Global Health

World population will reach 9 billion by 2050. Photograph: Peter Macdiarmid/Getty Images

Economic and environmental catastrophes unavoidable unless rich countries cut consumption and global population stabilises

guardian.co.uk - by John Vidal - April 25, 2012

World population needs to be stabilised quickly and high consumption in rich countries rapidly reduced to avoid "a downward spiral of economic and environmental ills", warns a major report from the Royal Society.

Contraception must be offered to all women who want it and consumption cut to reduce inequality, says the study published on Thursday, which was chaired by Nobel prize-winning biologist Sir John Sulston.

WHO

Each year infectious diseases kill 3.5 million people – mostly the poor and young children who live in low and middle income countries. Research can change this and bring health to many more people. TDR has brought people and institutions together to identify and advocate for the research priorities that will bring new and innovative approaches and products.

The result is Global Report for Research on Infectious Diseases of Poverty , which provides a new cross-disciplinary approach and analysis. It is essential reading for policy-makers, funders and research leaders.

Low and middle income countries would benefit from the establishment of a new indicator that uses the impact of disease as a measurement of social and economic development. That is one of numerous recommendations for a more multidisciplinary approach coming from a new report released today at a European Commission meeting. The Global Report on Research for Infectious Diseases of Poverty, published by TDR, the Special Programme for Research and Training in Tropical Diseases, offers new ways of improving public health in low and middle income countries through research.

Dear Friends,

I agree with Eric- big implications, along with Janet's Sharklet forward (and the myriad of other antibacterial metallic compounds out there), make for a greater possibility of mitigating our losing fight with bacteria.  

Out in our neck of the woods, the Black Canyon Infectious Disease Forecasting Station has produced hundreds of forecast libraries for our pathogen-antibiotic resistance pairs.  How we use this information is to forecast 5 to 10 years out where the current trends of antimicrobial resistance is taking us.  Those of us who are Trekkies call the process "frequency-modulated shielding for the hospital".  What is interesting is our patterns are highly local-specific.  Meaning, if you use standard antibiotic references in the clinic such as the Sanford Guide to Antimicrobial Therapy, you would be grossly misled in terms of what antibiotics are effective against, say, Pseudomonas.  Most physicians do not use local antibiograms, and we are the first (to our knowledge) to incorporate forecasting in the decision process of what antibiotics to allow for use in the hospital.