The number of annual Alzheimer's cases in Indonesia will go up by 19.7 million, according to the Ministry of Health, which has launched new efforts to educate the public about the illness.

"We often see 'pikun' [forgetfulness] as a problem for the elderly," Ali Ghufron Mukti, the Deputy Minister of Health, said at the "Memory Walk" Alzheimer awareness event in Jakarta on Sunday.

"This is wrong, because these are the symptoms of a serious illness," he said, referring to the widespread belief in Indonesia that Alzheimer's symptoms are part of the ordinary forgetfulness that comes with aging.

"We are working to prepare Indonesia's Alzheimer's-Dementia National Plan in the near future to demonstrate the country's commitment to this important issue," Ali said.

In addition to direct costs, Ali said that Alzheimer's tended to take a heavy toll on patients' families, who often devote tremendous time and effort in caring for their loved one's suffering from the disease.

Some 80 countries participate annually in the Memory Walk, which marks World Alzheimer's Month every September.

DY Suharya, the executive director for Alzheimer Indonesia, a nonprofit that works to raise the quality of life for dementia and Alzheimer patients, organized this year's walk along the Sudirman-Thamrin main artery in Jakarta, which marked Indonesia's first participation in the event.

"Alzheimer's can set in 20 years before most symptoms become apparent," Suharya said. His organization has undertaken efforts to educate the public about symptoms and detection and to promote healthy living, which can reduce the risk of getting Alzheimer's in old age.

Data from Alzheimer's Disease International showed that Southeast Asians spent $4 billion in 2010 on Alzheimer's and dementia treatment, including medicine and facilities.

source: www.thejakartaglobe.com

Dr. Mahmoud Daher, interim head of the World Health Organization's Palestinian office, spoke on campus this Thursday at the University of Tennessee's Howard H. Baker Center. His presentation informed listeners of the World Health Organization's mission both globally and in Palestine specifically.

As Dr. Daher pointed out, millions are affected annually by conflict around the world. An estimated thirty million people have been driven out of their homes and into other regions of their countries in the past year. The World Health Organization also estimates that twenty-three million people are refugees, forced to leave their own countries. Dr. Daher listed Turkey, Pakistan, Palestine, Jordan, and Latin America as several major areas of conflict.

Along with this displacement of people come health issues, including higher infant and maternal mortality rates, lack of food and clean water, and power shortages in hospitals.

Dr. Daher is a native of the Gaza Strip in Palestine, an area of heated militarized conflict that is under siege by Egypt and Israel. Because of the siege there are less jobs, resources, and healthcare services in Palestine. As an example, Dr. Daher pointed out that Gazan fishermen are permitted to sail only three miles offshore. This restricts the amount of fish that Gazans can add to an already low food supply. He works on the front lines there to provide humanitarian support to those affected by the war.

As Dr. Daher stated, the World Health Organization's concerns in areas like Palestine include loss of life, physical injury, access to safe water and food, reproductive health, mental health, and communicable disease. Internationally, the organization is viewed as a leader for the health community and sets the research agenda for health services.

When asked about where the World Health Organization acquires funding, Dr. Daher verified that they are a donation-based operation. He estimated that eighty percent of their funding comes from nations that donate to specific causes. Dr. Daher named the United States as the major donator in the World Health Organization's project to treat and stop the spread of HIV/AIDS in Egypt.

source: www.tnjn.com

Indonesia is seeking ways to reduce health risk caused by transportation-generated air pollution, and one of the most cost-effective options is by taking gas fuel rather than fossil-based fuel, a senior official at the environment ministry said here on Thursday.

The option to use gas fuel was considered as the most likely and cost-efficient among nine options discussed at a forum that involves government officials, experts and representatives from the Indonesian Automotive Industry Association, or Gaikindo.

"Results from cost-effectiveness from nine options discussed at the forum showed fuel conversion from fossil-based fuel to gas fuel is the most inexpensive one if compared to aspects offered by the other 8 options, "Deputy Environment Pollution Control Minister Sulistyowati said on the sidelines of the discussion entitled "Multi-Stakeholders Forum" held here.

"Meanwhile, adopting hybrid technology and providing comprehensive mass transport system were the second and third of most inexpensive solutions," he said.

