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The United Nations is seeking to improve electronic communication for health workers in Africa. Workers in rural areas would have a better way to get training, information and advice from doctors hundreds or even thousands of kilometers away.
In two thousand five, the World Health Assembly passed a resolution urging countries to plan for “eHealth” services. The idea is to look for ways to use modern information and communications technologies to strengthen health systems.
The World Health Organization says Africa is behind other parts of the world in treating H.I.V/AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria. So the United Nations Economic and Social Council is supporting the expansion of telecommunications technology for health care workers. Telemedicine is another term for eHealth.
Stennar Pedersen is the director of the Norwegian Center for Telemedicine at the University Hospital of North Norway. Doctor Pedersen is working with the W.H.O. He recently met with West African health officials in the Ghanaian capital, Accra. He says the technology can provide easier access to medical specialists and make it easier for people to seek medical information themselves.
Elias Sory is the director general of health services in Ghana. He says eHealth will offer a way to reduce the effects of health worker shortages and make it easier to train existing workers. Doctor Sory says the technology will also make it easier for doctors at Ghana’s main teaching hospital, Korle Bu, to share their knowledge.
ELIAS SORY: “If you get a doctor who is away in the village and has come across a case he or she thinks is beyond him or her, why cannot that doctor be able to link up easily with a senior doctor in Korle Bu to get advice on it? So we are not there. But eHealth will get us there.
“The other thing is that medicine is dynamic. Why cannot we use that to train? We do not need all people to come to Korle Bu in order to be upgraded in knowledge; eHealth can bridge that gap. And to me medical education is even one of the most important ingredients in eHealth.”
Services must be shaped to fit each country’s health care needs and level of technological development. Another issue is patient privacy. The hope is that health ministries will together develop policies on collecting and storing electronic health information about individuals.
Posted 11 months, 3 weeks ago. Add a comment
We all know that some people do not seem as emotionally strong as others when life gets difficult. But why is that? A study published in two thousand three in the journal Science offered an answer.
The study followed almost eight hundred fifty people from birth through age twenty-six. Researchers found that those with a short version of a certain gene were more likely to get depressed after a sad or difficult experience.
They found that people with the normal length of the gene were better able to weather life’s storms. The gene is a transporter of serotonin, a brain chemical involved with mood and desire for food.
The two thousand three study captured attention among mental health professionals, and popular culture. In fact, Science magazine recognized the discovery of “genes for mental illness” as the number two “Breakthrough of the Year.” The winner was observations about mysteries of the universe.
Last week, however, other researchers published findings of a large new study. They report finding no link between the serotonin transporter gene and the risk of depression. The findings appeared in the Journal of the American Medical Association.
Neil Risch is director of the University of California, San Francisco, Institute for Human Genetics and a leader of the new study. He says the earlier study gained so much recognition, it became — in his words — “fixed in many people’s minds as true.”
The National Institute of Mental Health and Kaiser Permanente Northern California also took part in the latest study.
The researchers used information from fourteen studies involving more than fourteen thousand patients. The scientists examined the data using the same measures as the two thousand three study.
They found that the risk of depression was not higher among those with the shorter gene. But they also found that stressful events themselves did appear to increase the risk for depression.
Neuroscientist Avshalom Caspi, then at Kings College London, led the two thousand three study. He is now at Duke University in North Carolina. He has criticized the new study as incomplete. He says it ignores evidence that supports the original research.
Peter Zandi is a genetic researcher at John Hopkins University School of Public Health in Maryland. He agrees that this latest study is not the final word.
PETER ZANDI: “After many years of trying to figure out what is going on with the genetic cause of depression, we’re still not there yet.”
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The International Red Cross Movement grew out of a major battle in the unification of Italy. The Battle of Solferino took place one hundred fifty years ago, in June of eighteen fifty-nine. This past week, volunteers from Red Cross and Red Crescent societies around the world gathered in Solferino to mark the anniversary.
About eight thousand people marched in a torch-lit event called the Fiaccolata. They followed in the footsteps of those who took injured soldiers from Solferino to the nearest village, Castiglione.
Hannigton Segarunaya, national youth president of the Ugandan Red Cross Society, says the visit made him want to work harder to help people.
HANNIGTON SEGARUNAYA: “I am going back to Uganda in Africa to make more moves for humanity. I know where the young people come together, we have the possibility of doing whatever it takes to make the world a better place.”
In the battle, allied French and Sardinian troops defeated the Austrian army. Around six thousand men were killed and more than thirty thousand were wounded.
Yet, says Swiss historian Francois Bugnion, the battle lasted only twelve hours. He says a Swiss businessman named Henri Dunant was horrified by what he saw.
FRANCOIS BUGNION: “Thousands of wounded were brought to the next town of Castiliogne where he arrived and there was practically no medical assistance. So he saw hundreds of men, thousands of men, suffering awfully from very deep wounds and left to die without any real assistance.”
He says Henri Dunant quickly took action. The businessman got local women to provide food and water. He also got them to dress the wounds of soldiers without concern for their nationality.
Dunant later wrote a book called “A Memory of Solferino.” In it, he launchedtwo ideas. One was the idea of voluntary relief societies to provide assistance to the wounded or other people. This led to the Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement.
The second idea was a treaty protecting the wounded and medical personnel on the field of battle. This, explains historian Francois Bugnion, is the origin of the Geneva Conventions.
Stephen Ryan is the communications officer for youth and volunteers at the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies. He says it is important to get young people involved in volunteer work at an early age.
STEPHEN RYAN: “Young people need to be given the opportunity to really feel like they are making a difference in the world. It gives people the opportunity to make change that they would like to see in the world.”
