There are many arguments in academic circles about how to frame and think about addiction. In my personal experience, I find one of the most helpful ways to think of addiction is the classic framework that views addiction as a ‘biopsychosocial’ disease. I like this framework because it helps us identify and then examine all of the key ingredients that go into forming and maintaining a substance use disorder.

Our second year Infectious Diseases fellow Dr. Cook presented this work on serratia endocarditis at 2022 IDWeek in Washington DC! Here at AHWFB Health we have been seeing an increasing number of infections of the heart due to the bacteria Serratia marcescens in persons who inject drugs. This is a reddish-orange bacteria commonly found in soil and water that is not a usual cause of serious infections.

Infectious diseases and addiction One of the most frequent questions I am asked is, “What does infectious diseases have to do with addiction!? How did you get into this?” I began my fellowship in infectious diseases at AHWFB in Winston Salem, NC in 2014. At this time prescription opioid prescribing was still near its peak.

How many vaccines do we need?

Tracking the Outbreak Learning lessons from the emergence of SARS-CoV-2 and the COVID-19 pandemic, we have launched a new website tracking the reported number of Monkeypox cases in North Carolina using data reported by the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services (NCDHHS) as well as across the United States using data provided by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Monkeypox virus (MPX), a double stranded DNA