Human schistosomiasis, a parasitic and often chronic illness, is one of the major neglected tropical diseases worldwide. It is estimated that 240 million people suffer from schistosomiasis, with more than 200000 fatalities recorded each year. Schistosomiasis is caused by an infection of the blood fl...uke Schistosoma and is transmitted to humans through direct contact with infected water.
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Research and Reports in Tropical Medicine 2022:13 25–40.
Chagas disease (CD) is caused by the parasite Trypanosoma cruzi, and it is endemic in Central, South America, Mexico and the South of the United States. It is an important cause of early mortality and morbidity, and it is associated with po...verty and stigma. A third of the cases evolve into chronic cardiomyopathy and gastrointestinal disease. This review proposes strategies to address challenges faced by non-endemic countries
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In one of his final essays, statesman and former United Nations secretary general Kofi Annan said, ‘Snakebite is the most important tropical disease you’ve never heard of’. Mr. Annan firmly believed that victims of snakebite envenoming should be recognised and afforded greater efforts at impro...ved prevention, treatment, and rehabilitation. During the last years of his life, he advocated strongly for the World Health Organisation (WHO) and the global community to give greater priority to this disease of poverty and its victims.
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The conditionality of this recommendation is largely driven by the current higher unit cost of pyrethroid-PBO ITNs compared
to pyrethroid-only LLINs and therefore the uncertainty of their cost-effectiveness. Furthermore, as PBO is less wash-resistant
than pyrethroids, its bioavailability declines ...faster over the three-year estimated life of an ITN; therefore, the added impact of
pyrethroid-PBO ITNs over that of pyrethroid-only LLINs may decline over time. The evidence comes from two sites in
eastern Africa with pyrethroid resistance and not from other geographies where transmission levels and vector characteristics
may vary. PBO acts by inhibiting certain metabolic enzymes, primarily oxidases, and so are likely to provide greater protection
than pyrethroid-only LLINs where mosquitoes display mono-oxygenase-based insecticide resistance mechanisms.
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The Pharmaceutical Forum of the Americas (PFA) has previously published guidelines and organised campaigns for community pharmacists on the prevention, detection and control of arbovirus infections in 2018 with a grant from the FIP Foundation for Pharmacy Education and Research. Building on that exp...ertise, FIP joined efforts with the PFA and is now publishing its first-ever handbook to support pharmacists in the
area of vector-borne diseases. As the integration of the regional forums in FIP advances, such collaborative projects are tangible results of an increasingly regionally informed and regionally targeted work by FIP.
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Cystic echinococcosis (CE) is a well-known neglected parasitic disease. However, evidence supporting the four current treatment modalities is inadequate, and treatment options remain controversial. The aim of this work is to analyse the available data to answer clinical questions regarding medical t...reatment of CE.
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This report presents findings from research conducted by Economist Impact to assess the health, demographic, social and economic impacts associated with different scenarios for financing the HIV epidemic across 13 selected countries in Sub-Saharan Africa. The sponsorship of UNAIDS towards this repor...t is gratefully acknowledged. However, the findings and ideas expressed herein represent those of Economist Impact. They do not necessarily reflect the views and opinions of UNAIDS, nor do they engage the responsibility of UNAIDS.
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There has been no systematic comparison of how the policy response to past infectious disease outbreaks and epidemics was funded. This study aims to collate and analyse funding for the Ebola epidemic and Zika outbreak between 2014 and 2019 in order to understand the shortcomings in funding reporting... and suggest improvements. Methods: Data were collected via a literature review and analysis of financial reporting databases, including both amounts donated and received. Funding information from three financial databases was analysed: Institute of Health Metrics and Evaluation’s Development Assistance for Health database, the Georgetown Infectious Disease Atlas and the United Nations Financial Tracking Service. A systematic literature search strategy was devised and applied to seven databases: MEDLINE, EMBASE, HMIC, Global Health, Scopus, Web of Science and EconLit. Funding information was extracted from articles meeting the eligibility criteria and measures were taken to avoid double counting. Funding was collated, then amounts and purposes were compared within, and between, data sources.
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The GFF needs an additional US$2.5 billion from 2021 to 2025 to enable countries to protect health gains and accelerate progress toward the 2030 Goals. Of this amount, the GFF urgently needs to secure new pledges of US$1.2 billion by the end of 2021 to help its current 36 partner countries protect ...and maintain essential health services and implement time-sensitive service delivery and health system improvements to enable a sharp bend of the curve back to a positive trajectory to close the gap to the SDGs.
