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ERADICATION, A HARDY PERENNIAL
Since 2007, this service has run 128 items on disease eradication, averaging more than one posting per month. Eradication is a popular topic, and has attracted over 55,000 page views. The dozen items listed in the following table have garnered over 23,000 of those page views. Click on the weblink to access the item. For further discussion, go to the foot of the table.
Article Title and Weblink |
No of Hits |
|
2796 |
|
2505 |
|
2403 |
|
2361 |
|
2209 |
|
2066 |
|
1904 |
|
1804 |
|
1734 |
10. REVIEW ON AEROSOL MEASLES VACCINES/ FEASIBILITY OF GLOBAL MEASLES ERADICATION http://www.childsurvival.net/?content=com_articles&artid=253 |
1658 |
11. ACHIEVING POLIO ERADICATION: HEALTH COMMUNICATION IN INDIA AND PAKISTAN http://www.childsurvival.net/?content=com_articles&artid=499 |
1258 |
12. CSU 77/2010:THE BUMPY ROAD TO POLIO ERADICATION/ CIRCULATING VACCINE DERIVED POLIOVIRUS IN NIGERIA http://www.childsurvival.net/?content=com_articles&artid=11 |
1205 |
Total |
23903 |
GETTING THE WORDS RIGHT
The discussion by Molyneux and colleagues on the distinctions among control, elimination and eradication (item 9), though not the most consulted, is among the most valuable. These distinctions would, if carefully followed, lead to greater clarity in discussions on three quite different words. Thus, for example, polio can be eradicated, as can, for example, measles, rubella, guinea worm, and lymphatic filariasis. Tetanus can be eliminated. Since the pathogen persists in the environment, tetanus cannot be eradicated. TB can, with current technologies and methods, be controlled.
COMMUNICATION, THE CINDERELLA OF DISEASE ERADICATION
Of the articles listed above, only one (item 11) focuses on communications issues in eradication. Perhaps, as noted by the Independent Monitoring Board, the world would be closer to polio eradication but for its “crippling underemphasis on social mobilization and communications” (http://www.polioeradication.org/Portals/0/Document/Aboutus/Governance/IMB/8IMBMeeting/8IMB_ReportSummary_EN.pdf). To what extent does this critique apply to other diseases being targeted for eradication? As mortality from target diseases declines, so does public interest in those diseases. Under such conditions, which already prevail in Europe, the need for proactive approaches to social mobilization becomes more urgent.
OUR SISTER WEBPAGE
Since its launch by Dr. William Mbabazi in January 2013, www.measlesupdates.org has posted several items on measles eradication. Here are the two most popular.
ONE FRESH ITEM
Veteran readers will, no doubt, already have read all 12 of the items listed above. Lest their interest cloy, I am adding a new and not previously posted article on the eradication of leprosy. Why does this disease attract so little notice globally? Perhaps because leprosy is so rare in the donor countries, or because India has done so much to reduce it to the status of a minor public health problem (with little external financing).
The new article on leprosy, published in the Indian Journal of Medical Research, is as follows:
Dogra S, Narang T, Kumar B. Leprosy evolution of the path to eradication, http://www.ijmr.org.in/text.asp?2013/137/1/15/108268
For an African view on leprosy, from the Pan African Medical Journal, consult http://www.childsurvival.net/?content=com_articles&artid=561
Good reading.
BD