The Eighth World Congress of Pediatric Cardiology and Cardiac Surgery (WCPCCS) will be held in Washington DC, USA, from Saturday, 26 August, 2023 to Friday, 1 September, 2023, inclusive. The Eighth World Congress of Pediatric Cardiology and Cardiac Surgery will be the largest and most comprehensive scientific meeting dedicated to paediatric and congenital cardiac care ever held. At the time of the writing of this manuscript, The Eighth World Congress of Pediatric Cardiology and Cardiac Surgery has 5,037 registered attendees (and rising) from 117 countries, a truly diverse and international faculty of over 925 individuals from 89 countries, over 2,000 individual abstracts and poster presenters from 101 countries, and a Best Abstract Competition featuring 153 oral abstracts from 34 countries. For information about the Eighth World Congress of Pediatric Cardiology and Cardiac Surgery, please visit the following website: [www.WCPCCS2023.org]. The purpose of this manuscript is to review the activities related to global health and advocacy that will occur at the Eighth World Congress of Pediatric Cardiology and Cardiac Surgery.

Acknowledging the need for urgent change, we wanted to take the opportunity to bring a common voice to the global community and issue the Washington DC WCPCCS Call to Action on Addressing the Global Burden of Pediatric and Congenital Heart Diseases. A copy of this Washington DC WCPCCS Call to Action is provided in the Appendix of this manuscript. This Washington DC WCPCCS Call to Action is an initiative aimed at increasing awareness of the global burden, promoting the development of sustainable care systems, and improving access to high quality and equitable healthcare for children with heart disease as well as adults with congenital heart disease worldwide.

We assessed Oxivir Tb wipe disinfectant residue in a controlled laboratory setting to evaluate low environmental contamination of SARS-CoV-2. Frequency of viral RNA detection was not statistically different between intervention and control arms on day 3 (P=0.14). Environmental contamination viability is low; residual disinfectant did not significantly contribute to low contamination.

This retrospective review of 4-year surveillance data revealed a higher central line-associated bloodstream infection (CLABSI) rate in non-Hispanic Black patients and higher catheter-associated urinary tract infection (CAUTI) rates in Asian and non-Hispanic Black patients compared with White patients despite similar catheter utilization between the groups.

We present WALLABY pilot data release 1, the first public release of H i pilot survey data from the Wide-field ASKAP L-band Legacy All-sky Blind Survey (WALLABY) on the Australian Square Kilometre Array Pathfinder. Phase 1 of the WALLABY pilot survey targeted three $60\,\mathrm{deg}^{2}$ regions on the sky in the direction of the Hydra and Norma galaxy clusters and the NGC 4636 galaxy group, covering the redshift range of $z \lesssim 0.08$ . The source catalogue, images and spectra of nearly 600 extragalactic H i detections and kinematic models for 109 spatially resolved galaxies are available. As the pilot survey targeted regions containing nearby group and cluster environments, the median redshift of the sample of $z \approx 0.014$ is relatively low compared to the full WALLABY survey. The median galaxy H i mass is $2.3 \times 10^{9}\,{\rm M}_{{\odot}}$ . The target noise level of $1.6\,\mathrm{mJy}$ per 30′′ beam and $18.5\,\mathrm{kHz}$ channel translates into a $5 \sigma$ H i mass sensitivity for point sources of about $5.2 \times 10^{8} \, (D_{\rm L} / \mathrm{100\,Mpc})^{2} \, {\rm M}_{{\odot}}$ across 50 spectral channels ( ${\approx} 200\,\mathrm{km \, s}^{-1}$ ) and a $5 \sigma$ H i column density sensitivity of about $8.6 \times 10^{19} \, (1 + z)^{4}\,\mathrm{cm}^{-2}$ across 5 channels ( ${\approx} 20\,\mathrm{km \, s}^{-1}$ ) for emission filling the 30′′ beam. As expected for a pilot survey, several technical issues and artefacts are still affecting the data quality. Most notably, there are systematic flux errors of up to several 10% caused by uncertainties about the exact size and shape of each of the primary beams as well as the presence of sidelobes due to the finite deconvolution threshold. In addition, artefacts such as residual continuum emission and bandpass ripples have affected some of the data. The pilot survey has been highly successful in uncovering such technical problems, most of which are expected to be addressed and rectified before the start of the full WALLABY survey.

After implementing a coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) infection prevention bundle, the incidence rate ratio (IRR) of non–severe acute respiratory coronavirus virus 2 (non–SARS-CoV-2) hospital-acquired respiratory viral infection (HA-RVI) was significantly lower than the IRR from the pre–COVID-19 period (IRR, 0.322; 95% CI, 0.266–0.393; P < .01). However, HA-RVIs incidence rates mirrored community RVI trends, suggesting that hospital interventions alone did not significantly affect HA-RVI incidence.