Posted 11 months, 3 weeks ago. Add a comment
Cardiovascular disease is the world’s leading cause of death. It includes heart attack, stroke and high blood pressure.
Over the years, researchers have identified several substances in the blood that can serve as what they call cardiac biomarkers. These are used to measure the presence and development of cardiovascular disease.
Researchers have increasingly tried to use these biomarkers to identify people who are at high risk of developing heart disease. But a new study has found that they offer little help in this way.
A team from Massachusetts General Hospital and Sweden’s Lund University studied how effective the biomarkers are as predictors. Thomas Wang at the Mass General Heart Center was the senior author of the study.
THOMAS WANG: “What we found is that, in fact, even after measuring those additional biomarkers that there wasn’t a great deal of benefit in terms of understanding who was more likely to develop heart disease”
Doctor Wang says they did identify some combinations of biomarkers that improved predictions of heart attacks and strokes. But, he says, there is not enough evidence to justify measuring these in everybody.
THOMAS WANG: “It’s still possible that in certain patients, measuring these biomarkers would be helpful. There are some patients for whom physicians are really on the fence about whether to give one therapy or another. And in those cases having the biomarker which adds a little bit of information may be helpful in terms of decision making. But for the majority of patients, having the information of the biomarker probably wouldn’t make a difference.”
Doctor Wang hopes future research will discover biomarkers that are better able to predict the risk of cardiovascular disease. But for now, he says, doctors should depend on traditional risk factors. These include a history of high blood pressure, high cholesterol, tobacco use, diabetes, obesity, physical inactivity or poor nutrition.
A separate study found no support for a theory that a biomarker called C-reactive protein causes heart disease. Earlier research suggested that the more of the protein in people’s blood, the more likely they are to develop heart disease. The new study confirmed a link, but did not find evidence that the C-reactive protein causes the disease.
Both studies appeared in the July first issue of Journal of the American Medical Association.
The World Health Organization estimates that cardiovascular disease killed seventeen and a half million people in two thousand five. That was thirty percent of all deaths. Eight out of ten happened in low and middle income countries. At current growth rates, the W.H.O. expects the number to reach twenty million by two thousand fifteen
Posted 11 months, 3 weeks ago. Add a comment
Thirty-six volunteers in South Africa will test the safety of an African-developed vaccine against H.I.V. The tests are the first step in human clinical trials of two vaccine candidates developed at the University of Cape Town.
These experimental AIDS vaccines are the first from Africa to reach testing in people. The National Institutes of Health in the United States provided assistance. Testing with twelve people began earlier this year in Boston, Massachusetts.
South Africa has more than five million people infected with H.I.V., the largest number of any country.
South Africa launched the tests last week as the International AIDS Society held a conference in Cape Town. Other human trials of possible vaccines are taking place around the world. Scientists hope to get some results later this year.
But during last week’s conference, experts reported the first decrease in international financing for AIDS vaccine research. They say funding dropped from about nine hundred thirty million dollars in two thousand seven to eight hundred seventy million last year.
Also at the conference, scientists presented the latest findings about new mothers infected with H.I.V. Two studies showed ways in which anti-H.I.V. drugs could permit infected women to breastfeed their newborns with less risk of passing the virus to them. The research was done in Cameroon, Ivory Coast, South Africa and Zambia.
In one study, infected mothers began to take three anti-H.I.V. drugs while breastfeeding for up to six months. In a second study, the babies were given medicine, instead of their mothers. The babies received one drug every day during six months of breastfeeding.
The researchers said both methods greatly reduced the risk of H.I.V. infection.
Laura Guay is vice president of research at the Elizabeth Glaser Pediatric AIDS Foundation, which supported the research. Doctor Guay says the problem in sub-Saharan Africa is the limited availability of anti-retroviral drugs.
LAURA GUAY: “We know only about thirty-three percent of women have access to a program that actually has services in place to prevent mother-to-child transmission. So the first challenge is, how do we reach all the women who do not have access to a prevention program?”
In other new research, a study has found that circumcision does not decrease the risk that H.I.V. positive men will infect women. The findings, from Uganda, are in the medical journal, The Lancet
Posted 11 months, 3 weeks ago. Add a comment
The H1N1 flu virus that has spread around the world is especially risky for pregnant women. If they become infected, especially after the first three months of pregnancy, they can get very sick or even die. Cases of fetal death have also been reported.
Pregnant women face an increased risk even during outbreaks of seasonal influenza. But the new H1N1 flu has been affecting a younger age group than seasonal flu epidemics.
The W.H.O. says pregnant women should take the antiviral drug Tamiflu as soon as possible after they show signs of illness. The drug is also called oseltamivir.
The agency says treatment should begin immediately and not wait for the results of laboratory tests. The effect are greatest when given within forty-eight hours. But experts say the medicine could still do some good even if there is a delay.
Since April, more than one thousand deaths have been reported from the H1N1 virus, commonly called swine flu. But so far the virus has not shown itself to be more severe than seasonal flu.
The World Health Organization has predicted that the H1N1 virus will infect at least two billion people in the next two years. Agency chief Margaret Chan has expressed concern there is not a good process in place to produce enough vaccine against the virus.
In the United States, there are now guidelines for the use of H1N1 vaccine when it becomes available. An advisory committee of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said there are five groups that should be vaccinated first.
These include pregnant women and people who live with or care for children younger than six months. They also include workers in health care and emergency services, and people between six months and twenty-four years of age.
The fifth group on the list is people twenty-five to sixty-four with chronic health problems.
If vaccine supplies are limited, then the committee says two groups of children should be vaccinated before other children. One group is those who are six months to four years old. The other is those five to eighteen with chronic medical conditions
Posted 11 months, 3 weeks ago. Add a comment
