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Key Documents archive results 1-20 of 211 in Health
Malaria and its vectors in the Caribbean: The continuing challenge of the disease forty-five years after eradication from the islands
This journal article, written by three researchers in Trinidad and Tobago, looks at malaria in the Caribbean. It asks why there are still outbreaks -- including a big one in Jamaica in 2006/2007 -- when the disease was allegedly eliminated in the late 1950s. The authors review malaria and vector...
KEY DOCUMENT | Publication date: November 2008 | EN
Using climate to predict infectious disease epidemics
This report from the WHO assesses the potential for creating early warning systems for vector-borne disease. It reviews the current state of research for several diseases such as dengue fever, leishmaniasis, malaria and West Nile virus. The report includes an algorithmic framework for developing...
KEY DOCUMENT | Publication date: 2005 | EN
Climate change 2001: Impacts, adaptation and vulnerability
The third IPCC assessment report, Climate Change 2001, includes this section on the links between climate change and health. It offers a detailed look at how variations in climate, such as temperature or rainfall, could affect vector-borne disease. In particular, it evaluates computer models that...
KEY DOCUMENT | Publication date: 2003 | EN
El Niño Southern Oscillation and vegetation dynamics as predictors of dengue fever cases in Costa Rica
This journal article describes the first climate-based model used to predict outbreaks of dengue fever. Researchers from the University of Miami and the University of Costa Rica used climate data and vegetation indices from Costa Rica to predict disease outbreaks with 83 per cent accuracy. ...
KEY DOCUMENT | Publication date: March 2009 | EN
Impact of regional climate change on human health
This Nature paper reviews evidence that a changing climate poses significant health risks and that global warming over the past few years has already increased illness and death worldwide. Infectious diseases are strongly affected by climatic variations because the vectors that carry the bacteria...
KEY DOCUMENT | EN
Refractory periods and climate forcing in cholera dynamics
A population's immunity to disease can greatly affect outbreaks of vector-borne disease, and isolating the influence of climate variability has proven difficult. This research study sets out to evaluate the effect of climate by accounting for population immunity. The authors collated data on...
KEY DOCUMENT | Publication date: August 2005 | EN
Global climate change and extreme weather events: Understanding the contributions to infectious disease emergence
This extensive report from the Institute of Medicine of the US National Academies takes on the considerable challenge of understanding how, and to what extent, climate change will affect infectious diseases. The report provides detailed summaries of current knowledge on diseases such as cholera...
KEY DOCUMENT | Publication date: 2008 | EN
Global warming and malaria: Knowing the horse before hitching the cart
Paul Reiter, a researcher on insects and infectious disease at the Institut Pasteur in France, is not convinced that climate change will cause a rise in malaria in tropical regions. In this opinionated review he sets out to dispel widely held "common misconceptions" about the effect of climate...
KEY DOCUMENT | Publication date: December 2008 | EN
Climate change and vector-borne diseases: A regional analysis
As global temperatures rise, vector-borne disease is set to increase in the developing world but patterns will vary across countries. This review looks at how the prevalence of vector-borne disease will change in Africa, Asia, Australia, Europe, North America and South America. As the authors...
KEY DOCUMENT | Publication date: 2000 | EN
Managing the health effects of climate change
This report provides a policy framework for assessing the impacts of climate change on health, including vector-borne disease, by considering five challenges: informational, poverty and equity-related, technological, sociopolitical and institutional. It begins with a detailed outline of climate...
KEY DOCUMENT | Publication date: May 2009 | EN
Digital disease detection — Harnessing the web for public health surveillance
This paper, published in the New England Journal of Medicine, examines how the Internet can help monitor, prevent and control emerging diseases. The authors argue that the emergence of influenza A(H1N1), or 'swine flu', in April 2009 shows the value web-based information holds for early disease...
KEY DOCUMENT | Publication date: May 2009 | EN
Pandemic potential of a novel strain of influenza A(H1N1): Early findings
This article, written by the WHO Rapid Pandemic Assessment Collaboration and published in the journal Science, examines the spread of A(H1N1) influenza, or 'swine flu', and assesses its potential to cause a pandemic. Analysing surveillance data from Mexico, the authors suggest the geographical...
KEY DOCUMENT | Publication date: May 2009 | EN
Vaccines for the new influenza A(H1N1)
This article, published by the WHO, answers frequently asked questions about the A(H1N1) influenza virus, or 'swine flu'. It provides information on the availability, production and effectiveness of A(H1N1) vaccines. The WHO says that no effective A(H1N1) vaccines are currently available (May...
KEY DOCUMENT | Publication date: May 2009 | EN
Assessing the severity of an influenza pandemic
This article, published by the WHO, assesses the potential for a global pandemic of A(H1N1) influenza, or 'swine flu'. The authors outline the properties of influenza viruses that are needed to create a pandemic and discuss population vulnerability and pandemic severity. They highlight the...
KEY DOCUMENT | Publication date: May 2009 | EN
Timeline: Swine flu
This timeline, published by Nature, lists key dates and events in the 2009 outbreak of A(H1N1) influenza, or 'swine flu'. Drawing on information from the WHO, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and others, it details confirmed and reported cases of A(H1N1), highlights the...
KEY DOCUMENT | Publication date: April 2009 | EN
Preparation for a pandemic: Influenza A H1N1
This feature, published by The Lancet, discusses the world's capacity to cope with a A(H1N1) influenza, or 'swine flu', pandemic. The author outlines some of the progress made in pandemic preparedness since severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) and H5N1 influenza (bird flu) hit the world a few...
KEY DOCUMENT | Publication date: May 2009 | EN
Swine influenza frequently asked questions
This fact sheet from the WHO outlines the basics about swine influenza, or "swine flu", including what it is, what its implications are for human health and how people become infected. Swine flu is a highly contagious acute respiratory disease of pigs. It can sometimes cause disease in humans --...
KEY DOCUMENT | EN
A survey of South–North health biotech collaboration
This article, written by scientists from Canada, China, Egypt and India, examines the spread of alliances in health biotechnology and the extent of collaboration in this sector between the South and the North. The authors surveyed 288 firms on South-North health biotech collaborations and use the...
KEY DOCUMENT | Publication date: March 2009 | EN
Trade and Health
This series of commentaries and papers, published by The Lancet, examines the challenges to achieving a balance between trade and health. It includes analyses of the WHO and World Trade Organisation (WTO), arguing that they facilitate trade before the health of poor people. Other authors...
KEY DOCUMENT | Publication date: January 2009 | EN
Barriers to equitable access to quality health information with emphasis on developing countries
This article, published for The Rockefeller Foundation's conference series 'Making the eHealth Connection', assesses the barriers to quality health information in developing countries, which hamper the development of health systems and services. While the Internet has improved access to health...
KEY DOCUMENT | Publication date: 2008 | EN