Experts attending the discussion were the senior adviser of United States Environmental Protection Agency (US-EPA) for Asia Pacific region Mark Kasman, and Anup Brandivandekar from International Council for Clean Transportation (ICCT).

The other six options were fuel efficiency drive by 10 percent since 2009, gas fuel conversion up to 5 percent by 2021, dumping half of the cars with more than 10 years' service period, conversion of fossil fuel to bio fuels to 5 percent by 2021, acceleration of Euro 2 emission standard on motored vehicles by 2005 and Euro 4 by 2016 and adoption of catalytic converter technology to 25 percent of cars, bus and trucks, Sulistyowati said here.

According to an analysis jointly conducted by the Indonesian environment ministry, the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) and US-EPA in 2012 entitled Cost Benefit Analysis on Fuel Economy Initiative, air pollution generated by transportation vehicles had cost greatly people who suffered from pollution-related diseases.

Air pollution also exacerbates productivity and affects life quality, which eventually undermined the country's efforts to attain higher growth, according to the analysis.

The ministry learned that in 2010, 57.8 percent of Jakarta's residents suffered from various diseases, among others asthma, bronkopneumonia and lung obstructive generated from air pollution.

They had to spend a total of 38 trillion rupiah (about 3.4 billion U.S. dollars) on medical treatment, according to the ministry.

Should there be no concrete efforts to address this problem, pollution of particulate matters (PM) 10, sulfur dioxide and carbon oxide in the capital city may rise up to 4 times and Ozone and nitric oxide up to 7 times by 2030.

The green house effect emission formed in carbon dioxide may also rise up 3 times from 2010 level.

source: news.xinhuanet.com

America is facing a "perfect storm of vulnerability" for exposure to infectious diseases, making public health efforts more important than ever, the head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention warned Tuesday.

"There is in some quarters a sense that public health is less and less relevant," CDC Director Dr. Tom Frieden said during a luncheon at the National Press Club. "Public health is more needed than ever and has more potential than ever."

The successful fight against many infectious diseases can lead to a sense of complacency, Dr. Frieden warned. But the increasing interconnectedness of the world means America is always at risk of being affected by outbreaks in other nations. A lot of food and medication in the U.S. comes from outside its borders, he said, and it only takes one missed diagnosis to unleash an epidemic.

"A blind spot anywhere in the world is a risk to us," Dr. Frieden said. "A virus anywhere is just a plane ride away."

He pointed to the H7N9 strain of the bird flu virus that was diagnosed this year in China. It can be lethal, but the only thing preventing a widespread outbreak is that it doesn't yet spread from person to person.

The virus could develop that capability tomorrow — or never, Dr. Frieden said.

"There's nothing that can kill as many people as influenza," he said, noting that, on average, about 10,000 Americans die each year from the disease.

Dr. Frieden said that his agency is working to develop a vaccine for the latest bird flu strain, and that it launches on average one new investigation into infectious diseases every day. But faced with growing debt and shrinking funds, many cuts are being made to the nation's health infrastructure, he added.

"Over the past four years, about 46,000 jobs have been eliminated by local and state governments in public health care professions," he said.

The CDC has also seen its budget dwindle, and Congress authorized the lowest amount in decades — about $5.4 billion — to fund the agency, Dr. Frieden said.

The cuts have stopped investments in the latest technologies, such as advanced molecular detection that can help identify pathogens more quickly than traditional means. The CDC is asking Congress for $40 million in the 2014 fiscal year beginning Oct. 1 to try to get the newest diagnostic technology brought online.

"Every time someone is not there to identify an outbreak we're putting people at risk," Dr. Frieden said. "Infectious diseases continue to be and will always be part of our lives."

And it's not just natural threats the CDC is concerned about either. The agency remains on the lookout for bioterrorism threats, such as the letters laced with the poison ricin that were sent to Washington earlier this year.

Dr. Frieden was named director of the CDC in 2009. He has worked for the agency since 1990, apart from a seven-year break when he led New York City's Health Department.

source: www.washingtontimes.com

The WHO (World Health Organization) published on 2008 a very important report on "Primary Heath Care" which in our view should be an essential reading and reference for every primary heath care decision-makers. This is why we will review some of its essential parts. It was also published on the year which marked both the 60th birthday of the WHO and the 30th anniversary of the Declaration of Alma-Ata on Primary Health Care in 1978.

