160 People Die of Rabies Every Day, Study Finds
April 17th 2015A global study on canine rabies has found that 160 people die every single day from the disease. The report is the first study to consider the impact in terms of deaths and the economic costs of rabies across all countries. Even though the disease is preventable, the study says that around 59,000 people die every year of rabies transmitted by dogs.
UV Light Device Could Help Stop Spread of Superbugs, Researcher Says
April 16th 2015Can a robot clean a hospital room just as well as a person? According to new research out of the Texas A&M Health Science Center College of Medicine, that is indeed the case. Chetan Jinadatha, MD, MPH, assistant professor at the Texas A&M College of Medicine and chief of infectious diseases at the Central Texas Veterans Health Care System in Temple, is studying the effectiveness of a germ-zapping robot to clean hospital rooms, which could hold the key to preventing the spread of "superbugs" - in turn, saving countless dollars and, most importantly, lives.
Emerging Pathogens and Environmental Cleaning
April 15th 2015This Report examines surface cleaning and disinfection in the face of emerging infectious disease and the pathogens that can challenge disinfectant efficacy. It reviews the hierarchy of pathogen resistance and susceptibility to disinfectants, discusses various factors that impact disinfectant efficacy, and addresses current pathogens of concern.
Liberia Succeeds in Fighting Ebola With Local, Sector Response
April 15th 2015The story of how Liberia’s most populous county, Montserrado, turned around an exponentially growing Ebola outbreak is intriguing. The World Health Organization (WHO)’s team and national officials, aided by veterans from WHO’s polio eradication group in India, decentralized the response, using quality management principles that empowered local teams and held them accountable for results. These local sector teams involved more than 4,000 community members, using business best practices and an incident management system to vastly improve surveillance, case finding, contact tracing, and overall management of key response activities.
Cuban Doctor Shares His Journey as an Ebola Survivor
April 14th 2015Dr. Felix Sarria Baez was one of hundreds of Cuban doctors sent as a Foreign Medical Team to support the Ebola response in West Africa in October 2014. While working there, he contracted Ebola himself. He survived and returned to Sierra Leone to further help Ebola patients. This is his story.