Looks like our we didnt have to do an outbreak investigation simulation exercise in class! There was an epidemic happenning miles away in Uganda unbeknoweth to us! How the epidemic was handled is another matter for the IHP bloggers to debate! There are reports that the index cases appeared in August but were not publicised until after the large Common Wealth meeting ended. So while delegates were deliberating in the capital city, ebola a disease with case fatality 50%-100% case fatality was spreading! The government explains that, and I quote "the government delayed to declare the disease due to long and tedious laboratory test procedures"
[Monitor Newpaper]-Read "long and tedious" means sending blood sample to a level 4 laboratory at CDC in Atlanta, Georgia!
For Ebola which has no effective treatment, was the government right to wait for laboratory confirmation before deciding to warn the public or starting control measures? The the saga continues...Especially given the fact that the epidemic presented in a similar way to the past Ebola epidemics epidemics presented except that it was a slightly different strain!
So for students of epidemiology! Here is a chance to draw the epidemic curve or interpret one and suggest ways of controlling this epidemic with over 20 people dead. http://www.who.int/csr/don/2007_12_07/en/index.html
Moses
Monday, December 10
Tuesday, December 4
Where HIV figures deliberately inflated!
post from Dr. Bateganya.
The following paragraphs are excerpted from a Ugandan newspapers. The authorseems to think that HIV figures may have been deliberately inflated to getfunding and later reduced to show that the money worked. Interesting that I am even considering it!
Come to think of it there are countries where prevalence of HIV just dropped even without doing anything! of course if more people died the prevalence would drop! And who wouldn't be praised for reducing the prevalence? Which donor would not be happy to get reports of falling prevalence!The question is are countries under declaring HIV figures to show that donormoney worked? You can access the entire article by clicking here.
There was also a deadly inter-play of donor and “native” politics. To get more funding and international attention for Aids, as the recent UN report seems to acknowledge, the numbers of cases were blown up.But once the money was flowing, to keep the taps open it was important todemonstrate that the funds were making a positive impact. This required thatinfection rates be shown to be falling, and if they weren’t, well, easy, makeup the numbers.Because the bulk of money to fight Aids came from external sources, not taxrevenues, our governments never made the mental shift that prioritized healthexpenditure over, for example, defense or paying for the comfort of presidents and their entourages.Because that mental shift never happened, there was no accompanyinginstitutional change in our health sector. Therefore if you take away thedonor Aids money, and foreign experts, Uganda in 2007 is probably where it was in 1985. At the private level, many heroic who “survived” Aids to live apositive too, did so because of their individual spirit and that proverbialUgandan resilience, not because an elaborate infrastructure had been built that helped them.... Onyango Obbo
Nice reading
Moses
The following paragraphs are excerpted from a Ugandan newspapers. The authorseems to think that HIV figures may have been deliberately inflated to getfunding and later reduced to show that the money worked. Interesting that I am even considering it!
Come to think of it there are countries where prevalence of HIV just dropped even without doing anything! of course if more people died the prevalence would drop! And who wouldn't be praised for reducing the prevalence? Which donor would not be happy to get reports of falling prevalence!The question is are countries under declaring HIV figures to show that donormoney worked? You can access the entire article by clicking here.
There was also a deadly inter-play of donor and “native” politics. To get more funding and international attention for Aids, as the recent UN report seems to acknowledge, the numbers of cases were blown up.But once the money was flowing, to keep the taps open it was important todemonstrate that the funds were making a positive impact. This required thatinfection rates be shown to be falling, and if they weren’t, well, easy, makeup the numbers.Because the bulk of money to fight Aids came from external sources, not taxrevenues, our governments never made the mental shift that prioritized healthexpenditure over, for example, defense or paying for the comfort of presidents and their entourages.Because that mental shift never happened, there was no accompanyinginstitutional change in our health sector. Therefore if you take away thedonor Aids money, and foreign experts, Uganda in 2007 is probably where it was in 1985. At the private level, many heroic who “survived” Aids to live apositive too, did so because of their individual spirit and that proverbialUgandan resilience, not because an elaborate infrastructure had been built that helped them.... Onyango Obbo
Nice reading
Moses
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