We present the most sensitive and detailed view of the neutral hydrogen ( ${\rm H\small I}$ ) emission associated with the Small Magellanic Cloud (SMC), through the combination of data from the Australian Square Kilometre Array Pathfinder (ASKAP) and Parkes (Murriyang), as part of the Galactic Australian Square Kilometre Array Pathfinder (GASKAP) pilot survey. These GASKAP-HI pilot observations, for the first time, reveal ${\rm H\small I}$ in the SMC on similar physical scales as other important tracers of the interstellar medium, such as molecular gas and dust. The resultant image cube possesses an rms noise level of 1.1 K ( $1.6\,\mathrm{mJy\ beam}^{-1}$ ) $\mathrm{per}\ 0.98\,\mathrm{km\ s}^{-1}$ spectral channel with an angular resolution of $30^{\prime\prime}$ ( ${\sim}10\,\mathrm{pc}$ ). We discuss the calibration scheme and the custom imaging pipeline that utilises a joint deconvolution approach, efficiently distributed across a computing cluster, to accurately recover the emission extending across the entire ${\sim}25\,\mathrm{deg}^2$ field-of-view. We provide an overview of the data products and characterise several aspects including the noise properties as a function of angular resolution and the represented spatial scales by deriving the global transfer function over the full spectral range. A preliminary spatial power spectrum analysis on individual spectral channels reveals that the power law nature of the density distribution extends down to scales of 10 pc. We highlight the scientific potential of these data by comparing the properties of an outflowing high-velocity cloud with previous ASKAP+Parkes ${\rm H\small I}$ test observations.

We performed surveillance for hospital-acquired COVID-19 (HA-COVID-19) and compared time-based, electronic definitions to real-time adjudication of the most likely source of acquisition. Without real-time adjudication, nearly 50% of HA-COVID-19 cases identified using electronic definitions were misclassified. Both electronic and traditional contact tracing methods likely underestimated the incidence of HA-COVID-19.

The paradoxical relationship between standardized infection ratio and standardized utilization ratio for catheter-associated urinary tract infections (CAUTIs) in contrast to central-line–associated bloodstream infections (CLABSIs), in addition to CAUTI definition challenges, incentivizes hospitals to focus their prevention efforts on urine culture stewardship rather than catheter avoidance and care.

The first demonstration of laser action in ruby was made in 1960 by T. H. Maiman of Hughes Research Laboratories, USA. Many laboratories worldwide began the search for lasers using different materials, operating at different wavelengths. In the UK, academia, industry and the central laboratories took up the challenge from the earliest days to develop these systems for a broad range of applications. This historical review looks at the contribution the UK has made to the advancement of the technology, the development of systems and components and their exploitation over the last 60 years.

We describe the frequency of pediatric healthcare-associated infections (HAIs) identified through prospective surveillance in community hospitals participating in an infection control network. Over a 6-year period, 84 HAIs were identified. Of these 51 (61%) were pediatric central-line–associated bloodstream infections, and they often occurred in children <1 year of age.

Background: Surgical site infections (SSIs) among cardiothoracic (CT) patients are associated with high rates of morbidity and mortality. Data are limited regarding SSI incidence among pediatric patients undergoing primary reparative procedures for congenital cardiac disease. Published evidence on targeted interventions to prevent pediatric CT-surgery SSI is lacking. We aimed to establish standard metrics for measuring CT-surgery SSI incidence and to implement bundled interventions for SSI prevention. Methods: A dedicated CT-surgery SSI prevention workgroup was established, consisting of hospital leadership, CT surgeons, cardiac critical care unit staff, anesthesia, perfusion, environmental services, instrument sterile processing, risk management, infection prevention and antibiotic stewardship. We created a standard definition for CT-surgery SSI and calculated retrospective SSI rates over a 24-month period (2017–2019). The outcome measured was incidence of CT-surgery SSI per 100 primary cardiac procedures with delayed ( 3 days after primary surgery) or non-delayed chest closure. The difference in proportion of SSI was reported separately for delayed closure and non-delayed closure; statistical significance was tested using a Fisher’s Exact test. We identified many potential improvement opportunities, including gaps in SSI surveillance, poor compliance with daily bathing, inconsistent perioperative antimicrobial prophylaxis, lack of controlled environment for bedside chest closures, and lapses in environmental cleaning. These issues informed the enhanced SSI prevention bundle, which included education on sterility with the operating room (OR) staff. Protocols for care of cardiac patients with delayed chest closures focused on universal daily and preoperative chlorhexidine baths. In addition, the bundle incorporated stringent environmental cleaning interventions including scheduled decluttering of patient rooms and clinical spaces, terminal cleaning of patient rooms prior to returning from the OR, and use of adjunctive ultraviolet light for the daily cleaning of operating rooms and patient rooms at discharge. Results: Surveillance definition of microbiological growth from a clinical sample obtained within 30 days of primary cardiac procedure sufficiently captured all CT-surgery SSIs. Of 551 CT-surgery procedures prior to intervention, 91 (17%) had delayed final operative closures. Prior to the intervention, 16 SSIs were identified from July 2017 – May 2019 for a rate of 2.90 per /100 procedures, and was higher among patients with delayed chest closure 6.59 per /100 procedures (6 SSIs/91 procedures) versus those with primary chest closure 2.17 per /100 procedures (10 SSIs/460 procedures; P = 0.034). Gram-positive organisms, including coagulase coagulase-negative Staphylococci, were most frequently identified as the causative organisms for SSIs. Compliance with bundled intervention, rolled out over a 2-month period, was associated with an immediate decrease in the number of SSIs for primary and delayed chest closures 6SSIs /185 procedures in the initial quarters (August – December 2019) of the post-intervention period. However, this decrease was not reflected in the overall rate (3.24 per /100 procedures) due to fewer procedures performed. Data collection to measure sustainability is ongoing. Conclusions: Bundled interventions targeting skin antisepsis and environmental cleaning may be associated with a decrease in SSIs among pediatric CT-surgery patients. Ongoing surveillance is required to determine sustainability of these interventions.

Funding: None

Disclosures: None

We implemented universal severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) testing of patients undergoing surgical procedures as a means to conserve personal protective equipment (PPE). The rate of asymptomatic coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) was <0.5%, which suggests that early local public health interventions were successful. Although our protocol was resource intensive, it prevented exposures to healthcare team members.