International Journal for Equity in Health 2014, 13:24
A guide to facilitating community-managed disaster risk reduction in the Horn of Africa.
This manual describes how to help communities implement disaster risk reduction activities. It was written for development workers and community-based organizations in the Horn of Africa, but practitioners can ...use it to implement activities around the world
more
mBio, Vol. 6 Issue 2, March/April 2015
Available evidence demonstrates that direct patient contact and contact with infectious body fluids are the primary modes for Ebola virus transmission, but this is based on a limited number of studies. In this review, the authors address what we know and what ...we do not know about Ebola virus transmission. They also hypothesize that Ebola viruses have the potential to be respiratory pathogens with primary respiratory spread.
more
Early detection, assessment and response to acute public health events:
The scale of West Africa’s Ebola epidemic has been attributed to the weak health systems of affected countries,
their lack of resources, the mobility of communities and their inexperience in dealing with Ebola. This briefing for African Affairs argues that these explanations lack important contex...t. The briefing examines responses to the outbreak and offers a different set of explanations, rooted in the history of the region and the political economy of global health and development. To move past technical discussions of “weak” health systems, it highlights how structural violence has contributed to the epidemic. As part of this, local people – their beliefs, concerns and priorities – have been marginalised. Both the crisis response and post-Ebola ‘reconstruction’ will be strengthened by acknowledgment of its long term structural underpinnings and from a more collaborative inclusion of local people.
more
This document provides a summary of the recommendations for hand hygiene best practices to be performed by health workers providing care and/or support to patients with filovirus infection (Ebola and Marburg viruses).
BMC Medicine 2014, 12:196
http://www.biomedcentral.com/1741-7015/12/196
Technical report
This manual aims to provide information about the methods for investigating outbreaks of hepatitis E, and measures for their prevention and control. In addition, the manual gives information about the causative agent – known as the hepatitis E virus (HEV) – its epidemiology..., clinical manifestations of the disease and diagnosis.
more
This manual is intended to enable WASH practitioners
who work in Mozambique to contribute to the
reduction of WASH-preventable NTDs.
The emergency Water, Sanitation and Hygiene Promotion (WASH) gap analysis project was funded by The Humanitarian Innovation Fund (HIF), a program managed by Enhancing Learning and Research for Humanitarian Assistance (ELRHA) in partnership with the Active Learning Network for Accountability and Per...formance in Humanitarian Action (ALNAP), and is a component of a larger initiative to identify and support innovations in emergency WASH. This paper gives an explanation of the background, methodology, and findings of the program.
more
Today’s children, and their children, are the ones who will live with the consequences of climate change.
Connecting global priorities: biodiversity and human health: a state of knowledge review
By almost any measure, human health is better now than at any time in history. Life expectancy has soared from 47 years in 1950–1955, to 69 years in 2005–2010, and death rates in children younger than 5 years of age have decreased substantially, from 214 per thousand live births in 1950–1955, ...to 59 in 2005–2010. But these gains in human health have come at a high price: the degradation of nature’s ecological systems on a scale never seen in human history. A growing body of evidence shows that the health of humanity is intrinsically linked to the health of the environment, but by its actions humanity now threatens to destabilise the Earth’s key life-support systems.
As a Commission, we conclude that the continuing degradation of natural systems threatens to reverse the health gains seen over the last century. In short, we have mortgaged the health of future generations to realise economic and development gains in the present.
Despite present limitations, the Sustainable Development Goals provide a great opportunity to integrate health and sustainability through the judicious selection of relevant indicators relevant to human wellbeing, the enabling infrastructure for development, and the supporting natural systems, together with the need for strong governance.
more
Clinical Microbiology and Infection Volume 21, Issue 5, May 2015, Pages 433-443;
The neglected zoonotic diseases (NZDs) have been all but eradicated in wealthier countries, but remain major causes of ill-health and mortality across Africa, Asia, and Latin America. This neglect is, in part, a conse...quence of under-reporting, resulting in an underestimation of their global burden that downgrades their relevance to policy-makers and funding agencies. Increasing awareness about the causes of NZDs and how they can be prevented could reduce the incidence of many endemic zoonoses.
more