Science and Development Network
News, views and information about science, technology and the developing world
Key Documents archive results 1-12 of 12 in Health and Health systems
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
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
This series of commentaries and research articles -- published by The Lancet, the Peking University Health Sciences Centre and the China Medical Board -- addresses China's major health challenges, strategies and future. It has been produced by a group of 63 scientists from 10 countries with Chinese...
KEY DOCUMENT | Publication date: October 2008 | EN
Vaccination for infectious diseases is a vital method of prophylaxis, and has transformed modern medicine. By contrast, research into vaccines against chronic diseases has been less successful, in part because of the increased complexity involved. In this opinion piece, the authors outline the...
KEY DOCUMENT | Publication date: January, 2004 | EN
Schizophrenia is relatively rare -- affecting 1% of the world's population -- but is arguably one of the most severe mental illnesses. Diagnosing and treating it can be hard enough in developed countries; the challenges are magnified in developing nations with inadequate health systems; few trained...
KEY DOCUMENT | Publication date: June 2007 | EN
In 2005, the World Health Assembly called on WHO member states to tackle their growing rates of cancer by developing rigorous cancer control programmes. To help guide the process, the WHO developed a series of six modules that provide practical advice for programme managers and policy-makers on how...
KEY DOCUMENT | EN
Worldwide, cancer kills more people than HIV/AIDS, malaria and TB put together. In developing countries where chronic diseases are now growing alongside infectious diseases, new strategies need to be developed. This article outlines how to develop an effective cancer strategy in African...
KEY DOCUMENT | EN
This joint publication between the World Health Organization and the Global Forum for Health Research reveals mental health research capacity in 114 low-income and middle-income countries in Africa, Asia, and Latin America and the Caribbean. The extensive review identified over 10,000 articles,...
KEY DOCUMENT | Publication date: 2007 | EN
This series of five articles outlines new challenges and unsolved problems since the journal's last series in 2005. The first articlehttp://www.scidev.net/uploads/File/pdffiles/Lancet_series1.pdf ([189kB]) predicts the disease burden and economic losses that developing countries would face from...
KEY DOCUMENT | Publication date: December 2007 | EN
1990 saw the first major effort to estimate the main causes of illness and the biggest killer diseases in different countries. The data are important for public-health officials to allocate their resources wisely but also for feeding into estimates to plan for the future. Importantly, these need to...
KEY DOCUMENT | Publication date: January 2005 | EN
Cardiovascular diseases are set to rise dramatically in developing countries, partly because of an increase in risk factors for the diseases, which include diet, physical activity, smoking. The authors looked at cardiovascular disease risks such as being overweight or obese, systolic blood...
KEY DOCUMENT | Publication date: May 2005 | EN
This extensive report was one of the first to document the scale of the problem of chronic diseases in developing countries, and crucially, to offer guidance on feasible and practical methods of tackling them. The document starts by laying out in detail the profiles of chronic diseases in...
KEY DOCUMENT | Publication date: October 2005 | EN