Chlamydia - prevention?

At http://tgk21277.wordpress.com/2010/01/10/prevention-vs-treatment/

Which entities in the chlamydia industry lose if prevention is successful?

Dr. Stothard, formerly with the IU School of Medicine, is presently affiliated with Eli Lilly and Company.

Which entities in the [X disease] industry lose if prevention is successful?

Update in SMH Chlamydia infections ‘at all-time high’

Search on?

Check out http://tgk21277.wordpress.com/

DentiCare should be extracted from the grand vision

Why?
Well, will taxpayers shell out for lazy blighters who can't be bothered looking after their teeth?
Why don't public hospitals install dental chairs so the indigent and those with chronic health problems can have quick and easy solutions for teeth that cannot be saved?

Kaxgar

Letters editor, The Australian

Paul Kelly's call to arms ('PM must think like a war leader or quit field', 22/7) is a cogent statement of facts. He presents the case for a righteous mission that is at risk of losing popular support. But the other half of the narrative stems from the position of Western liberalism, as we are flanked by two emergent tyrannies. Extreme Islam is a form of theocratic totalitarianism, in that it brooks no redaction of its sacred foundational text.

In that context, one of the West's strengths resides in religious pluralism. In terms of local relationships, it is good to hear of increasing cooperation at many levels between secular Australia and Indonesia with its plurality of expressions of Islam.

But, as Kelly alludes, the endurance of our rule of law is in its' ability continually to adapt and refine, with fulsome input from public debate. It is our system of law that upholds, refines and codifies our military endeavours. This estate seems to be in stark contrast with the state system in China. Some may look to China for the manner in which it deals with the threat of disturbance by minority groups. In that direction, however, is as profound a mistake as bending to Sharia.

We are looking into a dark and forbidding place when we face the dilemma of the detention in China of Mr Hu Stern. It seems every step of that process is in contrast to what we expect and demand from our own laws. So, it's not too much of a stretch to observe that our approaches to situations arising in the Central Asian republics, Afghanistan and Pakistan will be warped by the lens of China's laws.

We could hope that Australia and China engage in a permanent and friendly dialogue over our disparate legal systems. It is important to have that forum, not just for Mr Hu Stern and those that will follow him, but for the sake of Afghanistan's future.

--
Letters editor, The Australian Financial Review

The situation of Mr Hu Stern is part of the kaleidoscope that is Australia's future. It should not be restricted to a case that can be considered on its own merits (Paul Kerin, 'China says it has evidence against Hu', 23/7). It is part of a broad narrative that takes in the reasons behind our military presence in Afghanistan.

Western liberalism is flanked by two emergent tyrannies. Extreme Islam is a form of theocratic totalitarianism, in that it brooks no redaction of its sacred foundational text. In that context, one of the West's strengths resides in religious pluralism. In terms of local relationships, it is good to hear of increasing cooperation at many levels between secular Australia and Indonesia with its many expressions of Islam.

Our rule of law endures by its' ability continually to adapt and refine, with fulsome input from public debate. It is our system of law that upholds, refines and codifies our military endeavours. This estate seems to be in stark contrast with the state system in China. Some may look to China for the manner in which it deals with the threat of disturbance by minority groups. In that direction, however, is as profound a mistake as bending to Sharia.

We are looking into a dark and forbidding place when we face the dilemma of the detention in China of Mr Hu Stern. It seems every step of that process is in contrast to what we expect and demand from our own laws. So, it's not too much of a stretch to observe that our approaches to situations arising in the Central Asian republics, Afghanistan and Pakistan will be warped by the lens of China's laws.

We could hope that Australia and China engage in a permanent and friendly dialogue over our disparate legal systems. It is important to have that forum, not just for Mr Hu Stern and those that will follow him, but for the sake of Afghanistan's future.

