmunoDx™, a novel technology that relies on the best available detection system for differentiating between viruses and bacteria - the body's own immune system. The ImmunoDx™ technology employs a simple blood test that provides the physician, within two-hours, the information he needs to decide whether to treat the patient with antibiotics or not. This technology has been tested on over 1000 patients of different ages and diseases and was found to be highly accurate and safe. The current study is a non-interventional study and the participants do not receive any investigational drug nor any experimental examination or procedure. Therefore, the collected data in this study will not affect the diagnosis, prognosis, or treatment of the participants. Participation includes the collection of a teaspoon of blood and collection of a specimen using a nasal swab. These procedures are common in the clinical practice and are widely performed and possess no significant risk. By participating in the study, the subjects impact the development of the ImmunoDx™ technology, which is expected to enable a future faster and more accurate diagnosis of infectious diseases as well as more appropriate prescription of antibiotics. This will open the way to improve treatment decisions in millions of patients around the world.
The purpose of this study is to investigate whether there has been a change in the number of hospital admissions for respiratory tract infections among children following the July 2007 introduction of a ban on smoking in public places in England.
Many studies have showed that rapid point-of-care (POC) c-reactive protein (CRP) test can reduce inappropriate use of antibiotic at primary health care level. In Vietnam, prevalence of antibiotic abuse for community acute respiratory infection has been reported. This study will test the hypothesis that CRP POC testing for patients with non-severe acute respiratory illness at primary healthcare stations reduces inappropriate antibiotic use safely. The study will be conducted at ten district health care facilities in Hanoi, Viet Nam. Investigators intend to enroll 2,000 participants aged 6-65 years with non-severe acute respiratory infection. Patients will be randomly allocated to the control or the intervention arm. Participants in the control group will be treated according to routine care. Participants in the intervention arm will have a CRP test, the results of which will be available to the health care practitioner to contribute to their diagnosis and treatment decisions. All patients will be followed-up via telephone call after 14 days. The study will compare the proportion of patients in each arm receiving any antibiotics within 2 weeks of study enrollment.
The aim of the present study is to investigate changes in inflammatory status and incidence of infection after extreme aerobic physical stress (participation in a marathon). In addition, the impact of marathon running on the hemostasis and muscular state will be evaluated. Changes at the inflammatory, muscular, and rheological level will be related to ingestion of oral hydrolytic enzymes and bioflavonoids.
The purpose of this study is to comparatively assess the effectiveness of a tailored educational intervention to improve health literacy levels regarding upper respiratory infections (URIs) and to decrease pediatric emergency department (PED) visits, among Latino households in Early Head Start.
This is a retrospective, blinded, external validation study of a novel in-vitro diagnostic (IVD) assay that will include samples that were previously collected from febrile pediatric patients. The investigated assay measures the levels of a few host-related, blood-based, bio-markers that will be integrated into a single score. Based on this score, each patient will be classified into one of three categories: (i) bacterial immune response, (ii) viral immune response, and (iii) marginal immune response. The assay prediction and the patient diagnosis will than be unveiled and compared to determine their level of concordance.
The respiratory and gastrointestinal infections are a very common problem with high morbidity in children. These conditions were due, in general, immaturity and all "inexperience" of the immune system, as well as to the particular anatomical structure and function of the respiratory and gastrointestinal tract still developing. This inevitably means that school-age children develop disease (as a result of infection) more easily than at later ages. The frequency and duration of these conditions implies a high discomfort and incur significant costs in relation to drug administration, the need for hospitalization, days of absence from school and work days lost by parents. Recently probiotics, defined as "microorganisms that prove able, once ingested in adequate amounts, exert beneficial functions for the body "have been proposed for the treatment of treatment of respiratory and gastrointestinal infections of childhood but only in recent years have been conducted controlled clinical trials that have conclusively proven effectiveness. All probiotics induce an immune response, the characteristics of which are related to the strain or the mixture of bacteria used. Recent studies have demonstrated positive effects of probiotics on the respiratory system, and in particular on the prevention and reduction of the severity of respiratory infections, probably mediated by an increase of cells that secrete Immunoglobulin A in bronchial mucosa. It 'been shown that probiotics can be a sure way to reduce the risk of early acute otitis media and the use of antibiotics for recurrent respiratory infections during the first year of life. Similar results were seen in a study conducted on a population of 326 children aged between 3 and 5 years, who found a decrease in the incidence of antibiotic use by over 65% and a reduction of days of absence of more than 25% among children treated with a probiotic. Many of the studied effects of probiotics, understandably, refer to the digestive system. These