Former President Jimmy Carter Helps Sudan Rid Their Current Epidemic

Former United States president, Jimmy Carter, wrote the article "Sudan Can Rid World of a Horrible Disease," published by cnn.com. This article is about a disease taking a toll on the already poverished African country Sudan. This disease is the Guinea Worm Disease; a parasitic infection caused by infected drinking water. Jimmy Carter and his non-profit peace and health organization, The Carter Center, are teaming up to put an end to the Guinea Worm Disease in Sudan and the rest of the world.

Carter emphasizes his desires to combat the disease. He continues to urge people to filter their water, as it could be contaminated. He also suggests that the Guniea worm victimes stay out of natual water sources when the worm in emerging in order to prevent more larve from settling in the water and infecting more people. Due to the already drastic decrease in Guniea Worm disease cases (3.5 million cases in 20 nations in 1986, to 3,200 cases in 2009) The Carter Center beleives eradicating the disease is quite likely as long as it can be demloished in Sudan, Ghana, Mali, and Ethiopia, where cases still remain.

Another effort that the Carter Center has been making in order to boost eradication time is providing safe drinking water to highly infected areas. A small percentage, only 16%, of Sudanese villages have one source of uncontaminated water. The effort is coming along, but it is happening very slowly, as providing enough clean water is tricky and a lot of work. The Carter Center is trying to set up underground water sources containing safe water which is very time consuming. Many of the workers are volunteers, which makes the process less costly and more personal. The Sudanese are also doing their best to help and volunteer to rid the disease. They would like the world to see that even during difficult times of war, they can focus on the benefit of their country and help eradicate the Guinea worm disease, which could help the world.

I choose this article because it is about an ifectious disease. It also realtes to class because we have talked about diseases contracted by infected water before, and it is about a poverty-stricken country, like Haiti is. The article also struck me initially because Jimmy Carter wrote it and discussed his organization and the impact Guinea worm disease had on him and his plans to abolish it. For me, the article realeased a satisfied emotion, as it was assuring to see that powerful Americans are willing to help Sudan even during a very dangerous time there.
This article can be found at: http://www.cnn.com/2010/OPINION/04/06/jimmy.carter.disease/index.html

Doctors Still not Heeding Ignaz Semelweis

This opinion article, published on April 19, 2010 by the New York Times, discusses the high rates of hospital-acquired infections. The article can be found here: http://freakonomics.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/04/19/is-this-the-answer-to-hospital-acquired-infections/?scp=2&sq=mrsa&st=cse. The author is Stephen Dubner, who also co-wrote the popular book Freakonomics.

Stephen says, “Well, after taking at look at the latest National Healthcare Quality Report, I think I won’t be shutting up any time soon [about hospital sanitation failures]. Despite a lot of effort and innovation, despite a wise checklist approach, the [rate of infection] doesn’t seem to be getting better.” He then goes on to tell us about the irresponsibility of many doctors when it comes to keeping their patients safe from infection.

Stephen Dubner says that although medical techniques are constantly being innovated and improved, infections acquired in a medical setting, particularly for surgery patients, are still shockingly prevalent. It is horrifying to see the figures of how many people die in the hospital, not due to the condition they entered with, but due to an unrelated infection. We like to think that our hospitals are sanitary and safe; a place where people go to heal. Instead people are dying of similar infections to those they could have gotten in a hospital of centuries ago.

Many of these infections could be avoided by simply using proper hand-washing technique. Thousands of people a year die unnecessarily due to infectious diseases, including pneumonia and staph infections, which are present in hospitals. When doctors perform surgery or examinations without correctly sanitizing their hands, or when hospital facilities are not as clean as they could be, people become infected with potentially fatal diseases. In class we learned about the doctor Ignaz Semelweis, who campaigned for sanitation in medical settings, but doctors are still not quite following his advice.

It seems as if Dubner does not really know what he’s talking about when he says that bacteria should be tagged so that a patient’s infection can be traced back to the doctor. Although this does not seem possible, I agree that doctor’s need to be held more responsible for their roles in giving infections to their patients. Hospitals need to be more rigorous about enforcing sanitation standards, and perhaps a medical group such as WHO or the Red Cross should raise international awareness about how easy it would be to lower hospital infection rates, just as Ignaz Semelweis proved with his patients.