Better run it past CSL

Dear Editors
It's very good news that the government will pay to have an extra two million Australians vaccinated against the seasonal influenza. Let's overlook the matter that these vulnerable groups could have been offered free annual injections well before this.
We do need to concentrate our attention on provisions for the future. There are two issues, crucial to the planning of vaccination for influenza, about which we know almost nothing. One is whether or not the current vaccine for seasonal influenza affords any protection against the new H1N1 variant. The first question, then, is resolved by looking at the data. But, where is that data and who is responsible for collating it into evidence of effectiveness?
The second issue is vital for success of any plan to vaccinate the whole population against the new variant. The World Health Organisation has stated, very clearly, that any program of immunisation against the new variant must be followed with rigorous surveillance in order to identify any harmful outcomes of vaccination. That's because it is highly likely that entirely new methods of vaccine production will be used and citizens will be exposed to synthetic, novel molecules.
If the new variant remains in its present state and runs through the population without any greater morbidity and mortality than any other variety of influenza, the community will have plenty of time to be involved in proposed plans. However, in the event of increased deaths of healthy young people, buttons will be pushed to accelerate a program of mass vaccination. In that scenario of heightened concern, it may be suggested that arguments for the usual, cautious process will be out-weighed and that short-cuts should be taken.
Now is the time to address the matter of post-marketing surveillance of new vaccines. Who pays for it, who collects the data, who owns the data and will it be scrutinised by methods accessible to the public?

Adverse events in hospital care

http://www.aihw.gov.au/publications/hse/hse-71-10776/hse-71-10776-c04.pdf
p53

Adverse events are defined as incidents in which harm resulted to a person receiving health care. They include infections, falls resulting in injuries, and medication and medical device problems. Some of these adverse events may be preventable. Separations with adverse events are included within the Safety dimension of the revised National Health Performance Framework.

The separations data include ICD-10-AM diagnoses, places of occurrence, and external causes of injury and poisoning which indicate that an adverse event was treated and may have occurred during the hospitalisation.

However, other ICD-10-AM codes may also indicate that an adverse event occurred or was treated, and some adverse events are not identifiable using these codes. The data presented in Table 4.13 can therefore be interpreted as representing selected adverse events in health care that have resulted in, or have affected, hospital admissions, rather than all adverse events that occurred in hospitals.

In 2007–08, there were 382,000 separations with an ICD-10-AM code for an adverse event (4.8 per 100 separations) (Table 4.13). There were 268,000 separations with adverse events in the public sector (5.6 per 100 separations) and 115,000 separations in the private sector (3.7 per 100 separations). However, the data for public hospitals are not comparable with the data for private hospitals because their casemixes differ and recording practices may be different.

Influenza seroprevalence in pigs

http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/574904

From Influenza and Other Respiratory Viruses
Seroprevalence of H1N1, H3N2 and H1N2 Influenza Viruses in Pigs in Seven European Countries in 2002-2003
Kristien Van Reeth; Ian H. Brown; Ralf Dürrwald; Emanuela Foni; Geoffrey Labarque; Patrick Lenihan; Jaime Maldonado; Iwona Markowska-Daniel; Maurice Pensaert; Zdenek Pospisil; Guus Koch

Authors and Disclosures

Published: 06/18/2008

Abstract and Introduction
Materials and Methods
Results
Discussion
References

Abstract
Objectives: Avian-like H1N1 and human-like H3N2 swine influenza viruses (SIV) have been considered widespread among pigs in Western Europe since the 1980s, and a novel H1N2 reassortant with a human-like H1 emerged in the mid 1990s. This study, which was part of the EC-funded 'European Surveillance Network for Influenza in Pigs 1', aimed to determine the seroprevalence of the H1N2 virus in different European regions and to compare the relative prevalences of each SIV between regions.
Design: Laboratories from Belgium, the Czech Republic, Germany, Italy, Ireland, Poland and Spain participated in an international serosurvey. A total of 4190 sow sera from 651 farms were collected in 2002-2003 and examined in haemagglutination inhibition tests against H1N1, H3N2 and H1N2.
Results: In Belgium, Germany, Italy and Spain seroprevalence rates to each of the three SIV subtypes were high (≥30% of the sows seropositive) to very high (≥50%), except for a lower H1N2 seroprevalence rate in Italy (13·8%). Most sows in these countries with high pig populations had antibodies to two or three subtypes. In Ireland, the Czech Republic and Poland, where swine farming is less intensive, H1N1 was the dominant subtype (8·0-11·7% seropositives) and H1N2 and H3N2 antibodies were rare (0-4·2% seropositives).
Conclusions: Thus, SIV of H1N1, H3N2 and H1N2 subtype are enzootic in swine producing regions of Western Europe. In Central Europe, SIV activity is low and the circulation of H3N2 and H1N2 remains to be confirmed. The evolution and epidemiology of SIV throughout Europe is being further monitored through a second 'European Surveillance Network for Influenza in Pigs'.

