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2011-07-07T03:01:00.000+06:00

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Newborn research shares top honour

2011-01-19T03:36:00.001+06:00

The Lancet names Bangladeshi author’s article "Paper of the Year”

An article by Abdullah Baqui, MBBS, DrPH, associate professor in the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health's Department of International Health, and colleagues from the U.S. and Bangladesh, was selected by The Lancet as one of three papers to share the honor of "Paper of the Year.”

The article "Effect of community-based newborn-care intervention package implemented through two service-delivery strategies in Sylhet district, Bangladesh: a cluster-randomised controlled trial" was published in the June 6 edition of The Lancet.

The study was funded by the United States Agency for International Development by cooperative agreements with the Bloomberg School of Public Health, the International Centre for Diarrhoeal Disease Research, Bangladesh (ICDDR,B), and the saving newborn lives programme by Save the Children (US) with a grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

“Top paper of the year is certainly an honor for all of us at Projahnmo project in Bangladesh. The intervention we tested, if scaled, has the potential to save more than a million newborn lives every year. We hope that the recognition of our work will influence policies and programmes around the world that will prevent many unnecessary newborn deaths,” said Baqui.

The winners were chosen from a group of six finalists by the editors of The Lancet and through an online readers’ poll. The results were published in the January 24 edition of The Lancet.

Call for day to unite against pneumonia

2011-01-19T03:15:00.002+06:00

Pneumonia kills more than 2 million children annually, yet draws hardly any attention in most countries in the world

Child health groups have united with Save the Children Artist Ambassadors Gwyneth Paltrow and Hugh Laurie to establish an annual World Pneumonia Day on November 2, 2009. The day will mobilise efforts to fight a neglected disease that kills more than two million children under the age of five each year worldwide.

Many people are unaware of pneumonia’s overwhelming death toll. Pneumonia has been overshadowed as a priority on the global health agenda, and rarely receives coverage in news media. World Pneumonia Day will help bring this health crisis to the public’s attention and will encourage policy makers and grass roots organisers alike to combat the disease.

Pneumonia kills more children than AIDS, malaria and measles combined. UNICEF and WHO estimate that pneumonia accounts for nearly 1 out of 5 deaths in children under five years old.

“It’s easy to forget that around the world, pneumonia is still killing more than 5500 kids every day,” said Dr. Orin Levine, a pneumonia expert and associate professor at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. “Pneumonia is both common and extremely serious, but with existing tools like vaccines and antibiotics, we can save more than a million children every year.”

Dr Orin Levine said, "Every country should make pneumonia control a priority and their efforts should begin with the use of Hib and pneumococcal vaccines and the expansion of treatment programmes with simple antibiotics. There is no reason for children to continue to die from this disease at the rates that they do today."

Dr. Levine underscored that the policy makers must know that pneumonia is common, serious, preventable, and treatable since often they have not placed the priority on pneumonia control and prevention that it deserves.

In addition to killing more than two million children a year, pneumonia causes severe financial difficulties and emotional burden for families and communities and contributes to the cycle of poverty. Few caregivers can recognise pneumonia symptoms. Consequently, less than one third of children suffering from pneumonia receive antibiotics, which are available for less than US$1.

“We have what it takes to prevent and cure childhood pneumonia. Yet the disease tragically claims more than two million babies and toddlers every year,” said actress and Save the Children Artist Ambassador Gwyneth Paltrow. “We can stand on the sides and continue to watch this tragedy unfold or we can step in and change the ending. World Pneumonia Day gives everyone the chance to act.”

Preventing pneumonia is critical to reducing deaths. “Research shows that a package of health measures provided globally, especially to the poorest communities, could dramatically cut childhood deaths from pneumonia” said Dr. Robert E. Black, Chairman of Department of International Health at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

Dr. Black said that reducing child death from pneumonia requires multifaceted approach like prompt treatment facilities at community level, skilled health workers, introduction of vaccine, improving the nutrition status of children etc.

Vaccines against two of pneumonia’s common bacterial causes, Hib (Haemophilus Influenzae type B) and pneumococcus, have prevented many deaths in industrialised countries.

Other proven, low-cost techniques include exclusive breast feeding for six months, ensuring good nutrition, reducing indoor air pollution, using antibiotics, washing hands, and preventing mother-to-child transmission of HIV.

Additionally, many children do not get the care they need, making education of parents and health providers a priority so they better understand the necessity of preventative measures. Health workers must be trained to diagnose pneumonia and must be equipped with a steady supply of quality antibiotics for treatment.
Fighting pneumonia is a critical strategy for countries working to reach the Millennium Development Goals by 2015, which include a goal to reduce under-5 child deaths by two-thirds from the 1990 level.

