People contract the plague through the air with an infection to the lungs. It is an extremely dangerous disease and can cause death within 24 hours. Most cases of the plague occur in Africa.

Image: sxc.hu.

Post from: Blisstree

Pneumonic Plague Outbreak

Viral respiratory infections (VRI) are common and easily treatable in general. Colds, tonsilitis, sinusitis, and sore throat mostly only need to run their course. But some other types of VRI, such as pneumonia, bronchitis, mumps or even flu need immediate intervention, otherwise they can be debilitating or life-threatening. If you live in one of the richer countries or where healthcare is easily accessible and affordable, then life expectancy isn’t affected much by these infections. But, in developing/poorer countries –

Every day almost 20,000 children die not so much from disease as from callous complacency, killed by conditions that could be prevented or cured with simple, affordable remedies – vaccinations, bednets, food, clean drinking water and antibiotics.

Partners in Health (PIH) is one such organization that seeks to lower this death rate.

Our service to the destitute sick often starts with providing medical care for diseases and conditions that are common and lethal to the poor, even though they are relatively rare and routinely treatable for the privileged. Whether they are suffering from diarrhea or AIDS, obstructed labor or drug-resistant tuberculosis, people come to us because they are sick and because they know, often for the first time, that they will not be turned away because they cannot pay. The medical care we provide can range from the simple act of providing nutritional supplements to airlifting a dying child to Boston for emergency treatment unavailable in rural Haiti or Rwanda.

PIH has outreaches in Haiti, Rwanda, Peru, Russia, Mexico, Guatemala, Lesotho (southern Africa) and even the USA. The most pressing health issues are HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, women’s health, children’s health, basic life needs – water, food, shelter, and support of community health care workers.

To know more about the organization, visit their website at http://www.pih.org/home.html.

Read about a doctor who uprooted his family from North Carolina to work with Partners in Health in Malawi.

Tags: Partners in Health, non-profit organization, healthcare, virus, viral illnesses, HIV, tuberculosis

Post from: Blisstree

Partners in Health – healthcare for the poor

WORLD HEALTH DAY 2007

Undoubtedly, the issues that I focus on are of global importance. The threat of bird flu is far from over, and if this crisis balloons into a pandemic, 62 million people could die from it. The need for vigilance, dissemination and rapid response is all the more important in a interconnected world. In the coming months, I will also be expanding the scope of this blog to include other viral diseases that impact both international and personal health securities.

Other b5media science and health bloggers participated in World Health Day by posting about other issues of importance. Jul at Veggie Chic rounded up an array of posts that included diabetes, cancer, Alzheimer’s disease, breastfeeding, global light pollution, chronic illness and violence, autism, alcoholism, heart disease, genetics, and even baldiness (because hair loss affects 96% of Caucasian men).

Tags: b5media, blogs, b5media, blogs, health, science, bird flu, influenza, viruses, epidemic, pandemic, alert

Post from: Blisstree

b5media bloggers discuss issues of global importance

April 7 is marked as WORLD HEALTH DAY and this year’s focus is all about “international health security“.

Globalization has brought with it increasing health and security threats, and yet also more opportunities to disseminate information, and rapidly respond to outbreaks that most certainly will affect more than one nation. To quote the issues paper -

(There is a) need to reduce the vulnerability of people around the world to new, acute or rapidly spreading risks to health, particularly those that threaten to cross international borders…

The danger that new diseases to which there is universal vulnerability will cause international harm means that countries can no longer manage certain types of outbreaks as though they were strictly domestic affairs.

Issue #1 on the debate was emerging and re-emerging diseases. Mapped from 1996-2004, Ebola and CCHF were identified as spreading the most in several continents. If data from 2005 were to be included, I suspect influenza H5N1 would compete for that dreaded number 1 spot.

… since then the world has been on constant alert for an influenza epidemic.

Tags: world health, influenza, H5N1, globalization, emerging diseases, international, security

Post from: Blisstree

World health, international security and bird flu

Daniels has what the World Health O. dubbed as XDR-TB, or extremely drug resistant tuberculosis , which is virtually untreatable using current anti-TB drugs. Daniels was considered “uncooperative and a danger to the public” and was ordered locked up because he did not take precautions to avoid infecting others or even to wear a mask in public. Although currently rare in the US, XDR-TB broke out in Africa last year with an alarmingly high mortality rate. XDR-TB is transmitted the same as other forms of tuberculosis – by aerosol droplets expelled by an infection person with a cough, sneeze, kiss, spit, or sharing of utensils.

Now, though TB is a bacterial infection (and technically not a “concern” of this blog), INFLUENZA has the potential of becoming drug-resistant** as well.

In the face of increasing use (and misuse) of flu drugs, the potential of developing drug-resistant flu viruses, the problem of containing H5N1 across much of Asia, and likened to the days when the world dealt with smallpox and leprosy, once again we face the the issue of dealing with infected persons with untreatable symptoms.

Putting people and whole villages quarantined have been in practice and found highly effective. But as H5N1 spreads to less isolated cities and across nations, it is getting much harder to control the transmission of flu viruses.

Now, I have no answers to the issues/questions below, but I pose them because I myself am looking for more concrete solutions to the global health threat of a drug-resistant influenza/bird flu/pandemic flu/ virus.

1. Should uncooperative contagious persons (as Daniels was charged) be locked up?

2. What needs to be done about infected persons wishing to travel? Do airlines or cruise ships have the right to refuse a sick person from boarding? Should there be an international law to govern the travel of contagious persons sick with life-threatening diseases?

3. How long should a quarantine (or shelter-in-place) last? A survey last year posed that Americans will only stay home 7 days at the most in the event of a flu pandemic. The need to work is the top reason for not staying home. Will this number of days be enough?

4. What kind of regulations should there be in place to prevent the overuse of drugs that may cause resistance?

Certainly, there are more questions than the above, but if you have answers or ideas or more questions, feel free to fill the comment and begin a discussion.

**The U.S. Centers for Disease Control reported last year that 92% of influenza A (H3N2) viruses isolated from patients demonstrated an amino acid change that confers resistance to adamantanes. Two of eight type A flu viruses were in fact resistant. Canadian authorities report the same mutations in isolates recently tested. These findings prompted the CDC to recommend against the use of amantadanes for flu treatment last season. In addition, a small study of Japanese children treated with oseltamivir also reported a high frequency of resistant viruses. However, no transmission of neuraminidase inhibitor-resistant viruses in humans has been documented to date.

[Source: MSNBC; image]

Tags: drug-resistance, XDR-TB, tuberculosis, influenza, bird flu, pandemic, oseltamivir, adamantanes, world health, virus, viral disease, viral illness

Post from: Blisstree

Drug-resistant TB patient quarantined for life… and what this means for bird flu