Kinshasa, DRC, July 2006

Today I attended a very interesting round table discussion convened by the Centre for Civil Society at the London School of Economics and Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) on the independence of humanitarian aid. It was a fascinating session and I will tell you more about it in a minute. But first I want to highlight an article that we have just published in our Article section on Conflict and Sexual Violence in the Democratic Rebublic of Congo (DRC) as it sort of ties in.  Anne Aspler and Greg Queyranne from the University of Alberta, Canada discuss the atrocities that are happening in DRC which the international community (ourselves included) continue to ignore. As Anne and Greg explain, a lot of this has to do with the vast quantities of mineral wealth which international corporations want from DRC, including coltan, which is used in mobile phones and laptops. Anne and Greg conclude: “The more we ignore the victims of this brutal tragedy, and the more rapidly we consume high-electronics without demanding that components do not come from war-afflicted regions of the Congo, the less likely these horrors will end. ” Their article is well worth a read—albeit a harrowing one.

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A very interesting report on the discrepencies in health care has just been published by the OECD (the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development—an organisation which states on its website that it brings together the governments of countries committed to democracy and the market economy). There are 30 member countries of the OECD and the 2007 edition of Health at a Glance highlights the differences in the performance of their healthcare systems, and massive differences in the amount governments spend on health. If you get a chance, have a look at the report yourselves, but here are some of the edited highlights:

Chronic disease prevention and treatment
—Annual eye exams is the standard care for people with diabetes, yet just over half get their eyes checked. In the United Kingdom, the best-performing country on this measure, almost one-sixth of people with diabetes do not have this simple and beneficial test.
—Despite better treatment options to prevent acute asthma attacks, on average, 6 out of 10 000 adults in OECD countries are admitted to hospitals for asthma every year. Relatively high rates are reported in Finland (13 per 10 000 adults) and the United States (12 per 10 000 adults). In countries such as the United States, Australia and New Zealand, asthma is one of the top 20 conditions leading to hospital admission.  (more…)

And who says working in Yeppoon in rural Australia is all hard work?

Many thanks to all of you who have been voting in our polls. If you haven’t voted at all yet, you won’t know that you can’t see the results of on-going polls until you vote. You may want to know that for future reference! I have devised some new poll questions. The answers to two of them can be found if you search our expanding Article section. One of them is a trick question so be careful!

As to the results of recent polls, the vast majority of you did not want white coats to be banned (Yes - 70 votes, No - 145 votes, and Don’t know - 23 votes) which is in line with the correspondence coming into The Lancet in response to The Lancet Editorial which suggested that white coats should be banned!

As for the question, How many cancer patients world-wide don’t have access to the pain relieving drugs they need? The votes were very close but the right answer nudged ahead by just one vote. A staggering 80% of cancer patients world-wide do not have access to pain relief. 47 of you got the right answer so well done. (more…)

Another very busy Lancet press day  so I am delighted to hand over to Alejandro Velasco, fifth Year Medical Student at Pontificia Universidad Javeriana, Bogotá, Colombia and Suvash Shrestha, final year medical student at Kathmandu Medical College, Sinamangal, Kathmandu, Nepal. Both share their views on different matters: Alejandro on the technology in modern medicine and Suvash on paramedics in the local community. So over to you two - Rhona

Alejandro Velasco

I had the pleasure of attending a conference about “Computers and Communication” offered by Dr. Alejandro Jadad, Senior Scientist from the Division of Clinical Decision-making & Health Care of  Toronto’s General Research Institute, held at Pontificia Universidad Javeriana, during its sixty-fifth year of foundation.

 Overall, the conference gave me a new insight about twenty first century medicine. Primarily I learned how technology and medicine can work together producing incredible advances at an astonishing pace. (more…)

Peace: Israel and Palestine coming together!

What an eventful time I have had since the “Toilet” entry on Friday. I was fortunate enough to hear the Minister of Health in Nigeria give a lecture on her country’s health challenges, and today, I met with the Senior Coordinator of the International Cooperation Bureau of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs from Japan to discuss next year’s G8 (which will be held in Tayako, Japan).

I will tell you more about all that when I have a minute but do you know what has encouraged me more than anything these last few days? An elective report I have just posted written by students from the West Bank, Jordon, Israel, and Canada which describes the wonderful time they all spent together during the Canada International Scientific Exchange Program (CISEPO).

According to the participating students one of the most important things they learned from this elective didn’t come from a specific lecture or a practical session, but rather the feeling that the responsibility for making changes lies within themselves.  They say, “We hope that some of the professional and leadership tools we learned, as well as our better understanding of one another, will help us to continue to work together, in our homes in the Middle East and Canada. Together we aim to build mutual trust and confidence across the Arab and Israeli divide, something that our leaders have not yet been able to do!” Well said everyone and what a fantastic start to the week! Rhona

No one really likes talking about toilets. So it may be quite shocking to some that this week’s cover quote on the paper copy of The Lancet is all about toilets. It says, “Adequate sanitation is the most effective public-health intervention the international community has at its disposal . Yet 40% of the world’s population still lacks access to a toilet.”