“We have been fooled too long ignoring this disease. Children dying of pneumonia may be living in poor countries but these are not lesser lives. We must do all we can to take care of all children,” said Lance Laifer, founder of Hedge Funds vs. Malaria & Pneumonia. “Our complacency ends today. We won’t let millions of children gasping their last breath go unnoticed by the world.”

Samir K. Saha, Head of the department of Microbiology at Dhaka Shishu Hospital, Bangladesh said, “Let’s take an oath to convince others to work for a noble cause and save the children irrespective of their race, colour and religion.”

“We should invest more in combating pneumonia; it is not the crisis of money, it is how we look to address the issue ...” he added.

Saving newborn lives in Bangladesh and globally

2011-01-19T03:01:00.000+06:00

Bangladeshi scientist’s paper shortlisted for The Lancet’s Paper of the Year 2008

The Lancet, one of the world’s front line medical journals has shortlisted a Bangladeshi scientist's paper for its Papers of the Year 2008.

Profiles of an author from each of the shortlisted papers are published today in the Paper of the Year Shortlist section of the journal, and give a flavour of the personal and scientific events behind the research.

Abdullah Baqui, Associate Professor of the International Health department at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Baltimore, USA and founder President of Child Health Research Foundation in Bangladesh is the lead author of this shortlisted paper entitled ‘Effect of community-based newborn-care intervention package implemented through two service-delivery strategies in Sylhet district, Bangladesh: a cluster-randomised controlled trial’.

The paper published in The Lancet in 2008; 371: 1936-44 outlines strategies that are simple but highly effective in reducing the neonatal mortality to a significant level.

The paper revealed that community-based approaches in management of potentially life-threatening neonatal infections can be safe and effectively provides the evidence needed to enable expansion of this avenue to reduce the 1 million annual deaths from these infections.

They have shown the successful outcomes of their simple intervention which involves training of one community worker per 4000 women, which is the usual ratio in Bangladesh for the health worker involved in family planning and health.

By this way they had effectively lessened the deaths of neonates by 34 percent. It has broken the old perceptions that high technology or high care hospital unit is needed for the survival of ill neonates and to cut the death toll which according to the author, some babies will need high technology but most of them do not.

Massee Bateman, director of the Saving Newborn Lives programme of Save the Children USA, expresses: “The important contribution of this study is to help us better understand how to make practical choices to take life-saving programmes to scale. As a result of the work, global and national policies and programmes will be informed and propelled to provide community-based approaches as a key strategy to improve newborn survival.”

Dr Shams El-Arefin, Senior Scientist and Head of Child Health Programme of International Centre for Diarrhoeal Disease Research, Bangladesh (ICDDR,B), who is one of the co-authors of the paper told Star Health, “The lessons from the study will help us reaching the goal of MDG-4.”

Dr Arefin also added, “The encouraging achievement is the recognition of the study findings in different forums including the government sector. We are now working to adopt these findings in National Neonatal Health Strategy of Bangladesh in collaboration with the government.”

Dr Samir Saha, Head of the department of Microbiology of Dhaka Shishu Hospital and Executive Director of Child Health Research Foundation said, “In countries like ours where care-seeking behaviour is poor and access to healthcare is difficult, this new package and algorithm can offer very cheap, feasible and effective service in reducing the child mortality.” He thinks that the model could easily be replicated where the situation is alike. Dr Saha is also one of the co-authors of the study.

Baqui says that future work must find out how to scale up what we know: “There are a lot of good studies out there showing impact. But when we take them into larger programmes, we lose the effectiveness. We need research on how you take an intervention from half a million people to the millions of people living in poor communities of Asia and Africa without losing effectiveness.”

To vote for this paper as The Lancet's 2008 Paper of the Year, visit http://www.thelancet.com.

About Paper of the Year of The Lancet

Introduced in 2003, the selection of the paper of the year is intended to draw attention to outstanding research and the teams whose cooperation and effort make such advances possible. Many of the papers are remarkable not only for their contribution to health care, but also for the manner in which diverse stakeholders combined expertise to address common important issues.

Readers are invited to vote online from December 19, 2008, to January 12, 2009, for The Lancet's paper of the year 2008. Six finalist papers (panel) were selected by the editors from 23 nominations made by members of the journal's International Advisory Board and from staff at The Lancet.

By contrast with previous years, the 2008 paper will not be chosen by the editors, but by The Lancet's readers. By encouraging readers to consider each piece of research and to select a winning paper, we hope to broaden discussion not only about these publications in particular, but also about what constitutes good research and promising directions of inquiry for the future.

DSCF5230

2007-11-07T22:08:00.001+06:00

DSCF5230, originally uploaded by Dr Tareq Salahuddin.

First blog on Blogger's Blog

2007-10-21T01:51:00.000+06:00

This blog has been created to view my flickr photos.