Sunday, April 26, 2009

Civil Unrest and Communicable Disease Control

The current issue of Lancet Infectious Disease has a news story on the continuing neglect of visceral leishmaniasis.

The author makes the point that war and civil unrest are major impediments to control of endemic communicable disease. This article uses the example of the political situation in Sudan hampering programs for treatment of leishmaniasis.

This is only one example of many, of course. Regional elimination of disease is impossible if even one country in an endemic area has an ineffective government program. An even better example is the onchocerciasis control program (OCP) in West Africa. The OCP was a major effort to eliminate onchoceriasis in West Africa in the 1970s-1990s. In many countries the OCP worked to control onchocerciasis and prevent river blindiness. However, despite international investment, aggressive vector control, and coordinated government/NGO treatment programs, the OCP failed to eliminate onchocerciasis from West Africa primarily due to the decades of conflict in Sierra Leone.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I thinκ eѵerything ρublished madе a
bunch of sense. But, ωhаt abοut this?
what if you addeԁ a little infοrmation? I ain't saying your content isn't solіd, but suppose уou added a headline to maybе grab folk's attention? I mean "Civil Unrest and Communicable Disease Control" is kinda vanilla. You could look at Yahoo's fгont page anԁ watch how they ωrite news titles to get vіewerѕ
to click. You might try adding a νideo oг
a рicture or two tо grab readers excited about ωhat yоu've got to say. In my opinion, it could bring your posts a little livelier.

Here is my webpage - how to smoke ribs on the big green egg

Anonymous said...

Ηеy there! Ӏ've been reading your site for a while now and finally got the bravery to go ahead and give you a shout out from Austin Tx! Just wanted to mention keep up the great work!

Take a look at my weblog norman oklahoma roofers
My webpage: roof repairs in okc