Supplement article
The Journal of Infectious Diseases® 2017;216(S7):S675–8
DOI: 10.1093/infdis/jix368
Finding the Missing Tuberculosis Patients • JID 2017:216 (Suppl 7) • S675
Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/jid/article-abstract/216/suppl_7/S675/4595547
by guest on 13 Nove...mber 2017
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                                                                Key questions
What is already known?
    Critical illness is common throughout the world and COVID-19 has caused a global surge of critically ill patients.
    There are large gaps in the quality of care for critically ill patients, especially in low-staffed and low-resourced settings, and mortal...ity rates are high.
    Essential Emergency and Critical Care (EECC) is the effective lifesaving care of low-cost and low-complexity that all critically ill patients should receive in all wards in all hospitals in the world.
What are the new findings?
    The clinical processes that comprise EECC and the essential care of critically ill patients with COVID-19 have been specified in a large consensus among clinical experts worldwide.
    The resource requirements for hospitals to be ready to provide this care has been described.
What do the new findings imply?
    The findings can be used across medical specialties in hospitals worldwide to prioritise and implement essential care for reducing preventable deaths.
    Inclusion of the EEEC processes could increase the impact of pandemic preparedness and response programmes and policies for health systems strengthening.
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                                                                In 2015, the United Nations set important targets to reduce premature
cardiovascular disease (CVD) deaths by 33% by 2030. Africa disproportionately
bears the brunt of CVD burden and has one of the highest risks of dying
from non-communicable diseases (NCDs) worldwide. There is currently
an epide...miological transition on the continent, where NCDs is projected
to outpace communicable diseases within the current decade. Unchecked
increases in CVD risk factors have contributed to the growing burden of three
major CVDs—hypertension, cardiomyopathies, and atherosclerotic diseasesleading to devastating rates of stroke and heart failure. The highest age
standardized disability-adjusted life years (DALYs) due to hypertensive heart
disease (HHD) were recorded in Africa. The contributory causes of heart failure
are changing—whilst HHD and cardiomyopathies still dominate, ischemic
heart disease is rapidly becoming a significant contributor, whilst rheumatic
heart disease (RHD) has shown a gradual decline. In a continent where health
systems are traditionally geared toward addressing communicable diseases,
several gaps exist to adequately meet the growing demand imposed by CVDs.
Among these, high-quality research to inform interventions, underfunded
health systems with high out-of-pocket costs, limited accessibility and
affordability of essential medicines, CVD preventive services, and skill
shortages. Overall, the African continent progress toward a third reduction
in premature mortality come 2030 is lagging behind. More can be done in
the arena of effective policy implementation for risk factor reduction and
CVD prevention, increasing health financing and focusing on strengthening
primary health care services for prevention and treatment of CVDs, whilst
ensuring availability and affordability of quality medicines. Further, investing
in systematic country data collection and research outputs will improve the accuracy of the burden of disease data and inform policy adoption on
interventions. This review summarizes the current CVD burden, important
gaps in cardiovascular medicine in Africa, and further highlights priority
areas where efforts could be intensified in the next decade with potential
to improve the current rate of progress toward achieving a 33% reduction
in CVD mortality.
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                                                                Non-communicable diseases (NCDs) are the second common cause of death in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) accounting for about 35% of all deaths, after a composite of communicable, maternal, neonatal, and nutritional diseases. Despite prior perception of low NCDs mortality rates, current evidence suggests t...hat SSA is now at the dawn of the epidemiological transition with contemporary double burden of disease from NCDs and communicable diseases. In SSA, cardiovascular diseases (CVDs) are the most frequent causes of NCDs deaths, responsible for approximately 13% of all deaths and 37% of all NCDs deaths. Although ischemic heart disease (IHD) has been identified as the leading cause of CVDs mortality in SSA followed by stroke and hypertensive heart disease from statistical models, real field data suggest IHD rates are still relatively low. The neglected endemic CVDs of SSA such as endomyocardial fibrosis and rheumatic heart disease as well as congenital heart diseases remain unconquered. While the underlying aetiology of heart failure among adults in high-income countries (HIC) is IHD, in SSA the leading causes are hypertensive heart disease, cardiomyopathy, rheumatic heart disease, and congenital heart diseases. Of concern is the tendency of CVDs to occur at younger ages in SSA populations, approximately two decades earlier compared to HIC. Obstacles hampering primary and secondary prevention of CVDs in SSA include insufficient health care systems and infrastructure, scarcity of cardiac professionals, skewed budget allocation and disproportionate prioritization away from NCDs, high cost of cardiac treatments and interventions coupled with rarity of health insurance systems. This review gives an overview of the descriptive epidemiology of CVDs in SSA, while contrasting with the HIC and highlighting impediments to their management and making recommendations.
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                                                                Guidelines for the care and treatment of persons diagnosed with chronic hepatitis C virus infection
                                                            
                         
                     
                                                        
                        
                        
                            
                            
                                                                published in: Viruses 2016, 8, 161
                                                            
                         
                     
                                                        
                        
                        
                            
                            
                                                                Model Chapter for textbooks for medical students and allied health professionals
                                                            
                         
                     
                                                        
                        
                        
                            
                            
                                                                Canadian Journal of Microbiology 25 June 2021 https://doi.org/10.1139/cjm-2020-0572
                                                            
                         
                     
                                                        
                        
                        
                            
                            
                                                                The EAPC White Paper addresses the issue of spiritual care education for all palliative care
professionals. It is to guide health care professionals involved in teaching or training of palliative care and spiritual care; stakeholders, leaders and decision makers responsible for training and educati...on; as well as national and local curricula development groups.
The EAPC white paper points out the importance of spiritual care as an integral part of palliative care and suggests incorporating it accordingly into educational activities and training models in palliative care. The revised spiritual care education competencies for all palliative care providers are accompanied by the best practice models and research evidence, at the same time being sensitive towards different develop-ment stages of the palliative care services across the European region.
Conclusions: Better education can help the healthcare practitioner to avoid being distracted by their own fears, prejudices, and restraints and attend to the patient and his/her family. This EAPC white paper encourages and facilitates high quality, multi-disciplinary, academically and financially accessible spiritual care education to all
palliative care staff.
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                                                                We will soon be piloting a project titled “Integrating Spirituality into Patient Care” that will form “spiritual care teams” to assess and address patients’ spiritual needs in physician  outpatient  practices  within  Adventist  Health  System,  the  largest  Protestant healthcare  system ... in  the  United  States.This  paper  describes  the  goals,  the  rationale,  and the  structure  of  the  spiritual  care  teams  that  will  soon  be  implemented,  and  discusses  the barriers  to  providing  spiritual  care  that  health  professionals  are  likely  to  encounter.Spiritual care teams may operate in an outpatient or an inpatient setting, and their purpose is  to  provide  health  professionals  with  resources  necessary  to  practice  whole  person healthcare that includes spiritual care.We believe that this project will serve as a model forfaith-based  health  systems  seeking  to  visibly  demonstrate  their  mission  in  a  way  that makes them unique and expresses their values.Not only does this model have the potential to  be  cost-effective,  but  also  the  capacity  to  increase  the  quality  of  patient  care  and  the satisfaction that  health  professionals  derive  from  providing  care.If  successful,  this  model could  spread  beyond  faith-based  systems  to  secular  systems  as  well  both  in the  U.S. and worldwide.
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