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Innovation and cooperative approach essential for One Health
A cooperative approach to further innovation in animal and public health is necessary. Hand-in-hand with consumer acceptance of new technologies, it is also essential to foster a harmonised and predictable regulatory framework in which innovation should be a key...
Why is it that in the past there were very few diseases than today?
The ever increasing human population and greater global connectivity today, provides rapid dissemination of infectious diseases from the initial focus. Whereas in previous centuries a disease focus might have died out through failing to establish a chain of transmission, now it has the opportunity to rapidly recruit susceptible hosts on a global stage. To draw an analogy, there is now so much available tinder on the forest floor that the flickering early flame can rapidly be fanned into a forest fire. In support of this thesis, consider the following:
Is there rationale for WHO shifting investment from infectious to NCDs?
This blog entry will try and elucidate the shift in investment from infectious to non-communicable diseases by the World Health Organisation (WHO) drawing successes from the Millennium Development Goals 6: “To combat HIV/AIDS, malaria, and other diseases”. Initially this blog entry will provide an overview of the management strategies and progress that has been made in addressing infectious diseases (using the “big three diseases” of the MDG 6 as examples). It will then highlight the financial investment from the different Global Health Actors towards these ‘big 3 diseases’ as compared to the other diseases and in conclusion determine if the WHO shift in investment is justifiable or not.
MRSA in humans and animals in Kenya (an overview)
There is evidence that MRSA infection increases the risk of mortality, morbidity, medical care costs and loss of productivity. The increased medical care costs accrued directly as expenses caused by extension of hospital stay, additional diagnostic or therapeutic procedures, and additional antibiotic use while loss of productivity is due to absence from work during hospitalization. At the same time, published data concerning the antibiotic susceptibility patterns of MRSA in sub-Saharan Africa are extremely limited, and few studies on it have been conducted in Kenya [2] [3]. Many studies on MRSA in Kenya are mainly cross-sectional with a focus to determine the prevalence, identifying the antibiotic resistance but they have not focused on the zoonotic significance of MRSA. There is need to understand on how the resistance to MRSA is changing over time so as to be able to clearly visualize the mechanism and transfer of resistance genes in the population [3].
Proceedings of Pathways Kenya 2016
The conference Pathways Kenya 2016 (http://sites.warnercnr.colostate.edu/pathways/), took place from January 10-13, 2016 in Nanyuki, Kenya.
This conference and training program was designed to address the myriad of issues that arise as people and wildlife struggle to coexist in a sustainable and healthy manner.
Role of mapping in preventing epidemics like Ebola
In a future epidemic, more effective strategies must be put in place to stop the spread.
Prof. Tom Koch, of the University of British Columbia, asks how it could be that many of the best minds in infectious disease, epidemiology and disaster medicine missed the early spread of the Eboladisease so that it became a regional epidemic.
While insisting that all parties involved “labored heroically, often at great personal risk, to restrict the original outbreak and treat those affected by it,” Prof. Koch believes there are lessons to learn about containing future disease outbreaks in rural areas with minimal resources.
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