America’s Most Distressed Areas, Including The Gulf Coast States And Washington, D.C., Threatened By Emerging Infections Of Poverty

America’s Most Distressed Areas, Including The Gulf Coast States And Washington, D.C., Threatened By Emerging Infections Of Poverty

From the March 29 2011 Medical News Today item

Neglected infections of poverty are the latest threat plaguing the poorest people living in the Gulf Coast states and in Washington, D.C., according to Dr. Peter Hotez, Distinguished Research Professor and Chair of the Department of Microbiology, Immunology, and Tropical Medicine at The George Washington University and President of the Sabin Vaccine Institute, in an editorial published in the open-access journal PLoS Neglected Tropical Diseases on March 29th.

Hotez explains that current post-hurricane conditions in the Gulf coast states coupled with the BP oil disaster and extreme levels of poverty make these areas extremely vulnerable to neglected infections of poverty. Conditions such as dengue hemorrhagic fever and other vector borne neglected infections, like Chagas disease and cutaneous leishmaniasis, as well as non-vector borne neglected infections like trichomoniasis and toxocariasis, are affecting the people living in the region. Additionally, Hotez notes that Washington, D.C. is also among the worst U.S. cities in terms of life expectancy and health index, meaning its residents suffer from the lowest incomes, lowest educational attainment, and shortest life expectancy. Despite the fact that these conditions are triggers for neglected infections of poverty, no surveillance data currently exists to reflect their prevalence. Even trichomonaisis, which is extremely common in Baltimore, MD., has not been tracked.

“Because these infections are serious problems that perpetuate poverty, I am extremely concerned about the welfare of the people in these regions. [Editor Flahiff’s emphasis]

Click here for the rest of the news article

Click here for the full text of the journal article written by Dr. Hotez, America’s Most Distressed Areas and Their Neglected Infections: The United States Gulf Coast and the District of Columbia

 

 

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PBS NewsHour’s Global Health Watch : Diseases, Conditions, Medical Advances and Related Policies

PBS NewsHour’s Global Health Watch features news and on-the-ground reports exploring the diseases, conditions, medical advances and policies affecting the health of people around the world.

Earthquake victims gather at the evacuation center in Kamaish
(Kamaishi.Perawongmetha/Getty Images)

BLOG  MARCH 24, 2011 Slideshow: TB a Silent KillerJust 22 countries contribute 80 percent of the global burden of tuberculosis.

A sampling from the March 25 2011 contents.
Each section includes Browse, Subscription, and Related Information options.

• Global Health
  • Recent Global Health Trips – Guatamala includes videos, a blog, and news updates
  • Blogs and reports on emerging news from Tokyo, Bangladesh, and Haiti
• The World’s Most Destructive Diseases
  • Information on the top 5 non-communicable diseases and also top 5 infectious diseases
  • Each disease or condition has information in these areas: global impact, causes, symptoms, prevention, and treatment
• From the Field (Archive) has links to current and past postings. There is a drop down menu organized by country.
• The For Teachers link  has the heading For Teachers and Students. It includes lesson plans.

Related Articles

• Japan Crisis: What’s next for nuclear energy in the U.S.? (boingboing.net)
• PBS Newshour: Wind Turbines and Health (windconcernsontario.wordpress.com)

HealthMap PREDICT warns about diseases moving between wildlife and people

HealthMap PREDICT – A global early warning system to detect and reduce the impacts of emerging diseases that move between wildlife and people (zoonotic diseases).

From the about page

In order to predict, respond to, and prevent the emergence of novel infectious diseases in humans, pathogens must be identified at their source. Explosive human population growth and environmental changes have resulted in increased numbers of people living in close contact with animals. Unfortunately the resulting increase in contact, together with changes in land use, has altered the inherent ecological balance between pathogens and their human and animal hosts.

PREDICT, a project of USAID’s Emerging Pandemic Threats Program,is building a global early warning system to detect and reduce the impacts of emerging diseases that move between wildlife and people (zoonotic diseases). PREDICT has developed a SMART surveillance method (Strategic, Measurable, Adaptive, Responsive, and Targeted) that accounts for the fact that zoonotic pathogens, such as influenza and SARS, are responsible for the majority of emerging infectious diseases in people, and that more than three quarters of these emerging zoonoses are of wildlife origin. The SMART surveillance approach is designed to detect novel diseases with pandemic potential early, giving health professionals the best opportunity to prevent emergence and spread. It also targets sentinel animal species at active human interfaces in hotspot regions to improve surveillance efficiency.

The PREDICT team builds on a broad coalition of partners to develop the global capacity to monitor diseases at the animal-human interface and develop a risk-based approach to concentrate these efforts in surveillance, prevention, and response at the most critical points for disease emergence from wildlife.

PREDICT project objectives:

• Assess local surveillance capacity;
• Implement targeted and adaptive wildlife disease surveillance systems;
• Develop and deliver new technologies to improve efforts close to the source;
• Use cutting-edge information management and communication tools to bring the world closer to realizing an integrated, global approach to emerging zoonotic diseases.

A sampling of other health maps

• Health Map – Global Health, Local Information
• Flu.gov Influenza Activity Map (US)
• FluTracker
• USGS Disease Maps
• FAO Empress Maps
• WHO Global Health Atlas