Global Health (GI Infections) Flashcards
Leading causes of death in high income countries?
Largely non-communicable, chronic conditions
- Ischaemic heart disease
- Dementia
- Stroke
- Trachea, bronchus and lung diseases.
- COPD
- Lower resp infections
- Colon and rectum cancers
- Kidney diseases
- Hypertension
- Diabetes Mellitus
Leading causes of death in low income countries?
- Communicable diseases much more common causes of death.
1. Neonatal conditions
2. Lower resp infections
3. Ischaemic heart disease
4. Stroke
5. Diarrhoeal disease (infection, malnutrition, contaminated water, poor hygiene)
6. Malaria
7. Road injury
8. Tuberculosis
9. HIV/AIDs
10. Cirrhosis of the liver
Child Mortality
- Diarrhoeal disease is second leading cause of death of children under 5.
- Other causes include preterm birth complications, birth asphyxia/trauma, pneumonia, congenital anomalies and malaria.
- ALL PREVENTABLE AND TREATABLE.
Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WaSH)
- Pre-requisite for health
- 1 in 10 - 785 million people - do not have access to water close to home
- Inadequate or unsafe WaSH responsible for 829,000 deaths from diarrhoeal disease each year.
- Waterborne diseases such as cholera transmitted via contaminated water.
- ~1 in 4 - 2 billion people - do not have basic sanitation facilities.
- 10% of the wprld’s population is thought to consume food irrigated by wastewater
Diarrhoeal Infections
- Acute watery diarrhoea - enterotoxigenic E. coli (ETEC), vibrio cholera (‘rice-water stools’)
- Dysentry (bloody diarrhoea) - shigella, campylobacter jejuni, salmonella.
- Persistent diarrhoea - cryptosporidium, giardia, campylobacter, E. coli, salmonella, shigella, notovirus, rotavirus.
- 1.7 billion cases of childhpod doarrhoea each year.
- Most commonly due to contamination by faecal material.
Incidence
The number of new cases in a population over a fixed period of time.
Period Prevalence
The total number of existing cases in a population over a fixed period of time.
Point Prevalence
The total number of existing cases in a population at a specific time.
Zimbabwe Cholera Outbreak 2008-9
- 98,596 total cases of cholera.
- 4,369 deaths.
- Outbreak attributed to poor sanitation, limited access to healthcare and poor healthcare infrastructure on background pf political amd economic crisis.
- Further outbreak of a multi-drug resistant strain of Vibrio Cholerae in 2018-19 with 10,730 cases and 69 deaths.
Haiti Cholera Epidemic 2010-18
- 10 months after catastrophic earthquake in January 2010, Vibrio Cholerae was introduced to Haiti - they had no prior exposure to the disease.
- Believed to have been introduced to an extensive river system by Nepalese peace-keeping troops who were responding to the earthquake.
- 819,777 cases of cholera, around 10,000 cumulative deaths since 2010.
WHO Response to Diarrhoeal Diseases
Key measures to prevent diarrhoea include:
-access to safe drinking water
-use of improved sanitation
-hand washing with soap
-exclusive breast-feeding for the first 6 months of life
-good personal and food hygiene
-health education about how infections spread
Rotavirus infection
Millennium Development Goals
8 international development goals agreed by UN to be achieved by 2015:
- eradicate extreme poverty and hunger
- achieve universal primary education
- promote gender equality and empower women
- reduce child mortality
- improve maternal health
- combat HIV/AIDs, Malaria and other diseases
- ensure environmental sustainability (between 1990 and 2015, 2.6 billion people have gained access to improved drinking water sources, 2.1 billion have gained access to improved sanitation. However 2.4 billion are still using unimproved sanitation facilities and 946 million are still practicing open defecation).
- global partnership for development
Climate Change
- A threat to the major essentia; ingredients for good health - clean air, safe drinking water, nutritious food supply, safe shelter.
- Between 2030 and 2050, climate change is expected to cause 250,000 additional deaths per year, from malnutrition, malaria, diarrhoea and heat stress alone.
- Equatoria; countries disproportionately more affected by global warming.
- Weak health infrastructure in developing countries will be least able to cope with the effects.
Water Footprint
- Total volume of freshwater used to produce goods and services consumed by the individual or community or businesses both directly and indirectly.
- Calculated from blue (volume of surface groundwater consumed (evaporated) as a result of the production of a good), green (rain-water consumed), and grey (volume of freshwater required to assimilate (dilute) the load of pollutants based on existing ambient water quality standards) water footprints.
- Animal products generally have a higher water footprint than crop products, per ton of product and per calorie.