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The Commission on Macroeconomics and Health (CMH) was established by World Health Organization Director-General Gro Harlem Brundtland in January 2000 to assess the place of health in global economic development. Although health is widely understood to be both a central goal and an important outcome ...of development, the importance of investing in health to promote economic development and poverty reduction has been much less appreciated. We have found that extending the coverage of crucial health services, including a relatively small number of specific interventions, to the world’s poor could save millions of lives each year, reduce poverty, spur economic development, and promote global security.
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The response to a cholera outbreak must focus on limiting mortality and reducing the spread of the disease. It should be comprehensive and multisectoral, including epidemiology, case management, water, sanitation and hygiene, logistics, community engagement and risk communication. All efforts must b...e well coordinated to ensure a rapid and effective response across sectors.
This document provides a framework for detecting and monitoring cholera outbreaks and organizing the response. It also includes a short section linking outbreak response to both preparedness and long-term prevention activities.
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Cardiovascular disease (CVD) is the leading cause of global deaths, with the majority occurring in low- and middle-income countries (LMIC). The primary and secondary prevention of CVD is suboptimal throughout the world, but the evidence-practice gaps are much more pronounced in LMIC. Barriers at the... patient, health-care provider, and health system level prevent the implementation of optimal primary and secondary prevention. Identification of the particular barriers that exist in resource-constrained settings is necessary to inform effective strategies to reduce the identified evidence-practice gaps. Furthermore, targeting modifiable factors that contribute most significantly to the global burden of CVD, including tobacco use, hypertension, and secondary prevention for CVD will lead to the biggest gains in mortality reduction. We review a select number of novel, resource-efficient strategies to reduce premature mortality from CVD, including: (1) effective measures for tobacco control; (2) implementation of simplified screening and management algorithms for those with or at risk of CVD, (3) increasing the availability and affordability of simplified and cost-effective treatment regimens including combination CVD preventive drug therapy, and (4) simplified delivery of health care through task-sharing (non-physician health workers) and optimizing self-management (treatment supporters). Developing and deploying systems of care that address barriers related to the above, will lead to substantial reductions in CVD and related mortality.
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The World Heart Federation (WHF) Roadmap series covers a large range of cardiovascular conditions. These Roadmaps identify potential roadblocks and their solutions to improve the prevention, detection and management of cardiovascular diseases and provide a generic global framework available for loca...l adaptation. A first Roadmap on raised blood pressure was published in 2015. Since then, advances in hypertension have included the publication of new clinical guidelines (AHA/ACC; ESC; ESH/ISH); the launch of the WHO Global HEARTS Initiative in 2016 and the associated Resolve to Save Lives (RTSL) initiative in 2017; the inclusion of single-pill combinations on the WHO Essential
Medicines’ list as well as various advances in technology, in particular telemedicine and mobile health. Given the substantial benefit accrued from effective interventions in the management of hypertension and their potential for scalability in low and middle-income countries (LMICs), the WHF has now revisited and updated the ‘Roadmap for raised BP’ as ‘Roadmap for hypertension’
by incorporating new developments in science and policy. Even though cost-effective lifestyle and medical interventions to prevent and manage hypertension exist, uptake is still low, particularly in resource-poor areas. This Roadmap examined the roadblocks pertaining to both the demand side (demographic and socio-economic factors, knowledge and beliefs, social relations, norms, and
traditions) and the supply side (health systems resources and processes) along the patient pathway to propose a range of possible solutions to overcoming them. Those include the development of population-wide prevention and control programmes; the implementation of opportunistic screening and of out-of-office blood pressure measurements; the strengthening of primary care and a greater focus on task sharing and team-based care; the delivery of people-centred care and stronger patient and carer education; and the facilitation of adherence to treatment. All of the above are dependent upon the availability and effective distribution of good quality, evidencebased, inexpensive BP-lowering agents.
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A major problem facing the world is how to build peace following the ravages of increasingly protracted armed conflict. Armed conflicts leave behind shattered, divided societies that are at risk of repeating cycles of violence, and therefore need concerted peacebuilding efforts. Conflicts also take ...a heavy toll on people’s mental health and psychosocial well-being. One in five people who live in a war zone will likely develop a mental disorder, and many others suffer from painful everyday stresses associated with multiple losses, family separation, gender-based violence (GBV), disability, climate change and ongoing insecurity, among other issues.
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Objective: To identify gaps in national stroke guidelines that could be bridged to enhance the quality of stroke care services in low- and
middle-income countries.
Methods: We systematically searched medical databases and websites of medical societies and contacted international organizations.
