A ‘tripledemic’ looms this winter, experts warn
UCI Health expert says upward trend in regional infections unsurprising
December 13, 2023
IN THE NEWS: The colder months bring with them a host of viruses. This year, experts are keeping an eye on the infection rates of COVID-19, influenza and respiratory syncytial virus (RSV).
UCI Health infectious disease expert Dr. Shruti Gohil joined LAist 89.3 Air Talk to discuss the outlook for illnesses in the region.
“For [COVID-19, flu and RSV], we have good numbers. COVID is active and positive tests are slightly increasing as we expected after the holidays. Influenza tends to see its peak sometime around January or February. For RSV, if you look at the curve for positives a year ago, we’re following almost that same climb. None of this is surprising.”
Gohil encourages people to get vaccinated to receive the greatest possible protection against these viruses.
Gohil, a board-certified infectious disease expert, is the associate medical director for UCI Health Epidemiology and Infection Prevention and an assistant professor at the UCI School of Medicine. Her clinical interests include hospital epidemiology, infection prevention, communicable disease transmission and multidrug resistant organism infections.
She led the UCI Health response to the novel coronavirus pandemic, including the clinical and epidemiologic assessment of healthcare providers and patients, COVID-19 testing and vaccination, exposure definition and response, contact tracing, vaccination, and infection prevention strategies to limit viral spread.
Gohil leads several national studies to assess patient risk for multidrug-resistant bacterial infections and to prompt physicians to limit the use of extended-spectrum antibacterial drugs in real time. This includes the INSPIRE Demonstration Project, which was accepted in 2022 by the National Institutes of Health Pragmatic Trials Collaboratory, a portfolio of large-scale clinical trials embedded in U.S. healthcare systems.
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