Pandemics are Not New: What Can Indigenous Worldviews Teach Us?
by Jennifer McCurdy, PhD, BSN, MH, HEC-C
Pandemics are not new to human experience. Stories of the Black Death, the Spanish Flu, and waves of smallpox, cholera, and measles have a place in the collective social memory. But something happens viscerally when the experience is first-hand. A witnessing of overrun emergency rooms, dropping oxygen saturations, empty grocery store shelves, and make-shift morgues on semi-trucks stir a common dread. Health care workers and other essential personnel experience waves of exhaustion, anger, moral distress, and a fear of death concurrent with a deep sense of duty toward humanity.R...
Source: blog.bioethics.net - February 4, 2021 Category: Medical Ethics Authors: Blog Editor Tags: Cultural Ethics Featured Posts Public Health Uncategorized #diaryofaplagueyear COVID-19 Source Type: blogs
What infectious diseases are due to be eradicated next?
Although Medical Science aims to eradicate Infectious Diseases in order to protect life and reduce the healthcare burden, it has only been able to achieve that goal against two diseases to date. While this remains a difficult task, there is a genuine possibility that additional diseases will be eliminated in the near future! Let’s explore the diseases that have been consigned to history…and those that are set to join them soon.
Smallpox: declared eradicated in 1980
Following a concentrated global effort spanning more than 20 years, Smallpox became the first infectious disease to be eradicated by mankind. S...
Source: GIDEON blog - December 23, 2020 Category: Databases & Libraries Authors: Kristina Symes Tags: Epidemiology News Source Type: blogs
Data Lights the Path Toward Ethical COVID-19 Vaccination Distribution
The following is a guest article by Kurt Waltenbaugh, CEO at Carrot Health. As millions of healthcare workers begin receiving the first vaccination to protect against COVID-19, public health officials and government leaders continue wrestling with not only the operational challenges of scale—this is the first mass vaccination since smallpox (1958-1977) and polio (1980s-present)—but also […] (Source: EMR and HIPAA)
Source: EMR and HIPAA - December 23, 2020 Category: Information Technology Authors: Guest Author Tags: Analytics/Big Data C-Suite Leadership Health IT Company Healthcare IT Carrot Health Carrot Health Social Risk Grouper CDC COVID-19 COVID-19 Analytics COVID-19 Critical Infection Risk Index COVID-19 Vaccination Priority COVID-19 Vacci Source Type: blogs
How many diseases are preventable by vaccines?
The power of vaccines cannot be underestimated. Take, for example, Poliomyelitis, which was a significant problem 70 years ago – and is now close to becoming a disease of the past. Not that long ago, smallpox was completely eradicated through the use of a vaccine.
As the world celebrates the imminent arrival of several COVID-19 vaccines, we might ask how many diseases are preventable by vaccines as of 2020.
Which diseases haven’t got a vaccine yet?
Of the 361 generic infectious diseases that affect humans, only 62 (17%) are preventable by vaccines. Over 100 of the remainder are caused by fungi and pa...
Source: GIDEON blog - December 17, 2020 Category: Databases & Libraries Authors: Kristina Symes Tags: News Therapy Source Type: blogs
The Miracle of Modern Medical Research
Marian L. TupyHumanity has suffered from deadly diseases for millennia without fully knowing what they were, how they were transmitted, or how they could be cured. Smallpox, which killed between 300 million and 500 million people in the 20th century alone, originated in either India or Egypt at least 3,000 years ago. But it was not until the late 18th century that the English physician Edward Jenner vaccinated his first patient against the disease. It took another two centuries before smallpox was finally eradicated in 1980. Similar stories can be told about other killer diseases. The fate of humanity, our ancestors t...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - December 4, 2020 Category: American Health Authors: Marian L. Tupy Source Type: blogs
Can the Government Mandate a Covid-19 Vaccine? Will It Have To?
Conclusion
As governments assess how to contend with reaching effective levels of vaccination, they are preparing to tread carefully around vaccine skepticism while transparently and apolitically addressing common concerns about safety and due process. Attitudes could change as vaccines are distributed to the public and, hopefully, demonstrate safety and effectiveness, encouraging individuals to rapidly vaccinate.
For government, a heavy-handed approach could backfire, fueling further anti-government/anti-science sentiment, but not pursuing vaccination with ample vigor could mean a prolonged timeline for co...
Source: The Health Care Blog - November 23, 2020 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Christina Liu Tags: COVID-19 Health Policy COVID-19 vaccine Phillip Meylan Source Type: blogs
Monkeypox
By Dr. Stephen A. Berger
Cynomolgus monkey, a known reservoir of the Monkeypox virus
WHAT IS MONKEYPOX?
Monkeypox, as the name implies, is a disease of monkeys (unlike chickenpox – which has no relation to chickens). Although the condition is reported in a group of eleven African countries, the virus was first discovered in a laboratory in Denmark in 1958, when it was first isolated from cynomolgus monkeys.
The signs and symptoms are similar to those of smallpox. Following a three-day prodrome of fever, headache, myalgia, and back pain, patients develop a papular rash in the face, extremities, and genitals....
Source: GIDEON blog - October 8, 2020 Category: Databases & Libraries Authors: Kristina Symes Tags: Epidemiology News Source Type: blogs
Rabies – a dumb disease
Dog vaccination programs are the most effective way to prevent Rabies
Rabies is endemic to over 150 countries, and according to the World Health Organization, 99% of all transmissions to humans are from dogs, potentially bringing into question the animal’s status as the ‘man’s best friend’.
