"I love that you've brought this to attention. An extensive database of uncommon but resistant and hardy plants/foods could be developed and organized by climate. Ease of growth and processing should also be taken in to account. I will try to…"
A crash course in changing the world.
XDR-TB in CT
Despite being, in my opinion, the most beautiful city in the world, Cape Town faces a number of potential crises - environmental, political and health-related.
The combination of fynbos, our very unique, dry and fire-loving indigenous fauna, and the creative use of electric wires in informal settlements puts us at special risk for fire damage. Politically, we're one of the most unstable regions in the country, changing party leadership at every election. And inequality is especially evident when one compares a suburb on one side of the traintracks to the one on the other. The health problems here can be almost completely accounted for by substances and tuberculosis.
And it is possible that, in the near future, we will face an outbreak of extremely drug-resistant tuberculosis (XDR-TB).
XDR-TB is the abbreviation for extremely drug-resistant tuberculosis, also called extensively drug-resistant tuberculosis. One in three people in the world is infected with dormant TB germs. Only when the bacteria become active do people become ill with TB. Bacteria become active as
a result of anything that can reduce the person’s immunity, such as HIV, advancing age or some medical conditions.
TB can usually be treated with a course of four standard, or "first-line," anti-TB drugs. If these drugs are misused or mismanaged, multidrug-resistant TB (MDR-TB) can develop. MDR-TB takes longer to treat, and requires "second-line" drugs that are more expensive and have more side effects. XDR-TB can develop when these second-line drugs are also misused or mismanaged and become ineffective. Treatment options for XDR-TB are seriously limited.
Many people think of TB as a disease of the past, but in 2007 alone, TB killed 1.7 million people. That’s 4,660 deaths a day, or one death from TB every 20 seconds. TB is the leading killer of people with HIV: Individuals are able to live with HIV but are dying from TB. Without proper treatment, 90% of those living with HIV die within months of contracting TB.
In this context, Ushahidi would be an excellent tool for a public health/infection control programme. Doctors, nurses and community health workers could notify a central hub via sms, gathering the following information:
- Time and location of seeing patient
- Symptoms and severity
- Tuberculin skin test (does the patient have tuberculosis?)
- Treatment and adherence
If a certain format was designed and agreed upon, this information could be encoded in numbers or suitable abbreviations.
e.g. indicate how many of the following signs and symptoms the patient displays: cough for 3 months, coughing up blood, night sweats, weight loss...
OR cough for 3 months = cghX3mths
This information would inform resource distribution; where drugs, masks and medical teams should be sent. Also, it will allow some level of prediction as to how the outbreak is likely to spread.
By educating health care workers to use the service, one lessens the likelihood of receiving false information, as this is simply a case of performing disease notification in a more efficient way.
See www.xdrtb.org for more information.
The combination of fynbos, our very unique, dry and fire-loving indigenous fauna, and the creative use of electric wires in informal settlements puts us at special risk for fire damage. Politically, we're one of the most unstable regions in the country, changing party leadership at every election. And inequality is especially evident when one compares a suburb on one side of the traintracks to the one on the other. The health problems here can be almost completely accounted for by substances and tuberculosis.
And it is possible that, in the near future, we will face an outbreak of extremely drug-resistant tuberculosis (XDR-TB).
XDR-TB is the abbreviation for extremely drug-resistant tuberculosis, also called extensively drug-resistant tuberculosis. One in three people in the world is infected with dormant TB germs. Only when the bacteria become active do people become ill with TB. Bacteria become active as
a result of anything that can reduce the person’s immunity, such as HIV, advancing age or some medical conditions.
TB can usually be treated with a course of four standard, or "first-line," anti-TB drugs. If these drugs are misused or mismanaged, multidrug-resistant TB (MDR-TB) can develop. MDR-TB takes longer to treat, and requires "second-line" drugs that are more expensive and have more side effects. XDR-TB can develop when these second-line drugs are also misused or mismanaged and become ineffective. Treatment options for XDR-TB are seriously limited.
Many people think of TB as a disease of the past, but in 2007 alone, TB killed 1.7 million people. That’s 4,660 deaths a day, or one death from TB every 20 seconds. TB is the leading killer of people with HIV: Individuals are able to live with HIV but are dying from TB. Without proper treatment, 90% of those living with HIV die within months of contracting TB.
In this context, Ushahidi would be an excellent tool for a public health/infection control programme. Doctors, nurses and community health workers could notify a central hub via sms, gathering the following information:
- Time and location of seeing patient
- Symptoms and severity
- Tuberculin skin test (does the patient have tuberculosis?)
- Treatment and adherence
If a certain format was designed and agreed upon, this information could be encoded in numbers or suitable abbreviations.
e.g. indicate how many of the following signs and symptoms the patient displays: cough for 3 months, coughing up blood, night sweats, weight loss...
OR cough for 3 months = cghX3mths
This information would inform resource distribution; where drugs, masks and medical teams should be sent. Also, it will allow some level of prediction as to how the outbreak is likely to spread.
By educating health care workers to use the service, one lessens the likelihood of receiving false information, as this is simply a case of performing disease notification in a more efficient way.
See www.xdrtb.org for more information.
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