Saving Lives, Buying Time

Saving Lives, Buying Time
Author: Institute of Medicine
Publisher: National Academies Press
Total Pages: 384
Release: 2004-09-09
Genre: Medical
ISBN: 0309165938

For more than 50 years, low-cost antimalarial drugs silently saved millions of lives and cured billions of debilitating infections. Today, however, these drugs no longer work against the deadliest form of malaria that exists throughout the world. Malaria deaths in sub-Saharan Africaâ€"currently just over one million per yearâ€"are rising because of increased resistance to the old, inexpensive drugs. Although effective new drugs called "artemisinins" are available, they are unaffordable for the majority of the affected population, even at a cost of one dollar per course. Saving Lives, Buying Time: Economics of Malaria Drugs in an Age of Resistance examines the history of malaria treatments, provides an overview of the current drug crisis, and offers recommendations on maximizing access to and effectiveness of antimalarial drugs. The book finds that most people in endemic countries will not have access to currently effective combination treatments, which should include an artemisinin, without financing from the global community. Without funding for effective treatment, malaria mortality could double over the next 10 to 20 years and transmission will intensify.

Ecological Knowledge and Environmental Problem-Solving

Ecological Knowledge and Environmental Problem-Solving
Author: National Research Council
Publisher: National Academies Press
Total Pages: 401
Release: 1986-02-01
Genre: Science
ISBN: 0309036453

This volume explores how the scientific tools of ecology can be used more effectively in dealing with a variety of complex environmental problems. Part I discusses the usefulness of such ecological knowledge as population dynamics and interactions, community ecology, life histories, and the impact of various materials and energy sources on the environment. Part II contains 13 original and instructive case studies pertaining to the biological side of environmental problems, which Nature described as "carefully chosen and extremely interesting."

Advances in Disease Vector Research

Advances in Disease Vector Research
Author:
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
Total Pages: 376
Release: 2012-12-06
Genre: Science
ISBN: 1461232929

I think the reader will agree that we have attained a good balance in Volume 6 between human-or animal-host and plant-host-related topics from outstanding research scientists. In Chapter 1, Frank Collins, Susan Paskewitz, and Victoria Finnerty explore the potential of recombinant DNA technology to distinguish indi vidual species and to establish phylogenetic relationships among member species in the Anopheles gambiae species complex, which includes the principal malaria vectors. Currently, relatively little is known about these morphologically identical species that are sympatric over most of their range but are not always equally involved in malaria transmission. With respect to individual species identification, the researchers have thus far described two DNA fragments, derived from the ribosomal DNA interge nic spacer region, that reliably distinguish five species in the complex by means of an RFLP visualized on a Southern blot. They have also described other species-specific fragments derived from a ribosomal DNA intron that could form the basis for a rapid dot blot assay. With respect to the phylogenetic relationships among member species in the complex, Collins, Paskewitz, and Finnerty focus on a comparison at the level of restriction site mapping and Southern analysis of the rDNA intergenic spacer regions. As expected, the two spacer regions near the coding region junctions are well conserved among the species, whereas the central regions tend to be highly variable among member species in the complex.

The Experiment Must Continue

The Experiment Must Continue
Author: Melissa Graboyes
Publisher: Ohio University Press
Total Pages: 267
Release: 2015-11-09
Genre: Science
ISBN: 0821445340

The Experiment Must Continue is a beautifully articulated ethnographic history of medical experimentation in East Africa from 1940 through 2014. In it, Melissa Graboyes combines her training in public health and in history to treat her subject with the dual sensitivities of a medical ethicist and a fine historian. She breathes life into the fascinating histories of research on human subjects, elucidating the hopes of the interventionists and the experiences of the putative beneficiaries. Historical case studies highlight failed attempts to eliminate tropical diseases, while modern examples delve into ongoing malaria and HIV/AIDS research. Collectively, these show how East Africans have perceived research differently than researchers do and that the active participation of subjects led to the creation of a hybrid ethical form. By writing an ethnography of the past and a history of the present, Graboyes casts medical experimentation in a new light, and makes the resounding case that we must readjust our dominant ideas of consent, participation, and exploitation. With global implications, this lively book is as relevant for scholars as it is for anyone invested in the place of medicine in society.