Co...untry-specific guidelines on care and control of stroke in any language published from 2010 to 2020 were eligible for inclusion. We reviewed
each included guideline for coverage of four key components of stroke services (surveillance, prevention, acute care and rehabilitation).
We also assessed compliance with the eight Institute of Medicine standards for clinical practice guidelines, the ease of implementation of
guidelines and plans for dissemination to target audiences.
Findings: We reviewed 108 eligible guidelines from 47 countries, including four low-income, 24 middle-income and 19 high-income countries.
Globally, fewer of the guidelines covered primary stroke prevention compared with other components of care, with none recommending
surveillance. Guidelines on stroke in low- and middle-income countries fell short of the required standards for guideline development;
breadth of target audience; coverage of the four components of stroke services; and adaptation to socioeconomic context. Fewer low- and
middle-income country guidelines demonstrated transparency than those from high-income countries. Less than a quarter of guidelines
encompassed detailed implementation plans and socioeconomic considerations.
Conclusion: Guidelines on stroke in low- and middle-income countries need to be developed in conjunction with a wider category of
health-care providers and stakeholders, with a full spectrum of translatable, context-appropriate interventions.
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sthma prevalence is increasing worldwide, and surveys indicate that most patients in developed and developing countries, including South Africa, do not receive optimal care and are therefore not well controlled. Standard management guidelines adapted to in-country realities are important to support ...optimal care. The South African Thoracic Society (SATS) first published a guideline for the management of chronic persistent asthma in 1992, which has subsequently been revised several times.
The main aim of the present document was to revise and update SATS’ statement on the suggested management of chronic asthma, based on the need to promote optimal care and control of asthma, together with the incorporation of new concepts and drug developments. This revised document reinforces optimal care and incorporates the following primary objectives to achieve the recent advances in asthma care:
• continued emphasis on the use of inhaled corticosteroids (ICS) as the foundation of asthma treatment
• to reduce the reliance on short-acting beta-2 agonist (SABA) monotherapy for asthma symptoms
• to incorporate the evidence and strategy for the use of the combination of an ICS and formoterol for acute symptom relief (instead of a SABA)
• to incorporate the evidence and strategy for the use of as-needed ICS-long-acting beta agonists (LABA) for patients with infrequent symptoms or ‘mild’ asthma
• to incorporate the evidence and strategy for the use of a long-acting muscarinic antagonist (LAMA) in combination with ICS-LABA; and
• to incorporate the evidence and strategy for the use of and management with a biologic therapy in severe asthma.
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The IDF Diabetes Atlas report highlights the disproportionate prevalence of type 2 diabetes (T2D) among Indigenous Peoples globally. It emphasizes the social and health disparities resulting from colonization, loss of traditional practices, and systemic inequities. The report includes prevalence dat...a across various Indigenous populations, identifying significant variability and often higher rates among Indigenous women compared to men. The report calls for culturally responsive and community-driven interventions to address diabetes prevention and management while advocating for better data collection and representation to support Indigenous communities worldwide.
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Asthma is the most common chronic respiratory disease (CRD) worldwide and is estimated to affect 262 million causing significant mortality and morbidity, and has emerged as an important public health problem in many Latin American (LA) countries over the last 30 or so years. LA is a highly diverse r...egion in terms of geography, climate, wealth, and ethnicity including 20 different countries with 639 million inhabitants, where 40 million are estimated to have asthma. A common feature of LA countries is the high level of social inequalities3 (Figure 1). In LA, asthma prevalence in both children and adults is highly variable and, where high, is among the highest worldwide, particularly in coastal tropical cities.
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The European Respiratory Society (ERS)/American Thoracic Society (ATS) Task Force on severe asthma includes an updated definition of severe asthma, a discussion of severe asthma phenotypes in relation to genetics, natural history, pathobiology and physiology, as well as sections on evaluation and tr...eatment of severe asthma where specific recommendations for practice are made. See the unabridged online version of the document for detailed discussion of the definition of severe asthma, phenotypes and recommendations for practice.
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Aerosol pollutants are known to raise the risk of development of non-communicable respiratory diseases (NCRDs) such as asthma, chronic bronchitis, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, and allergic rhinitis. Sub-Saharan Africa’s rapid pace of urbanization, economic expansion, and population growt...h raise concerns of increasing incidence of NCRDs. This research characterizes the state of research on pollution and NCRDs in the 46 countries of Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). This research systematically reviewed the literature on studies of asthma; chronic bronchitis; allergic rhinitis; and air pollutants such as particulate matter, ozone, NOx, and sulfuric oxide.
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