Discussion on the Current State of Global Humanitarian Action
Join us for a discussion with Dr
Unni Karunakara on Wednesday, November 23 at 4:15
pm in the Warren Ross Auditorium, St. Kitts UMHS Campus, as we explore the current state of humanitarian
action and the role and responsibilities of governments.
Dr Unni Karunakara has been a
humanitarian worker and a public health professional for two decades, with
extensive experience in the delivery of health care to neglected populations
affected by conflict, disasters and epidemics in Africa, Asia, and the Americas.
He was Medical Director of the medical humanitarian organisation Médecins Sans
Frontières (MSF)/Doctors Without Borders’ Campaign for Access to Essential
Medicines (2005-2007) and later its International President (2010-2013). Unni
serves on the Board of Directors of Drugs for Neglected Diseases Initiative
(DNDi) India and MSF/Artsen Zonder Grenzen Holland. In 2001, he helped
found vivo, an organization that works toward overcoming and
preventing traumatic stress and its consequences. Dr Karunakara is currently a Senior
Fellow of the Jackson Institute for Global Affairs at Yale University, and a
Visiting Professor at Manipal University.
We are living in times of humanitarian
crises with escalating unmet needs. As needs rise, there has been a
corresponding erosion of humanitarian protections. Humanitarian workers
are being killed in unprecedented numbers and hospitals are no longer safe
spaces for care in times of war.
The delivery of humanitarian
assistance is a delicate balancing act between humanitarian principles and the
practical ground realities. What are some of the challenges faced by
humanitarian agencies in providing life-saving assistance to those affected by
conflict? What needs to be done, and fast? Whose
responsibility is it to stop the atrocities in Aleppo? As the world
watches horrific wars in the Middle East and Africa forcing 60 million people
to leave their homes due to a well-founded fear of persecution, what roles can
global citizens play in the face of the biggest crisis of forced displacement
since WW2?
An international group of clinical geneticists have created an online atlas of human malformation syndromes in diverse populations to assist clinicians with diagnosing syndromic disorders. The website will include photographs and the molecular diagnoses of individuals from geographically diverse locations around the globe. Previously, the only available diagnostic atlas featured photos of patients with northern European ancestry, which often does not represent the characteristics of these diseases in patients from other parts of the world.
"Birth defects remain a leading cause of infant mortality and childhood morbidity throughout the world. An accurate and early syndromic diagnosis is paramount, as late diagnosis can result in a delay in intervention and treatment of accompanying anomalies such as congenital heart defects or endocrine disorders."
Most major malformations are non-specific to a particular syndrome, thus this web site will attempt to show the pattern of malformations that are consistent with a syndrome. The authors foresee this new online tool being used extensively by physicians, genetic counselors, and trainees throughout the world.
GIDEON (Global Infectious Diseases and EpidemiOlogy Network) is a web
application for diagnosis, simulation and informatics in the fields of
Geographic Medicine and Infectious Diseases, and Clinical Microbiology. The UMHS Anne Ross Library is currently running a trial of this valuable database for the next 60 days for the use of our faculty and students. View the 4.5 minute video 'Introduction to GIDEON' below and then you can go on to view the 5 minute video 'Microbiology in GIDEON'.
You may also view a web Tutorial here. Access through the Library Home Page link to our EBSCO resource subscriptions and login. See the Library Desk if you have forgotten your login. Your feedback is welcome!
While we applaud the hard fought gains against poliomyelitis, new infectious diseases are continuing to emerge around the world and old ones are appearing in new locations. Statistics reveal that 25% of global deaths are attributed to infectious organisms. What’s behind this trend? Has human behavior amplified the problem?
The National Academies, advisers to the government of the United States in science, engineering, and medicine, has created a new website to provide you with dependable, objective, and authoritative information to further understand and answer your questions about infectious diseases. Highlighted are topics related to infection, threats, challenges, and prevention.
"The Institute of Medicine (IOM) and the National Research Council (NRC) have conducted numerous studies and workshops on the topic of infectious disease. The information on this site draws from that body of material and on other sources, offering a basic toolkit of facts and concepts to help people understand this complex topic."
Also access more resources from the National Academies, including this companion ebook, as well as other ebooks on important health topics.
New research from the Blacksmith Institute (an environmental health group based in New York City) and their partners The Green Cross Switzerland, has identified the ten worst toxic pollution problems facing the world today. Their research shows that mercury, lead, chromium and other toxic compounds, used in many industrial processes, rob years of healthy life from millions of people each year. Yet the group maintains there are simple fixes that could go far in solving the issue. Click on the post title to read more by David Biello | November 10, 2011 | Scientific American or download the full report from WorstPolluted.org.
The Global Status Report on Alcohol and Health 2011, published by the World Health Organization, presents a comprehensive perspective on the global, regional and country consumption of alcohol. It also portrays patterns of drinking, their health consequences, as well as policy responses in the various countries. The goal of the WHO is to assist countries in their efforts to reduce the harmful use of alcohol, and its health and social consequences. Click for the statistics on individual countries including St. Kitts & Nevis.