The Development of Modern Epidemiology

The Development of Modern Epidemiology
Author: Walter W Holland
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 471
Release: 2007-04-05
Genre: History
ISBN: 0198569548

This book describes the evolution of epidemiology, its methods, concepts and application over the last 100 years. Current and future epidemiologists will find this book a useful and insightful record of the events that have shaped this discipline.

Mathematical Studies on Human Disease Dynamics

Mathematical Studies on Human Disease Dynamics
Author: Abba B. Gumel
Publisher: American Mathematical Soc.
Total Pages: 406
Release: 2006
Genre: Computers
ISBN: 0821837753

This volume contains the proceedings of the AMS-SIAM-IMS Joint Summer Research Conference on Modeling the Dynamics of Human Diseases: Emerging Paradigms and Challenges, held in Snowbird, Utah, July 17-21, 2005. The goal of the conference was to bring together leading and upcoming researchers to discuss the latest advances and challenges associated with the modeling of the dynamics of emerging and re-emerging diseases, and to explore various control strategies. The articles included in this book are devoted to some of the significant recent advances, trends, and challenges associated with the mathematical modeling and analysis of the dynamics and control of some diseases of public health importance. In addition to illustrating many of the diverse prevailing epidemiological challenges, together with the diversity of mathematical approaches needed to address them, this book provides insights on a number of topical modeling issues such as the modeling and control of mosquito-borne diseases, respiratory diseases, animal diseases (such as foot-and-mouth disease), cancer and tumor growth modeling, influenza, HIV, HPV, rotavirus, etc. This book also touches upon other important topics such as the use of modeling i

Field Trials of Health Interventions

Field Trials of Health Interventions
Author: Peter G. Smith
Publisher:
Total Pages: 479
Release: 2015
Genre: Health & Fitness
ISBN: 0198732864

This is an open access title available under the terms of a CC BY-NC 4.0 International licence. It is free to read at Oxford Scholarship Online and offered as a free PDF download from OUP and selected open access locations. Before new interventions are released into disease control programmes, it is essential that they are carefully evaluated in field trials'. These may be complex and expensive undertakings, requiring the follow-up of hundreds, or thousands, of individuals, often for long periods. Descriptions of the detailed procedures and methods used in the trials that have been conducted have rarely been published. A consequence of this, individuals planning such trials have few guidelines available and little access to knowledge accumulated previously, other than their own. In this manual, practical issues in trial design and conduct are discussed fully and in sufficient detail, that Field Trials of Health Interventions may be used as a toolbox' by field investigators. It has been compiled by an international group of over 30 authors with direct experience in the design, conduct, and analysis of field trials in low and middle income countries and is based on their accumulated knowledge and experience. Available as an open access book via Oxford Medicine Online, this new edition is a comprehensive revision, incorporating the new developments that have taken place in recent years with respect to trials, including seven new chapters on subjects ranging from trial governance, and preliminary studies to pilot testing.

Stochastic Processes in Epidemic Theory

Stochastic Processes in Epidemic Theory
Author: Jean-Pierre Gabriel
Publisher: Springer
Total Pages: 208
Release: 2014-03-11
Genre: Mathematics
ISBN: 3662100673

This collection of papers gives a representative cross-selectional view of recent developments in the field. After a survey paper by C. Lefèvre, 17 other research papers look at stochastic modeling of epidemics, both from a theoretical and a statistical point of view. Some look more specifically at a particular disease such as AIDS, malaria, schistosomiasis and diabetes.

Mathematical Biology

Mathematical Biology
Author: Ronald W. Shonkwiler
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
Total Pages: 552
Release: 2009-08-04
Genre: Science
ISBN: 0387709843

This text presents mathematical biology as a field with a unity of its own, rather than only the intrusion of one science into another. The book focuses on problems of contemporary interest, such as cancer, genetics, and the rapidly growing field of genomics.