"Bound for Home, Healed, Heartsick" http://www.boston.com/news/health/articles/2010/05/01/four_haitian_children_flown_here_for_treatment_return_with_b

The article I read, "Bound for Home, Healed, Heartsick" from Boston.com was about four Haitian children who were flown to Massachusetts in order to be cared for in Springfield at the Shriners Hospital. The two boys and two girls who were brought from Port Au-Prince, Haiti were cared for for eleven weeks at the Shriner's Hospital for their injuries which were caused by the earthquake that occured over the winter that devistated Haiti. The article describes all four childrens' experiences with the earthquake and being transported to the United States because of their injuries. All four children and all four families of the children are very grateful that they were given the chance to recieve the care that they need for their injuries. Also, the parents of the children explain that although they miss their children and want to be with them, they think that their children would all be better off if they were given the chance to stay in the United States instead of returning to Haiti because they would have the chance at a better life.
Although this article does not really relate to any epidemics or diseases it does relate to Mountains Beyond Mountains and the work of Paul Farmer. This article relates to the work of Farmer, because it is all about how these four children have been cared for individually and because of this care have shown immense improvment, which probably would not have been the case if they had recieved care in a large group back in Haiti. The article also relates to what we are learning about in class about the conditions of Haiti and the current state that this thrid world country is in. The descriptions of what Haiti is like now causes the reader to stop and think about helping instead of just looking away from the disaster that has striken Haiti. This is also a message that Farmer wanted to get out to people around the world.

Prosperity and...Syphilis?

The brief article “Rising economy spurs syphilis spike in China” appeared in Thursday’s Boston Globe, and addresses the rise of syphilis in both China and the US over the last decade. (http://www.boston.com/news/health/articles/2010/05/06/rising_economy_spurs_syphilis_spike_in_china/) AP writer Margie Mason notes that economic growth in China has freed up money for businessmen and laborers to buy sex, and that these men and the prostitutes they pay for are the cause of the disease’s rising morbidity rate. China’s newborns are especially afflicted; the rate of neonatal syphilis has grown by a factor of 8 to 57 out of every 100,000 live births. Put more simply, “Every hour a baby is born in China with syphilis.” Syphilis in adults can possibly cause eventual brain damage and death, but in infants it kills a quarter of newborns and debilitates another quarter.
Though syphilis is easily curable with penicillin, the disease does not always manifest symptoms. Screening in the US is unreliable, and no screening exists in China, so the disease can often pass undetected. Both countries had almost eradicated the disease at some point in their histories, but China’s mid-20th century ban on brothels broke down after it climbed into economic prosperity; the US has also experienced a recent climb.
I found the article to show a stark contrast with the model of disease that I had come to expect while reading Mountains Beyond Mountains. Instead of the poor contracting a disease because they didn’t have enough money for proper medical care, the well-to-do are contracting syphilis because they have enough money to pay for unsafe sex on the side before returning home to give it to their spouses and unborn children. It is disappointing that these two countries, one an established powerhouse and the other the heir apparent, should so fail to control such an easily treated disease that could, perhaps, go the way of polio.

Study: Health rules on flying with TB too strict

http://www.boston.com/news/health/articles/2010/02/22/study_health_rules_on_flying_with_tb_too_strict/
This article was written by Mike Stobbe an AP Medical Writer, and it was published on February 22, 2010 on boston.com. The article has to do with the dangers of flying on the same plane with someone that has TB. Though this article showed the side of the argument that people rarely agree with. This side that says it isn't that dangerous to fly on the same plane as someone infected with TB, and that it is unlikely it would even be spread to others on the flight. In this article Dr. Ibrahim Abubakar explains how he believes that restrictions on flying for people infected with TB are to harsh. He did alot of research and found that there were many instances when people with TB flew on planes and infected no one else on the flight. He believes that if a person has been on their drugs for over two weeks and isn't showing any contagious symptoms that they should be allowed to fly on a plane, because the risk to the other passengers is so minimal. The article references a popular case of a person with TB boarding a plane that got global attention. In the article it said that "Hundreds of passengers who traveled with him were tested, and none was found to have tuberculosis." Abubakar uses this along with many other tests of people that have traveled with TB infected people to prove his point that TB is very unlikely to be spread during a flight if it is well managed, and that people are making to big of a deal over it. Though the article was ended with the other side of the arguement with the quote by Dr. Thomas Frieden the CDC Director "It's always better to be safe than sorry,".
When I read this article title I thought I was going to completely disagree with the statement. After hearing about how deadly and contagious TB is in class I thought I would be afraid to be near anyone who had it. Though after reading the article I found myself oddly agreeing with Abubakar. I still believe that it is better to be safe than sorry. Though I also believe that if the proper steps are taking that people with well controlled TB should be allowed to fly. If someone has had the misfortune to be infected with TB and doesn't have enough money to hire their own private plane I don't think they should be forced not to fly. If it can be controlled and the threat can be minimized I believe TB infected people should be allowed to board flights.

