Online materials in epidemiology

Recommended online materials to download for free about analysing your
data in different study designs

http://www.brixtonhealth.com/documents.html

Do no harm in Global Health

Laurie Garrett, one of the global health systems leaders, wrote in
Foreign Affairs in Jan/Feb issue about how HIV/AIDS related funds are
changing the development agendas.
It was quite provocative article that the person can agree with her
about other public health priorities, like children pneumonia, but at
the same time a study in Zimbabwe showed there is three times risk for
HV-ve children to die for HIV+ve mothers in compare to their peers who
have HIV+ve mothers.
Maybe holistic view to the problem would be the best?

Summary of Garrett article
Thanks to a recent extraordinary rise in public and private giving,
today more money is being directed toward the world's poor and sick
than ever before. But unless these efforts start tackling public
health in general instead of narrow, disease-specific problems -- and
unless the brain drain from the developing world can be stopped --
poor countries could be pushed even further into trouble, in yet
another tale of well-intended foreign meddling gone awry.
The full article is under
http://www.foreignaffairs.org/20070101faessay86103/laurie-garrett/the-challenge-of-global-health.html

ziad

Free CD4 Count Test in India

Good news in the new year. Read the text as it appeared in The Times
of India, New Delhi edition of 3rd January 2007

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/NEWS/Health__Science/Immunity_test_for_AIDS_to_be_free/articleshow/1027803.cms

NEW DELHI: The CD-4 count test — used to gauge immunity levels of an
HIV-infected patient and to assess whether damage caused by the virus
requires life-saving anti-retroviral therapy (ART) — is now free for all
AIDS patients.

The order making the CD-4 test free, aimed at encouraging early testing for
HIV/AIDS in India and a consequent reduction in mortality, was passed by the
National Aids Control Organisation (Naco) on Tuesday.

Until now, each test, conducted twice a year on every HIV patient, cost Rs
250. The test was free only for HIV-infected children and patients below the
poverty line.

Confirming this to TOI, Naco's ART consultant B B Rewari said government's
101 ART centres will be notified of this decision soon. "Till October 26,
2006, each test cost Rs 500. Then we slashed the price by half. AIDS
activists have been demanding a total waiver. The order was signed on
Tuesday to make the test free for every HIV infected person in India,"
Rewari said.

Naco director general K Sujatha Rao told TOI that India is stepping up its
prevention programme and hoping to reduce mortality due to AIDS. At present,
India has 58 CD-4 count machines. Over 38 more are being procured.

"Blood samples of HIV patients are taken at ART centres where the test can't
be carried out and are processed in 58 centres which have the CD-4 count
machine," Rewari added.

The test, which predicts risk of future infections, is presently offered
free to 52,000 patients already on ART in India where an estimated
5.2million people are infected with HIV. The CD-4 count is used in
combination
with the viral load test which measures level of HIV in blood. The test is
ordered when a person is first diagnosed with HIV as part of a baseline
measurement. Tests are repeated every six months.

The CD-4 count in healthy adults ranges from 500 to 1,500 cells per cubic
millimetre of blood. In HIV infected people, it goes down by 60 cells per
cubic millimetre of blood per year as HIV progresses. ART is administered
when an HIV-positive person registers a CD-4 count under 200.

Condoms now in market oversized for Indian men

MUMBAI: The Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) study has
correlated penis size with socio-economic status, geographical
location and the overall dimensions of the male.

The ICMR, which has been coordinating the study, is likely to publish
its findings in early 2007. The researchers have surveyed 1,400 men
visiting family planning centres in seven hospitals, including KEM in
Parel, AIIMS in Delhi and PGI, Chandigarh.

The length and width of each erect penis was measured twice and a
digital photograph taken. In KEM Hospital, it was the departments of
urology and preventive and social medicine which monitored
participants. The group was an equal mix of urban and rural folk in
the 18-50 age group. ICMR had requested the Indian Institute of
Technology in Delhi to devise ways to measure an erect penis.

"We had devised an automated system in which an image of the penis
would be taken and the computer would interpret different dimensions,"
said professor of biomedical engineering, IIT Kharagpur Sujoy Guha,
who headed the project.

However, this was later discarded for a simple paper-tape that was
found to be more practical. While ICMR scientists refused to comment
on the findings "as the data is still being analysed", sources
admitted that a smaller exploratory study had conclusively showed that
the condoms presently available in the market were indeed oversized
for Indian men.

The inter-city study drew much interest at the recently-concluded
Asia-Pacific Conference of the Society of Sexual Medicine in Mumbai
(even as the Germans are about to launch spray-on, fit-for-all-sizes
condoms). An international delegate at the conference pointed out that
if the study made geographical distinctions in sizes, it may cause
discomfort among men in different regions.

Source
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Condoms_now_in_market_oversized_for_Indian_men/articleshow/738916.cms

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