The border between the Dominican Republic and Haiti is closed due to the fear the Cholera will spread. Hurricane Tomas performed a spectaculor 90 degree turn north and blew across, complicating matters even further. The situation is Haiti is dire indeed! For a global perspective on cholera, a potentially fatal infectious disease, one of the best sources is the GIDEON online database ($). I have included on this blog post the link to the freely accessible GIDEON blog and a recent posting on the global statistics for this disease.
Disease Facts (GIDEON):
Agent: BACTERIUM. Vibrio cholerae. A facultative gram-negative bacillus. Reservoir: Human Vector: None Vehicle: Water Fecal-oral Seafood (oyster, ceviche) Vegetables Fly Incubation Period: 1d - 5d (range 9h - 6d)
UNDP’s 20th anniversary Human Development Report entitled “The Real Wealth of Nations: Pathways to Human Development” launched today [November 4, 2010] at the United Nations.
"The past 20 years have seen substantial progress in many aspects of human development. Most people today are healthier, live longer, are more educated and have more access to goods and services. Even in countries facing adverse economic conditions, people’s health and education have greatly improved."
The World Health Organization estimates that chronic infectious diseases cause more than 20 percent of all cancers in the world, including liver, cervical and gastric malignancies. Given that infection-related cancers are more frequent and often more severe in people infected with HIV, in resource-poor Uganda, the HIV epidemic is fueling a 20,000-fold upsurge in Kaposi’s sarcoma in adults and Burkitt’s lymphoma in children! Both are disfiguring cancers with abysmal survival rates due to lack of access to early diagnosis and treatment.
"Up to one-quarter of the world’s cancers are attributable to chronic infections,” Hutchinson Center physician-scientist Corey Casper, M.D., M.P.H., scientific co-director of the Uganda Program on Cancer and Infectious Diseases, explained. “Better understanding the link between infectious disease and cancer provides a unique opportunity to reduce cancer-related suffering and death in both resource-rich and resource-poor regions.”
It is the hope of Dr. Casper and Dr. Jackson Orem, Director of the Uganda Cancer Institute, that this partnership
"will benefit the world by identifying new infectious causes of cancer, new ways to prevent infection-associated cancers such as through the development of new vaccines, and new ways to treat such cancers with nontoxic drugs, thus avoiding the need for chemotherapy."
Citation: (2010). Hutchinson to Build First US Cancer Clinic and Training Facility in Africa. Cancer (0008543X), 116(7), 1618-1619. Retrieved from Academic Search Premier database.
Dedicated to the enhancement of women's healthcare globally, with the hope of particularily benefiting those to whom current access to expert clinical information is difficult; the Global Library of Women's Medicine is an online, freely available resource offering comprehensive, up-to-date, peer-reviewed information from across the field of women's health. Derived from the well-known encyclopedic textbook by John J. Sciarra entitled 'Gynecology & Obstetrics', originally published in 1934, online content has grown to include close to 500 chapters written by over 650 expert contributors; along with surgical videos, diagnostic atlases, laboratory tests, and other supporting information to promote safer motherhood.
Edited by Richard Wootton, et al Royal Society of Medicine Press/IDRC 2009 e-ISBN 978-1-55250-396-6
"Health care is primarily about people-to-people interactions. It is about understanding, diagnosis, physical contact, communication, and, ultimately, providing care. By bringing people together, telecommunication technologies have the potential to improve both the quality of and access to health care in the remotest areas of the developing world. Telemedicine offers solutions for emergency medical assistance, long-distance consultation, administration and logistics, supervision and quality assurance, and education and training for healthcare professionals and providers.
This book aims to redress the relative lack of published information on successful telehealth solutions in the developing world. It presents real-life stories from Asia, Africa, and Latin America. It is rich in practical experience and will be of interest to health professionals, development workers, and e-health and telehealth proponents interested in learning about, or contributing to the implementation of, appropriate solutions for 80% of the world’s population."
"Global Health is the only specialist bibliographic, abstracting and indexing database dedicated to public health research and practice!
Derived from over 3500 journals, plus reports, books and conferences, Global Health (CABI) contains over 1.2 million scientific records from 1973 to the present. Over 90,000 records added each year, and over 95% of these records include an abstract. Publications from over 158 countries in 50 languages are abstracted,.. and 40% of material is unique to the database."
Waging Peace through Neglected Tropical Disease Control: A US Foreign Policy for the Bottom Billion by Peter J. Hotez1 & Tommy G. Thompson. [click on main title]
The Public Library of Science or PLoS provides this and other excellent open access peer-reviewed journals such as:
This international journal is a not-for-profit, electronic, peer reviewed academic publication. It aims to further rural and remote health education, research and practice. Note some recent articles of interest to medical/nursing students and educators:
...facilitating communication between the Library and the Faculty, students, staff and community partners of the University of Medicine & Health Sciences (UMHS).