This comes from an editorial on the same theme which I have copied for you below. It highlights the recent world toilet summit in Delhi, India and also draws attention to a paper in this week’s issue of The Lancet that shows that a large sanitation programme in Brazil dramatically reduced the prevalence of diarrhoea in young children. These results may seem obvious and unsurprising but saniation is such a neglected topic that, rather alarmingly, it appears that the case for sanitation needs to be made again so that government, funding bodies, global health institutions, and all those involved in global health sit up and take notice and give sanitation the priority it deserves.  Maybe in addition to campaigning for access to essential medicines, we (as in the global health community, and us ie, all those involved in TheLancetStudent.com) should be campaigning for access to clean water and adequate sanitary conditions as well. What do you think?And as ever, you can catch the rest of The Lancet content in this week’s Lancet Digest, including more on our special Latin American issue. Bye for now Rhona

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Gregory House (see entry below from Alan Huynh)

Thursday’s are taken up with lots of meetings here at The Lancet so many thanks to Rakib Hasan from Bangladesh, Aram Harijan from the USA, Rupert Major from the UK, and Alan Huynh from Australia for their entries. Enjoy! Rhona

Greater Success Rate of Bangladeshi Girls in MBBS Admission Test
October 29, 2007 (Monday) was a memorable day for 2060 Bangladeshi medical students and their families. The result of the admission test for the undergraduate MBBS course was published on the web that day. This year, around 24,361 students took the MBBS admission test centrally organized by DGHS for the 14 public medical colleges in Bangladesh. This means about 12 students on an average competed for each seat. The dramatic feature of this year’s result, as commented by Prof Shifayetullah, the Director of Medical Education, DGHS, in a national daily (Prothom Alo) was the comparative better achievement of the girls. For the last few years, the boys’ and girls’ success rates were nearly identical in proportion. But this year, the girls surpassed the boys! Out of 2060 successful applicants, 1006 were girls and 994 were boys. This can be regarded as a milestone in female education while Bangladeshi girls are showing greater success rates in primary and secondary education levels. Mohammad Rakibul Hasan (Rakib), Bangladesh.

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You don’t need me to tell you what a ‘hot topic’ climate change-and its effects on health- has become recently. You may know that the United Nations Climate Change Conference meets next month (3-14 December)  in Bali. The Conference, hosted by the Government of Indonesia, will bring together representatives of over 180 countries together with observers from intergovernmental and nongovernmental organizations, and the media. According to Yvo de Boer, UNFCCC Executive Secretary,  ”The Bali conference will be the culmination of a momentous twelve months in the climate debate and needs a breakthrough in the form of a roadmap for a future climate change deal.” Not much pressure then!

In the run up to this momentous conference, The LancetStudent.com, is looking for articles on climate change, so please contact me (at student@lancet.com) with your ideas. Sarah Walpole has already started us of by interviewing Alex Rosen from the International Physicans for the Prevention of Nuclear War for his views on climate change. Contraction and Convergence play a key role and if you wonder what on earth I am talking about, read the interview to find out more.

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As I highlighted recently, 235 journals took part in the Council of Science Editor’s theme issue on global poverty last month. TheLancetStudent.com does not want to be left out and today we publish the first of our peer-reviewed articles on poverty which looks at the situation in Nepal thanks to Suvash Shrestha from Kathmandu Medical College. Then below, Deola Adesanya from Nigeria puts her own spin on the Millenium Development Goals. Rhona

 Hi all! A slim girl, no braces, no glasses (Note from Rhona: sorry but I have ‘misplaced’ the photo of Deola and it is difficult for her to resend so you will just have to do with a map of Nigeria instead for now! ) but serious enough; that’s me- Deola Adesanya, in my 5^th year med school in Nigeria. A new addition to the Lancet Student blogger’s team, I will be the sneak on the medical stuff we do down here, and healthy (or otherwise!) things done out there we got views on here!

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Let me hand you straight over to Duncan Still, a medical student at Nottingham UK, but also a talented film maker as you will soon see—Rhona

What you’re about to watch is the culmination of a year’s work. Let me give you the background: as some of you may know, the recent IFMSA conference held in Canterbury (Aug 2007) had as its central theme the topic of Access to Essential Medicines. I was Theme Coordinator and as such, had to come up with ways to bring the theme alive throughout the conference. As a team, we came with up all sorts of ingenious ways to get people learning about the topic—the overall idea being to first get people educated around the topic, then to motivate them to do something about it and finally to activate a range of projects for people to go home and get involved in. The pièce de résistance in our educational barrage was undoubtedly the film you are about to see.  (click here)

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