African Journal of Laboratory Medicine | Vol 7, No 2 | a770 | 06 December 2018
Handbook of Foodborne Pathogenic Microorganisms and Natural Toxins
The purpose of this book is to provide an overview of Buruli ulcer (Mycobacterium ulcerans infection) for the medical and scientific communities and the general public alike.
1st edition.
Unitaid’s report describes a slate of new devices that can more efficiently identify dangerously ill children so that they can be treated immediately. These tools make it easier to recognize danger signs, and support integrated approaches to reducing childhood deaths from the three ...greatest childhood killers: malaria, pneumonia and diarrhoea.
The report also highlights tests that can determine whether or not a child has an illness that can be treated with antibiotics. Viral infections are a common cause of childhood fevers, but cannot be cured with antibiotics. Although many children seeking care at clinics have fever, three-quarters by some estimates, only a small fraction of those have an illness that can be treated with an antimalarial or antibiotic drug
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Guidelines for Therapy and Management of Urinary Tract Infection
The Mapping Antimicrobial Resistance and Antimicrobial Use Partnership (MAAP) project has conducted a multi-year, multi-country study that provides stark insights on the under-reported depth of the antimicrobial resistance (AMR) crisis across Africa and lays out urgent policy recommendations to addr...ess the emergency.
MAAP reviewed 819,584 AMR records from 2016-2019, from 205 laboratories across Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Eswatini, Gabon, Ghana, Kenya, Malawi, Nigeria, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia, and Zimbabwe. MAAP also reviewed data from 327 hospital and community pharmacies and 16 national-level AMC datasets.
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The provision of safe and efficacious blood and blood components for transfusion or manufacturing use involves a number of processes, from the selection of blood donors and the collection, processing and testing of blood donations to the testing of patient samples, the issue of compatible blood and ...its administration to the patient. There is a risk of error in each process in this “transfusion chain” and a failure at any of these stages can have serious implications for the recipients of blood and blood products. Thus, while blood transfusion can be life-saving, there are associated risks, particularly the transmission of bloodborne infections.
Screening for transfusion-transmissible infections (TTIs) to exclude blood donations at risk of transmitting infection from donors to recipients is a critical part of the process of ensuring that transfusion is as safe as possible. Effective screening for evidence of the presence of the most common and dangerous TTIs can reduce the risk of transmission to very low levels.
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The document provides a detailed overview of cholera, including its clinical features, diagnosis, treatment, and prevention. It explains the causes of cholera, its symptoms such as severe diarrhea and dehydration, and the importance of rehydration therapy (oral or intravenous) to reduce mortality. T...he document also emphasizes public health measures, including access to clean water, proper sanitation, and vaccination, as essential strategies to control and prevent cholera outbreaks. It serves as a comprehensive resource for healthcare professionals managing cholera cases and outbreaks.
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A review of prospects for existing antibiotics ad new therapeutics
The purpose of this document is to present and promote the minimum requirements for IPC programmes at the national and health care facility level, identified by expert consensus according to available evidence and in the context of the WHO core components.
The minimum requirements are defined as: I...PC standards that should be in place at the national and facility level to provide minimum protection and safety to patients, HCWs and visitors, based on the WHO core components for IPC programmes.
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Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews 2021, Issue 2. Art. No.: CD009593. DOI: 10.1002/14651858.CD009593.pub5.
Since the description of the first case of COVID-19 in Wuhan, Hubei province in China, in December 2019, much knowledge has been accumulated about the dynamics of evolution of the SARS-CoV-2 virus, contagion, disease progression, prevention and treatment.
The goal of this Global Action Plan is to articulate synergistic actions that will be required to prevent HIVDR from undermining efforts to achieve global targets on health and HIV, and to provide the most effective treatment to all people living with HIV including adults, key populations, pregnant ...and breastfeeding women, children and adolescents. The Global Action Plan has five strategic objectives: 1) prevention and response; 2) monitoring and surveillance; 3) research and innovation; 4) laboratory capacity; and 5) governance and enabling mechanisms.
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Report of the WHO/Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation Consultation. The Consultation was organized back-to-back with the first annual meeting of the International Coordinating Group of the BMGF-funded project for human and dog rabies elimination in developing countries, held at WHO headquarters, Geneva,... Switzerland, from 5 to 7 October 2009. This allowed the Consultation to benefit from the participation of the national coordinators and advisers of the BMGF-funded projects in the Philippines, South Africa (KwaZulu-Natal) and the United Republic of Tanzania
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A summary of the national drug situation
Disinfection of drinking-water supplies has been one of the most significant public health advancements of the last century with respect to reducing waterborne disease.
Although chlorine has been used as the disinfectant of choice for public drinking-water supplies for the past century, a numbe...r of emerging or alternative compounds are used or are being considered for the disinfection of drinking-water.
This series reviews the state of the knowledge on the application, efficacy and toxicity of bromine, iodine and silver as drinking-water disinfectants.
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The era of effective antibiotics is coming to a close. In just a few generations, many “miracle medicines”have been beaten into ineffectiveness by the bacteria they were intended to eradicate. Bacteria quickly adapt to the presence of antibacterial agents in order ...to survive. The misuse of antibiotics,which is an international problem, only exacerbates the steady evolution of resistance. In August 2010, the journal Lancet Infectious Diseases posed the question "Is this the end of antibiotics?" documentingthe rapid spread of multidrug-resistant bacteriaand predicting that 10 years remain in the useful life of many agents.
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The occurrence of a high percentage of couterfeit medicines on the global medicines market is often attributed to a lack of effective regulation and a weak enforcement capacity. This review, while focusing on counterfeit medicines and medical devices in developing countries, will present information... on their impact and how these issues can be addressed by regulation and control of the supply chain using technology appropriate to the developing world.
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The global emergence of antimicrobial resistance (AMR) is posing a threat to human health. Putting resources into the containment of AMR – including surveillance – is one of the highest-yield investments a country can make to mitigate its impact. In 2015, WHO launched the Global Antimicrobial Re...sistance Surveillance System (GLASS), the first global collaborative effort to foster AMR surveillance in bacteria causing acute infections. As of December 2018, 71 countries are enrolled in GLASS. The aim of this report is to document participation efforts and outcomes across these countries, and highlight differences and constraints identified to date. This report follows on from the first GLASS Report – Early implementation 2016-17, published in January 2018, and drawing on data from GLASS first data call in 2017.
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The purpose of the landscape analysis is ultimately to facilitate improved engagement of private providers, thereby contributing to universal access to quality and affordable TB care and the end of the TB epidemic. It focuses on the role of private for-profit providers and on specific challenges and... experiences in engaging them for TB prevention and care.
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