effects relate to both conditions paraphysiological (constipation) and more specifically in situations of illness. Most of the studies carried out in recent years has demonstrated the efficacy of specific probiotics in reducing the symptoms in the pediatric population affected by infectious gastroenteritis. Probiotics reduce the duration of infectious diarrhea by 0.7 days and reduce the frequency of diarrheal episodes in the first few hours. The microbiota on the other hand participates in the function of the mucosal barrier against the adhesion of pathogenic bacteria, crucial time for the start of the infectious process. When this barrier function is altered by chemical agents, by antigens or by stressors of different nature, may manifest intestinal disorders, sometimes due to the growth of bacteria pathogens. Numerous experimental data suggest that probiotics can contribute to the reinforcement of the activities of gut mucosal barrier, in particular aspects affecting the functionality of the intestinal epithelial cells or macrophages. More recently it has been shown that daily intake for 3 months of preparation with probiotics reduce the incidence and severity of the most common respiratory infections and limits the number of days of absence school children during the winter season. It's scientifically recognized as some probiotic effects can also be obtained with the use of inactivated bacteria or bacterial components isolated (eg bacterial DNA). It has been recently proposed a modified definition of probiotic products as "prepared bacterial cells or bacterial components that have a beneficial effect on the health and welfare of the host". Among these products "probiotic-like" fall ingredients object of this study: food ingredients (rice flour and skim milk) fermented, or in which has been made to grow a probiotic (Lactobacillus CBA-L74) that has been inactivated at the end of the fermentation process through a heat treatment. The benefits are attributable to bacterial components that remain in the final product (for example, DNA, cell wall, etc.) and factors produced during the fermentation (short chain fatty acids, bacterial proteins, etc.). The main effects of these bacterial components relate to the stimulation of the gastrointestinal tract associated lymphoid tissue (GALT), through interaction with the immune cells via Toll-like receptors. In addition, some components, such as proteins and peptides, may have a Bifidogenic activity and are available in the literature some studies that have demonstrated the ability of infant formula, milk-based fermented to reduce the severity of episodes of infectious diarrhea in children. With this data, the Commission of the European Society of Nutrition Gastroenterology, Hepatology and Pediatric Nutrition (ESPGHAN) has defined this type of products are not only safe but to determine a potential prebiotic effect and the reduction of the severity of episodes of infectious diarrhea.
This trial is a pilot study to determine the feasibility of a randomized clinical trial comparing a treatment algorithm consisting of a limited number of clinical parameters, rapid molecular viral diagnostics, and serum procalcitonin testing to standard of care for directing antibiotic use in patients with non-pneumonic lower respiratory tract infection. The reduction in antibiotic use in those subjects randomized to the treatment algorithm compared to those randomized to standard care will be determined.
The purpose of this first time in human (FTiH) study is to evaluate the safety, reactogenicity and immunogenicity of several formulations of Respiratory Syncytial Virus (RSV) investigational vaccines in healthy men.
Behavioral change is a key ingredient for successful adoption of better sanitation practices in rural Africa. Sanitation programs have, for some time now, incorporated the need to raise awareness and emphasize the benefits of toilet usage. These endeavors, often combined with subsidies linked to toilet construction by households, seek to create a demand for sanitation goods. Yet, progress in securing the desired outcomes from sanitation programs has been slow. Moreover, benefits of sanitation largely take the form of externalities, which individuals do not take into account when making their own decisions about investments. This makes sanitation promotion at the household level particularly challenging. A new approach to sanitation entails a shift away from the provision of subsidies for toilets to individual households and a promotion of behavioral change at individual-level towards emphasizing collective decision-making in order to produce 'open defecation-free' villages. The objective of the intervention is to reduce the incidence of diseases related to poor sanitation and manage public risks posed by the failure to safely confine the excreta of some community members. The way to achieve this objective is by empowering communities motivated to take collective action. Local governments and other agencies perform a facilitating role. There is a growing recognition that this approach, referred to as Community-Led Total Sanitation (CLTS), may help with the reduction of open defecation practices. However, no rigorous impact evaluation of CLTS has been conducted so far. This randomized controlled trial will study the effect of CLTS in rural Mali. As a result, sound evidence will become available to see to what extent CLTS improves health outcomes and what is driving collective action in order to increase sanitation coverage. The direct recipients of the intervention are members of rural communities in Mali who aspire to live in a cleaner environment. The donor community, international organizations, and governments in developing countries will benefit from having simple and clear evidence on the effectiveness of an innovative program for improving sanitation in rural areas. They will learn whether the program has worked or failed to achieve its objective of eradicating open defecation, and about key factors explaining success and failure.