Responding to Challenges

On the whole, people are healthier, wealthier and live longer today than 30 years ago. If children were still dying at 1978 rates, there would have been 16.2 million deaths globally in 2006. In fact, there were only 9.5 million such deaths9. This difference of 6.7 million is equivalent to 18 329 children's lives being saved every day. The once

revolutionary notion of essential drugs has become commonplace. There have been significant improvements in access to water, sanitation and antenatal care.

This shows that progress is possible. It can also be accelerated. There have never been more resources available for health than now. The global health economy is growing faster than gross domestic product (GDP), having increased its share from 8% to 8.6% of the world's GDP between 2000 and 2005. In absolute terms, adjusted for inflation, this represents a 35% growth in the world's expenditure on health over a five-year period. Knowledge and understanding of health are growing rapidly. The accelerated technological revolution is multiplying the potential for improving health and transforming health literacy in a better-educated and modernizing global society. A global stewardship is emerging: from intensified exchanges between countries, often in recognition of shared threats, challenges or opportunities; from growing solidarity; and from the global commitment to eliminate poverty exemplified in the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).

However, there are other trends that must not be ignored. First, the substantial progress in health over recent decades has been deeply unequal, with convergence towards improved health in a large part of the world, but at the same time, with a considerable number of countries increasingly lagging behind or losing ground.

Furthermore, there is now ample documentation– not available 30 years ago – of considerable and often growing health inequalities within countries.

Second, the nature of health problems is changing in ways that were only partially anticipated, and at a rate that was wholly unexpected. Ageing and the effects of ill-managed urbanization and globalization accelerate worldwide transmission of communicable diseases, and increase the burden of chronic and non-communicable disorders. The growing reality that many individuals present with complex symptoms and multiple illnesses challenges service delivery to develop more integrated and comprehensive case management. A complex web of interrelated factors is at work, involving gradual but long-term increases in income and population, climate change, challenges to food security, and social tensions, all with definite, but largely unpredictable, implications for health in the years ahead.

Third, health systems are not insulated from the rapid pace of change and transformation that is an essential part of today's globalization. Economic and political crises challenge state and institutional roles to ensure access, delivery and financing. Unregulated commercialization is accompanied by a blurring of the boundaries between public and private actors, while the negotiation of entitlement and rights is increasingly politicized. The information age has transformed the relations between citizens, professionals and politicians.

In many regards, the responses of the health sector to the changing world have been inadequate and naïve. Inadequate, insofar as they not only fail to anticipate, but also to respond appropriately: too often with too little, too late or too much in the wrong place. Naïve insofar as a system's failure requires a system's solution – not a temporary remedy. Problems with human resources for public health and health care, finance, infrastructure or information systems invariably extend beyond the narrowly defined health sector, beyond a single level of policy purview and, increasingly, across borders: this raises the benchmark in terms of working effectively across government and stakeholders.

While the health sector remains massively under-resourced in far too many countries, the resource base for health has been growing consistently over the last decade. The opportunities this growth offers for inducing structural changes and making health systems more effective and equitable are often missed. Global and, increasingly, national policy formulation processes have focused on single issues, with various constituencies competing for scarce resources, while scant attention is given to the underlying constraints that hold up health systems development in national contexts. Rather than improving their response capacity and anticipating new challenges, health systems seem to be drifting from one short-term priority to another, increasingly fragmented and without a clear sense of direction.

Today, it is clear that left to their own devices, health systems do not gravitate naturally towards the goals of health for all through primary health care as articulated in the Declaration of Alma- Ata. Health systems are developing in directions that contribute little to equity and social justice and fail to get the best health outcomes for their money. Three particularly worrisome trends can be characterized as follows:

health systems that focus disproportionately on a narrow offer of specialized curative care; health systems where a command-and-control approach to disease control, focused on short term results, is fragmenting service delivery; health systems where a hands-off or laissez-faire approach to governance has allowed unregulated commercialization of health to flourish.

These trends fly in the face of a comprehensive and balanced response to health needs. In a number of countries, the resulting inequitable access, impoverishing costs, and erosion of trust in health care constitute a threat to social stability.

source: news.sudanvisiondaily.com

Could rice help prevent blindness and even death in children?