In Europe, southern Africa, and parts of North America, most cases are acquired from wild carnivores; mongooses, and vampire bats in Latin America and the Caribbean. In more recent years, humans have acquired rabies from inhalation of aerosols in bat caves, ingestion of dogs and cats for food, ticks, cart-scratches...
Source: GIDEON blog - September 28, 2020 Category: Databases & Libraries Authors: Kristina Symes Tags: Epidemiology News Source Type: blogs
Vaccines save lives
August is National Immunization Awareness Month (NIAM) and this year vaccines and immunology are probably on many more people’s minds than usual – for obvious reasons. While medical professionals and researchers work tirelessly on developing and testing a COVID-19 vaccine (amongst others), let’s briefly remind ourselves how far we have come in such a brief segment of human history.
224 years, 40 vaccines
The first vaccine, developed in 1796 for smallpox, was not put into mass production until many years later – but was a monumental breakthrough in Medicine. It took almost another 100 years before the next vaccines ...
Source: GIDEON blog - August 6, 2020 Category: Databases & Libraries Authors: Kristina Symes Tags: News Source Type: blogs
TWiV 643: Bernie Moss, the real Poxdoc
From the NIH campus (recorded February 2019) Vincent and Rich meet with Bernie Moss to hear about his training and his remarkable 50-year-plus career working on poxviruses. Click arrow to playDownload TWiV 643 (67 MB .mp3, 112 min)Subscribe (free): iTunes, Google Podcasts, RSS, email Become a patron of TWiV! Show notes at microbe.tv/twiv (Source: virology blog)
Source: virology blog - July 22, 2020 Category: Virology Authors: Vincent Racaniello Tags: This Week in Virology mRNA capping poxvirus smallpox virus vaccinia virus viral viral vector viruses Source Type: blogs
Vaccines for COVID-19 moving closer
As the world reels from illnesses and deaths due to COVID-19, the race is on for a safe, effective, long-lasting vaccine to help the body block the novel coronavirus SARS-CoV-2. The three vaccine approaches discussed here are among the first to be tested clinically in the United States.
How vaccines induce immunity: The starting line
In 1796, in a pastoral corner of England, and during a far more feudal and ethically less enlightened time, Edward Jenner, an English country surgeon, inoculated James Phipps, his gardener’s eight-year-old son, with cowpox pustules obtained from the arm of a milkmaid. It was widely believed ...
Source: Harvard Health Blog - July 21, 2020 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Shiv Pillai, PhD, MBBS Tags: Coronavirus and COVID-19 Health Infectious diseases Vaccines Source Type: blogs
Planning for Future Pandemics Including Smallpox Outbreaks: Interview with Dr. Phil Gomez, CEO, SIGA Technologies
The COVID-19 pandemic has had significant global consequences, with healthcare systems stretched to their limits, a growing death toll, and economic devastation as economies came grinding to a halt.
The pandemic
and its aftereffects will be with us for some time to come, but this isn’t the
first pandemic humanity has weathered, and it won’t be the last. Given accelerating
advances in medical technology, there is plenty to discuss in terms of how we
can be better prepared for the next infectious disease event.
While COVID-19 is widely thought to have arisen naturally through transmission between an animal and a hu...
Source: Medgadget - May 27, 2020 Category: Medical Devices Authors: Conn Hastings Tags: Exclusive Medicine Public Health Source Type: blogs
A digital vaccination scar for the 21st century
In the 1800s, smallpox ravaged the world. Fortunately, a vaccine had been developed that could protect individuals. This vaccine left a scar at the site of injection and identified the individuals as “immune.” As we look towards the future of the COVID-19 pandemic, unless the virus burns out or an effective therapeutic intervention becomes available, […]Find jobs at Careers by KevinMD.com. Search thousands of physician, PA, NP, and CRNA jobs now. Learn more. (Source: Kevin, M.D. - Medical Weblog)
Source: Kevin, M.D. - Medical Weblog - May 23, 2020 Category: General Medicine Authors: < span itemprop="author" > < a href="https://www.kevinmd.com/blog/post-author/kumanan-wilson" rel="tag" > Kumanan Wilson, MD < /a > < /span > Tags: Conditions COVID-19 coronavirus Infectious Disease Source Type: blogs
The Unlikely Rise Of Science And Digital Health During COVID-19
Over the past weeks, we have covered many aspects of coronavirus. From symptoms and digital health technologies, artificial intelligence, the rise of telemedicine and investigating why some countries have managed to keep the pandemic under control, through issues of privacy and mental challenges of healthcare professionals. We analyzed the possible outcomes of what will, what can and what should change in our lives after COVID-19 and even created a Handbook on the fight against the pandemic.
But one of the most important aspects in all this is how different leaders around the world have responded to this pandemic. Were ...
Source: The Medical Futurist - May 5, 2020 Category: Information Technology Authors: Judit Kuszkó Tags: Artificial Intelligence Digital Health Research Future of Medicine science covid19 leadership coron Thunberg Fauci Trump Topol Barabasi Brilliant Harari Queen Source Type: blogs
COVID-19: Physicians in Shackles
By ANISH KOKA, MD
A number of politically tinged narratives have
divided physicians during the pandemic. It would be unfortunate if politics
obscured the major problem brought into stark relief by the pandemic: a system
that marginalizes physicians and strips them of agency.
In practices big and small, hospital-employed
or private practice, nursing homes or hospitals, there are serious issues
raising their heads for doctors and their patients.
No masks for you
When I walked into my office Thursday, March 12th, I assembled the office staff for the first time to talk about COVID. The prior weekend had been awa...
Source: The Health Care Blog - May 2, 2020 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Christina Liu Tags: COVID-19 Medical Practice Physicians Anish Koka medical autonomy Pandemic Source Type: blogs
