Global Health

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This Working Group is focused on exploring current and emerging states of health and human security worldwide.

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Aboubacar Conte	admin	Albert Gomez	Allan	Anthony	Carrielaj
Chisina Kapungu	ChrisAllen	Corey Watts	CPetry	DeannaPolk	Elhadj Drame
Gavin Macgregor...	Hadiatou Balde	hank_test	jranck	JSole	Kathy Gilbeaux
Lisa Stelly Thomas	loguest	Maeryn Obley	mdmcdonald	MDMcDonald_me_com	Mika Shimizu
mike kraft	njchapman	Norea	Tiaji Salaam-Blyther	tnovotny

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The Global Report for Research on Infectious Diseases of Poverty

Tue, 2012-04-17 13:53 — Kathy Gilbeaux

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.

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An Interview with TDR’s New Director, John Reeder

Thu, 2012-04-05 23:33 — Kathy Gilbeaux

TDR Director John Reeder with Pan American Health Organization Director Mirta Roses Periago

(TDR) - The Special Programme for Research and Training in Tropical Diseases.

TDR’s new Director, John Reeder, is overseeing the development of a new strategy that will create a smaller and more focused organization. He has been working with staff, co-sponsors, governing bodies, funders and other key stakeholders to identify the unique values and skills that TDR can bring to the global health research field. He wants to provide more impact and value to the low and middle income countries burdened with infectious diseases of poverty like malaria and river blindness. One of the ways he is doing this is by engaging more closely with the World Health Organization’s regional offices. Recently he met with the Pan American Health Office’s Director Mirta Roses to discuss research strategies and collaboration – the first of visits to all regional offices.

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Handheld Plasma Flashlight Rids Skin of Pathogens

Thu, 2012-04-05 18:09 — Kathy Gilbeaux

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.

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Dr. Kim and the Future of the World Bank

Sun, 2012-03-25 15:42 — Kathy Gilbeaux

Photograph by Ramin Talaie/Bloomberg/Getty Images

by John Cassidy - newyorker.com - March 23, 2012

So President Obama’s pick to head the World Bank wasn’t Larry Summers, and it wasn’t Susan Rice, and it wasn’t Jeff Sachs. It was Jim Yong Kim, the president of Dartmouth College—a man most Americans have never heard of. . .

. . . Kim, a Korean-born physician and anthropologist who taught at Harvard Medical School, is a pioneering figure in building public-health delivery systems for developing countries. . .

. . . In the past twenty years, the biggest change in the field of economic development and poverty reduction has been the integration of public-health initiatives with traditional lending programs.

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Firefly Technology Sheds New Light

Thu, 2012-03-22 13:34 — Kathy Gilbeaux

The light-producing enzyme in the firefly is the key to rapid pathogen detection // Source: cri.cn

submitted by Luis Kun

Homeland Security News Wire - March 22, 2012

A new device, employing the same chemical which lights up fireflies, can easily detect food contamination; the researchers who developed the system hope it will soon be used to test for other diseases, including HIV-AIDS.

Food contamination can now be detected easily by a new device based on the chemical which lights up fireflies.

The Bioluminescent Assay in Real-Time (BART), jointly invented by Professor Jim Murray of the Cardiff University’s School of Biosciences and Dr. Laurence Tisi of Lumora, allows users to test rapidly and simply for food poisoning bacteria. Professor Murray and his partners at technology company Lumora Ltd. hope to develop the system to test for other diseases, including HIV-AIDS.

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Antimicrobial Resistance in the European Union and the World

Fri, 2012-03-16 23:42 — Kathy Gilbeaux

Dr Margaret Chan
Director-General of the World Health Organization

The EU’s contributions to the solutions of the global antimicrobial resistance problem Keynote address at the conference on Combating antimicrobial resistance: time for action
Copenhagen, Denmark

14 March 2012

Your Royal Highness Crown Princess Mary, excellencies, distinguished delegates, experts, representatives of regulatory authorities, agencies for disease control, and civil society, ladies and gentlemen,

You are meeting to explore what EU Member States can do to solve what you rightly recognize as a serious, growing, and global threat to health.

Drug-resistant pathogens are notorious globe-trotters. They travel well in infected air passengers and through global trade in food. In addition, the growth of medical tourism has accelerated the international spread of hospital-acquired infections that are frequently resistant to multiple drugs.

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http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2012-03/uoc--lde030912.php

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An Official American Thoracic Society Workshop Report: Climate Change and Human Health

Thu, 2012-03-15 21:13 — Kathy Gilbeaux

Proceedings of the American Thoracic Society - March 15, 2012

Worldwide increases in the incidences of asthma, allergies, infectious and cardiovascular diseases will result from a variety of impacts of global climate change, including rising temperatures, worsening ozone levels in urban areas, the spread of desertification, and expansions of the ranges of communicable diseases as the planet heats up, the professional organization representing respiratory and airway physicians stated in a new position paper released today.

The paper is published online and in print in the Proceedings of the American Thoracic Society.

An Official American Thoracic Society Workshop Report: Climate Change and Human Health

http://pats.atsjournals.org/content/9/1/3.abstract

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Colonialism in Africa Helped Launch the HIV Epidemic a Century Ago

Thu, 2012-03-08 21:12 — Kathy Gilbeaux

To export ivory and rubber from what is now Cameroon, traders created routes that enabled the first cases of HIV to reach large population centers. This photograph is from a collection by Alice Seeley Harris and her husband, John Harris, who were missionaries in the Belgian Congo at the turn of the century. They documented the horrific abuses of the indigenous people of the Congo by Belgian King Leopold II's regime. Anti-Slavery International/PANOS

Without “The Scramble for Africa,” it’s hard to see how HIV could have made it out of southeastern Cameroon to eventually kill tens of millions of people, according to a new book by Craig Timberg and Daniel Halperin.

By Craig Timberg and Daniel Halperin - The Washington Post - February 27, 2012

We are unlikely to ever know all the details of the birth of the AIDS epidemic. But a series of recent genetic discoveries have shed new light on it, starting with the moment when a connection from chimp to human changed the course of history.

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Kenyans Going Mobile to Stay Healthy - medAfrica

Tue, 2012-03-06 20:47 — Kathy Gilbeaux

submitted by Albert Gomez

by Zak Stone - good.is - January 6, 2012

More than 25 million Kenyans have mobile phones, making apps a logical way to disseminate essential information about health. MedAfrica, a new smartphone app, has positioned itself as the go-to service for wired Kenyans in search of reputable health care. The app operates like a mobile yellow pages for medical services, providing basic listings of professionals in the area. Additional features include a symptom checker for patients to compare their ailments with different diseases and make decisions about seeking medical attention.

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