The International Rice Research Institute believes so. IRRI is pushing field trials so that farmers could their sow fields by 2015 with a new rice variety — called golden rice – that could help address Vitamin A deficiency. A lack of the vitamin is a leading cause of preventable blindness and is linked to death due to infections in many poor countries.

The World Health Organization estimates that 250 million young children don't get enough Vitamin A. Up to 500,000 of these young children go blind every year. Half die within a year of losing their sight.

The golden rice program has received the backing of such groups as the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Helen Keller International, the Rockefeller Foundation and the U.S. Agency for International Development. USAID provided $10.3 million in 2010 that is paying for research on golden rice's safety and field trials in the Philippines and Bangladesh.

But opponents, such as Greenpeace International, say oppose the rice, warning that genetically modified organisms could unleash serious, long-lasting problems in the environment. Greenpeace successfully petitioned the Philippine Supreme Court to stop the government's field trials of genetically modified egglant. It has yet to decided whether it will go to court to block golden rice.

"There are already working solutions to address fortification of everyday food, not just with Vitamin A but other micronutrients," said Danny Ocampo of Greenpeace.

A small clinical test on people of the bio-fortified rice was conducted in the U.S. in 2009. IRRI plans to do testing on animals through their feed as early as next year, followed by tests on humans. It is unclear whether golden rice will taste as good as other rice and whether consumers will want to buy it. An iron-fortified rice now being sold by the Philippine government is cheap, but some consumers who can afford more expensive rice avoid it because they say it doesn't taste as good.

Golden rice gets its name from its yellow color. The variety was engineered by introducing a few genes–initially from daffodils, then from yellow corn–so that the grains' edible part produces beta carotene, a pigment that gives fruits and leafy vegetables their color and that the human body converts into Vitamin A. Rice can produce beta carotene in its leaves.

The first scientific details of golden rice were made public in 2000. At that time, it was an eight-year-old project of Professor Ingo Potrykus of the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology and Dr. Peter Beyer of the University of Freiburg in Germany addressing malnutrition.

Swiss agribusiness company Syngenta AGSYNN.VX 0.00% in 2005 produced new golden rice materials that produced 23 times more beta carotene than the original breed. But instead of producing it commercially, Syngenta decided a year later to donate it to IRRRI to make the bio-fortification of rice a humanitarian project.

"Our hope is that farmers everywhere will be planting their fields with golden rice in two years," Dr. Bruce Tolentino, a deputy director general at IRRI, told The Wall Street Journal. He said after field trials this year, IRRI hopes to feed golden rice to animals and then to humans by next year.

He said scientists decided to bio-fortify rice because other food products are more expensive and aren't part of most people's diet.

"Half of the world eats rice and 70% of the poor eats rice. So why not make it more healthy," Dr. Tolentino added.

IRRI estimates that per-capita consumption of rice is around 65 kilograms a year worldwide. And in developing Asia, the consumption doubles to 135 kilos in Indonesia and triples to 200 kilos in Myanmar. Per-capita consumption of rice in the Philippines is around 120 kilos a year.

But golden rice is sparking opposition in the Philippines. In early August, an experimental farm in the Philippine town of Pili, which is testing whether golden rice could grow and be produced in various climatic conditions in this archipelago of more than 7,000 islands, was vandalized.

But Dr. Evangeline dela Trinidad, a plant pathologist designated by Philippines' Department of Agriculture to lead the golden rice trials in Pili town, said of opponents, "It's fear of the unknown."

IRRI is collaborating with the Philippine Rice Research Institute and the agriculture department for Philippine trials. Golden rice trials are also being conducted in Indonesia and Bangladesh.

Dr. dela Trinidad pointed to special corn and cotton called bt corn and bt cotton, with the bt referring to bacillus thuringiensis, a naturally occurring soil bacteria that produces proteins to stop target insects, such as the corn borer that reduces corn production.

Bt corn and Bt cotton are already being cultivated and produced in the Philippines, without the negative problems critics warned about.

"Bt corn is already being commercially produced in Isbela," said Dr. dela Trinidad, referring to the northern Philippine province that is a major producer of the grain. "We also have Bt cotton," she added.