America's Often Forgotten Disease

Tim O’Sullivan

The world’s often forgotten disease:

Alzheimer’s disease is never one of the big diseases people talk about when they set off to cure the world of diseases. Alzheimer’s disease is one of the US’s most deadly diseases, being the 7th leading cause of death in 2006. The disease is very very personal, affecting families and loved ones especially because of just the sheer sorrow of the disease. Alzheimer’s disease is a neurological disease affecting the brain, it is not contagious, but it is suggested to be a genetic disease; often times affecting multiple people in the family. The true tragedy of the disease is that it is so personal, the individual with the disease just forgetting their entire family or who they are at times. It is gut-wrenching for families, grandchildren, childhood friends, sons and daughters because the individual literally forgets who these people are…
I really liked the article; I thought it was very modern and very well-written. One thing that stood as specific interest to me during the article was the writer’s interest in the monetary values of Alzheimer’s disease, a fact that is often neglected when thinking about the disease. In most cases, an individual with Alzheimer’s is regulated to a nursing home for their own safety; this is a very costly endeavor. One thing that was specifically noted was that with the health care reform bill being put into law, the health care costs for the Alzheimer’s patients increase dramatically. This is because most insurers have higher premiums for older patients and mostly all affected are older patients, but with the health care reform bill the insurance has to be given to all people so the cost will be larger. I think this is a valid point and something that is never really considered when thinking about the whole topic of Alzheimer’s but for some reason I feel as thought it is a conservative agenda. While the point seems valid I do not think it has a lot of significance in the whole point of Alzheimer’s. However one point that needs specific attention in the article is the fact that the largest group of people in the American populous (the baby boomers) is growing older, and with this will need adequate living conditions. The baby boomer generation has had the highest standard of living of any American generation, and as a result of that they will want an equally high standard for elderly services. The nature of Alzheimer’s disease is forgetting, but what America cannot do is forget about Alzheimer’s comparatively to other diseases that share a prominent role in media coverage. As time progresses, as the baby boomer generation gets older it is inevitable that the percent of people affected by Alzheimer’s will increase. One main thing that may need to change about Alzheimer’s disease is that maybe it needs to be on the forefront of media of diseases. Due to Alzheimer’s being so personal it is often a “closet” disease with families not being very open about the subject; however valid it does not help the disease. It may be sorrowful to speak of, but once that stigma is gone America will be in a better position to fight Alzheimer’s. Forgetting is just as scary as remembering, we have to remember not to forget about Alzheimer’s’

Swine Flu: One Year Later

Some may find it hard to believe that it's been a whole year since the beginning North and South America's most recent epidemic. On April 23, 2009, Mexico became infamous world wide because of a young mexican man, Edgar Hernandez, who came down with a new and terrifying flu. A year later, over 1,2000 deaths occurred from this epidemic in Mexico alone, with more than 16,900 deaths worldwide. Mexico was already suffering from financial crisis when the epidemic hit, making economic matters even worse. According to Financial Minister, Agustin Carstens, in the past year Mexico's economy shrunk a devastating 6.5% over all. He also estimated that the epidemic cost the country over a whopping 2.3 million dollars. But aside from death tolls and the economic problems, the Swine Flu epidemic has actually led to some positive changes in the Mexican society.

Federal authorities helped out Mexico by donating millions of dollars in order to get the Swine vaccine available throughout all of the country. This is a good thing because before all their testing was being done in North America. Now Mexico has their own personal resources which will benefit the health of Mexican people and will help Mexico be less reliable on other countries for necessary resources. Now more than ever are Mexican people aware and cautious of germs and bacteria. Spreading awareness of the flu is in itself a huge step for Mexico. Although devastating, this epidemic has led to some pretty good advances for Mexico, hoping to make the country stronger than ever.