Diarrhoea News and Research

RSS

Locals resist efforts to control the worst ever outbreak of Marburg

The World Health Organisation (WHO) have sent communications experts into Uige, the epicentre of the outbreak of Marburg epidemic to help Health experts in the fight to contain and eradicate the killer virus. It is hoped they will send a clear message to Angolans to take the necessary measures to fight the virus.

12 Apr 2005

Attacks on WHO staff - progress on Marburg epidemic halted

The World Health Organization (WHO) has suspended its efforts to contain the outbreak of the deadly Marburg virus in Angola, in the northern province of Uige, after staff in their mobile surveillance vehicles have been attacked.

10 Apr 2005

Millions of mothers and children are dying unnecessarily

The millions of seemingly preventable deaths of women and children each year has prompted the United Nations to devote this year’s World Health Day to highlighting their plight.

7 Apr 2005

International commitment to reduce maternal and child deaths by 2015 will not be met

An international commitment to reduce maternal and child deaths by 2015 will not be met at the current pace unless rapid and coordinated action is taken now, the World Health Organization (WHO) has warned.

5 Apr 2005

How E.Coli became deadly to humans

Twenty-three years ago a harmless gut bacterium called E. coli developed the ability to kill people through food poisoning, bloody diarrhoea and kidney failure. Normally E. coli bacteria live in the intestine and don’t pose any danger, but some varieties can cause fatal food poisoning.

4 Apr 2005

Marburg death toll in Angola now up to 122

Carlos Alberto, a spokesman for the Angolan health ministry, says the death toll in the Marburg hemorrhagic fever outbreak in Angola has now risen to 122, just one fewer than in the largest previous outbreak of the disease, in the Democratic Republic of the Congo from 1998 to 200 and killed 123 of 149 people infected.

28 Mar 2005

Most accurate estimates of the causes of child deaths to date

The most accurate estimates of the causes of child deaths to date, published in this week’s issue of The Lancet, reveal that worldwide more than 70% of the 10·6 million child deaths that occur annually are attributable to six causes: pneumonia (19%), diarrhoea (18%), malaria (8%), neonatal sepsis or pneumonia (10%), preterm delivery (10%), and asphyxia at birth (8%).

28 Mar 2005

African genome research given impetus

Millions of victims in Africa, die each year from preventable diseases like tuberculosis and malaria and researchers say only a relatively small proportion of money is spent on developing vaccines, much more is spent on drugs aimed at tackling diseases more prevalent among rich, Western consumers.

21 Mar 2005

Lancet neonatal survival series

Three million of the four million newborn babies who die worldwide each year could be saved by low-tech and low-cost interventions, concludes a landmark series of articles published online by The Lancet (Thursday March 3, 2005).

3 Mar 2005

Genome clues to amoebic dysentery

Each year, there are an estimated 50 million cases of amoebic dysentery, causing up to 100,000 deaths, mostly in developing countries. On Thursday 24 February 2005, researchers at the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute and their colleagues reported in Nature magazine the genome sequence of the parasite that causes the disease, Entamoeba histolytica.

1 Mar 2005

Shigella infects cells by using a secretion system to inject proteins into human cells

According to research published in Science, the team from Imperial College London and Institut Pasteur, Paris, found that shigella, the bacteria which causes dysentery, is able to invade cells, while stopping any response from the immune system.

27 Feb 2005

The UN Millennium Project

Every year, more than 11 million children die, six million of them from preventable diseases, like malaria, measles and diarrhoea. The UN Millennium Project, in its report to be released next week, outlines a plan to stop those children's deaths, cut poverty in half and change the lives of billions of poor people the world over by the year 2015.

16 Jan 2005

Norovirus still at Christchurch Hospital

Members of the public are asked not to go to the Emergency Department at New Zealand's Christchurch hospital if they have symptoms of Norovirus – vomiting and diarrhoea.

27 Dec 2004

Better co-ordination crucial to help reduce maternal and child illness and death

The first of a series of articles looking at public health in complex emergencies (such as famine, population movement arising from civil conflicts and associated health problems) is published in this week’s issue of THE LANCET.

14 Nov 2004

Suspected case of Japanese encephalitis in Hong Kong

The Hong Kong Centre for Health Protection (CHP) of the Department of Health is investigating a suspected case of Japanese encephalitis (JE) involving a five-year-old boy living in Lau Fau Shan.

1 Nov 2004

Babies born by Caesarean section may be at greater risk of diarrhoea

Babies born by Caesarean section may be at greater risk of diarrhoea and sensitisation to certain foodstuffs during their first 12 months than babies born vaginally, suggests research in the Archives of Disease in Childhood.

21 Oct 2004

Air fresheners and aerosols can make babies and their mothers ill

The researchers found that frequent use of air fresheners and aerosols during pregnancy and early childhood was associated with higher levels of diarrhoea, earache and other symptoms in infants, as well as headaches and depression in mothers.

19 Oct 2004

Ecstasy study identifies potentially lethal combination

Some ecstasy users are using a variety of pharmaceutical drugs to increase the effect of ecstasy or to combat the negative effects of the drug a new study released today has found. The results suggest that some of these combinations are potentially lethal and could result in 'serotonin syndrome'.

12 Oct 2004

Global under-five death rate far below targets agreed to by world leaders

New country-by-country data reveals alarmingly slow progress on reducing child deaths despite the availability of proven, low-cost interventions, a UNICEF survey revealed today.

8 Oct 2004

12% of children at risk of undetected/unreported adverse drug reactions

More than 1 in 10 (12%) children are at risk of undetected/unreported adverse drug reactions (ADRs) according to new research launched at the British Pharmaceutical Conference.

28 Sep 2004