IRRI points to a small trial on golden rice by The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition in 2009 that had five volunteers from Boston that showed 100 grams of the new variety could provide up to 70% of the recommended dietary allowance of Vitamin A for both men and women. Because that study only involved adult Americans, IRRI had to "speculate" that 50 grams of golden rice would provide children aged four to eight greater than 60% of the recommended dietary allowance.

source: blogs.wsj.com

Life expectancy for women at 50 has improved, but the gap between poor and rich countries is growing and could worsen without better detection and treatment of cardiovascular disease and cancers, the World Health Organization (WHO) said on Monday.

A WHO study, one of the first to analyze the causes of death of older women, found that in wealthier countries deaths from noncommunicable diseases has fallen dramatically in recent decades, especially from cancers of the stomach, colon, breast and cervix.

Women over 50 in low and middle-income countries are also living longer, but chronic ailments, including diabetes, kill them at an earlier age than their counterparts, it said.

"The gap in life expectancy between such women in rich and poor countries is growing," said the WHO study, part of an issue of the WHO's monthly bulletin devoted to women's health.

There is a similar growing gap between the life expectancy of men over 50 in rich and lower income countries and in some parts of the world, this gap is wider, WHO officials said.

"More women can expect to live longer and not just survive child birth and childhood. But what we found is that improvement is much stronger in the rich world than in the poor world. The disparity between the two is increasing," Dr. John Beard, director of WHO's department of aging and life course, said in an interview at WHO headquarters.

Beard, one of the study's three authors, said: "What it also points to is that we need particularly in low and middle-income countries to start to think about how these emerging needs of women get addressed. The success in the rich world would suggest that is through better prevention and treatment of NCDs."

In women over 50 years old, noncommunicable diseases (NCDs), particularly cancers, heart disease and strokes, are the most common causes of death, regardless of the level of economic development of the country in which they live, the study said.

Health ministers from WHO's 194 member states agreed on a global action plan to prevent and control noncommunicable diseases at their annual ministerial meeting last May.

Developed countries have tackled cardiovascular diseases and cancers in women with tangible results, the WHO study said.

Fewer women aged 50 years and older in rich countries are dying from heart disease, stroke and diabetes than 30 years ago and these improvements contributed most to increasing women's life expectancy at the age of 50, it said. An older woman in Germany can now expect to live to 84 and in Japan to 88 years, against 73 in South Africa and 80 in Mexico.

"That reflects two things, better prevention, particularly clinical prevention around control of hypertension and screening of cervical cancer, but it also reflects better treatment," Beard said.

"I think that is particularly true for breast cancer where women with breast cancer are much better managed these days in the rich world. That also explains the disparity," he said.

Low-income countries, especially in Africa, offer community services to treat diseases like AIDS or offer maternal care but many lack services to detect or treat breast cancer, he said.

In many developing countries, there is also limited access to high blood pressure medication to treat hypertension, one of the biggest risk factors for death, he added.

Women with cardiovascular disease and cancers need the kind of chronic treatment provided to those with HIV/AIDS, he said.

source: www.thestar.com

The World Health Organization has revealed that that medical professionals in hospitals in five countries didn't always wash their hands effectively, thus failing to prevent the spread of infections to patients and other staff members.

WHO's Clean Care is Safer Care program was established to educate doctors and nurses on correct hand-hygiene practices, which can reduce the risk and spread of infections.

A study from the World Health Organization (WHO) found that doctors in several countries don't wash their hands the right way 40 percent of the time, the New York Daily News reported.

Nurses at the 43 hospitals across Costa Rica, Mali, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Italy that were reviewed had the highest compliance rates at 71percent, WHO said.

The study, which took place from 2006 to 2008, was related to WHO's Clean Care is Safer Care program. The organization has set out to teach medical professionals about proper hand hygiene in order to reduce the risk of infection and help prevent the spread of drug-resistant bacteria and viruses.

WHO says doctors and nurses should use alcohol-based rub or soap and water on their hands at five key moments: before touching a patient, before aseptic or sterile procedures, after they come into contact with bodily fluids, after touching a patient and after touching a patient's surroundings.

The findings were recently published in "Lancet Infectious Diseases." (ANI)

source: truthdive.com