Introduction
The epidemiology of swine influenza (SI) has become increasingly complex over the last decade. Three influenza A virus subtypes - H1N1, H3N2 and H1N2 - are currently circulating in swine worldwide, but the origins and the antigenic and genetic characteristics of these swine influenza virus (SIV) subtypes differ in different continents or regions of the world.[1] The first significant outbreaks of SI on the European mainland occurred in the late 1970s after the transmission of an H1N1 virus from wild ducks to pigs.[2] This 'avian-like' H1N1 virus has become established in the European pig population and ultimately became the dominant H1N1 SIV strain.[3] Viruses of human origin, A/Hong Kong/68-like H3N2 formed a stable lineage in European pigs since the early 1970s, but reassortant H3N2 viruses with human haemagglutinin (HA) and neuraminidase (NA) genes and avian-like swine H1N1 internal protein genes have become dominant since the mid 1980s.[4,5] Finally, 'triple reassortant' H1N2 viruses have been isolated frequently from pigs throughout Europe since the mid 1990s.[6-10] These viruses contain an HA of human influenza virus origin, a NA of swine H3N2 virus origin and internal protein genes of avian-like swine H1N1 virus origin.[11] The HA of these H1N2 viruses shows low antigenic and genetic homology (70·4% amino acid identity in the HA1 region) with avian-like H1N1 viruses and there is no cross-reaction between H1N1 and H1N2 viruses in the HI test.[12] Though most SIV infections are clinically mild or subclinical, all three subtypes have been associated frequently with typical outbreaks of 'swine flu' and SIV may be responsible for up to 50% of acute respiratory disease outbreaks in pigs.[1]

Viruses of H1N1 and H3N2 SIV subtypes are considered widespread and endemic in pig populations in Austria, Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Great Britain, Italy, The Netherlands and Spain.[13] Occasional serological investigations of pigs sampled at slaughter have been performed in most of these countries in the 1980s and early 1990s and revealed seropositivity to H1N1 and H3N2 in >50% of the tested population. However, over the last few years H3N2 activity is believed to be low or absent in France (Brittany) and Great Britain (Brown I., Veterinary Laboratories Agency, Weybridge, UK, unpublished observations; Kuntz-Simon G., Agence Française de Sécurité Sanitaire des Aliments, Ploufragan, France, personal communication). Either or both subtypes have also been reported in Bulgaria, the former Czechoslovakia, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Macedonia, Poland and Sweden.[13] As for the H1N2 virus, a limited serosurvey in sows in Belgium in 1999 has shown seropositivity in 69% of the 443 sera examined.[7] However, there is limited H1N2 seroprevalence data for other European countries and there is little information on the evolution of H1N1 or H3N2 seroprevalence rates in Europe.

The 'European Surveillance Network for Influenza in Pigs 1' (ESNIP1) was a concerted action in the 5th Framework Research Programme of the European Commission (QLK2-CT-2000-01636, 01-01-2001 until 31-12-2003) that involved 14 partners from 10 different European countries. This action was initiated through the need for standardisation of diagnostic techniques for SI and for a more organised surveillance. The present paper reports the results of a first international serosurvey undertaken by ESNIP1 partners from Belgium, the Czech Republic, France, Italy, Ireland and Poland and by voluntary participants from Germany and Spain. The study aimed to determine the seroprevalence of the novel H1N2 virus in different geographic regions of Europe, and to compare the relative prevalences of each SIV between countries and regions where possible.

Medical response in chaos in swine flu pandemic

Articles in The Oz, SMH, etc expose IdM.
At one extreme, compliant household in self-imposed quarantine, but not ill, only marked as contacts, wait for days to get call back about meds and supplies. Eventually tests are negative.
At other extreme, sick person roams around, even interstate or o/s, while authorities try to contact him.
With a national IdM system, flags could be set to pick up card transactions, even mbl locations.

Maps? Plans?

First thing, I'm in the construction business. The Economic Stimulus Plan is paying $$$ for old rope. There are shortages, you see.
Second, it was the subbies idiot operator on the backhoe. Or his cousin's friend, or the backpacker from Romania, how would I know?
Third, I demand to know why Nathan Rees was not there to stop the backhoe ripping up the cable.
Finally, we covered our tracks pretty well. Isn't that the Australian way?