To coincide with the high-level meeting last month in New York on the Millenium Development Goals (MDGs), the International Disability and Development Consortium (IDDC) and the Millennium Campaign have launched a new web site on disabilities and the MDGs. The site aims to raise awareness among the general public, NGOs, donors and governments about the need for the MDGs and poverty reduction programmes to address disabilities. One in five of the world's poorest people are disabled, yet they are rarely considered in MDG health plans and programmes. With the recent report from the Commission on the Social Determinants of Health, this is a timely moment for the health community to consider disability as a barrier to accessing health services. The website is a work in progress and the IDDC wants to link it to other sites, sources and organisations.
Useful Resources
AFSUN was established in 2008 as a network of African and international universities, non-governmental and community organizations, and municipal governance networks. It aims to improve the knowledge base on urban food security in Africa; to build African human resource capacity and expertise in food security policy and management; to develop and advocate policy options to improve the environment within which households make decisions about food security; and to grow the capacity of community change agents to plan, implement and evaluate food security projects and programmes. AFSUN also recognises the critical importance of the global food system and the links between town and countryside in affecting the food security of urban populations in Africa.
HIFA2015 is a campaign and a knowledge network, building the HIFA2015 Knowledge Base, a picture of information needs and how to meet them. HIFA2015 involves more than 1,500 people from 110 countries worldwide. Members include health workers, publishers, librarians, information technologists, researchers, social scientists, journalists, policy-makers and others - all working together towards the HIFA2015 goal: by 2015, every person worldwide will have access to an informed healthcare provider. Membership is free and open to all.
HSRProj a free database coordinated by the National Information Center on Health Services Research and Health Care Technology (NICHSR) for the National Library of Medicine. It carries evidence and expert testimony, links to research partners, and listings on current research projects.
The Academy of Women’s Health has launched a new regular column on its website that provides timely updates on diseases and conditions that are prevalent among women to help physicians and other healthcare providers optimise patient outcomes. The column provides opinions from eminent researchers and clinicians and presents the most up-to-date management strategies.
YouthNet, a program of Family Health International, is pleased to announce Youth InfoNet No. 7, a one-stop monthly source for new publications and information on youth reproductive health and HIV prevention. You can read the newsletter online at the URL provided.
The Council on Health Research for Development (COHRED) is an international non-governmental organisation that works towards enabling countries to set up and use health research to foster health, equity in health, and development. A special edition of the COHRED newsletter looks at COHRED's impact on health research for development since it was established in 1993.
A new newsletter of Poetry on HIV/AIDS in Africa has been launched. The name of the newsletter is AIDS out of AFRICA. AIDS out of AFRICA will be a bi-annual newsletter appearing in June and December.
Chronic, non-communicable diseases (NCDs), mental disorders, and injuries and violence are major public health problems in developing countries. Together, they account for over 40 per cent of the disease burden in high mortality developing countries, and over 75 per cent in lower mortality developing countries. So why are they so often overlooked by policymakers? The HRC/Eldis Health Resource Guide has launched a topic guide to NCDs, injuries and mental health. Produced in collaboration with subject experts, it provides a synthesis of the latest thinking and research on these issues, with summaries of key readings and links to further resources.
On 31 December 2019, WHO was alerted to several cases of pneumonia in Wuhan City, Hubei Province of China. The virus did not match any other known virus. This raised concern because when a virus is new, it is not known how it affects people. One week later, on 7 January, Chinese authorities confirmed that they had identified a new virus. The new virus is a coronavirus, which is a family of viruses that include the common cold, and viruses such as SARS and MERS. This new virus was temporarily named “2019-nCoV.” The World Health Organisation has released a number of guidelines aimed at preventing the spread and proliferation of the virus.