pubhealth:

The radically simple Uniject™ injection system

Rethinking the needle to extend the reach of lifesaving vaccines and medications

What if syringes were so easy to use that even untrained health workers could give injections without the risk of error?

What if vaccines for developing countries could be prepackaged in low-cost prefilled syringes, vastly reducing the amount of vaccine wasted?

What if syringes could not be reused—and we knew for certain that gateway to HIV transmission was closed?

The Uniject™ autodisable injection system (Uniject), born in PATH’s Seattle shop, is little more than a small bubble of plastic attached to a needle, but it answers all these needs. It is so simple that health workers can learn to use it after less than two hours of training. It cannot be reused, which eliminates one route of disease transmission. And it is precisely prefilled by the pharmaceutical producers with a single dose, which ensures that the correct amount of drug is delivered and that none is discarded unnecessarily.

PATH developed Uniject with funding from the US Agency for International Development and then licensed the system to BD, the largest syringe manufacturer in the world. As part of the licensing agreement, BD supplies the Uniject system to pharmaceutical producers at preferential prices for use in developing-country programs. Developing Uniject and bringing it to market has been a 20-year endeavor.

Originally developed for use with vaccines, Uniject now promises to extend the reach of other lifesaving drugs as well as contraception.

Uniject is a trademark of BD.

(From PATH)

http://www.path.org/our-work/uniject.php

(via phaflacina)

pubhealth:

Tobacco’s Shifting Burden: From the Rich to the Poor

 Doctors and researchers meeting in São Paulo, Brazil, last week issued a dire warning. Latin America, they said, is at risk of being overwhelmed by a burgeoning cancer epidemic.

One cause of concern is the prevalence of smoking in the region. “Unless these high rates of smoking are curtailed, cancer mortality rates will continue to rise,” said Harvard Medical School Professor Paul Goss, lead author of a new Lancet Oncology study about cancer prevention in Latin America.

His statements about Latin America hold true elsewhere. In our December 2012 series, “Cancer’s New Battleground – the Developing World,” we showed that cancer isn’t just a rich-world disease. It’s a disease that’s also taking a heavy toll in the poorest countries. In fact, some cancers – including cervical, stomach, and liver – hit developing populations especially hard, and one cancer is well on its way to becoming a leading cause of death in the developing world: lung cancer.

(From PRI)

pubhealth:

Look How Quickly the U.S. Got Fat (1985-2010 Animated Map)

25 brief, delicious year.

(From The Atlantic)

(via nprglobalhealth)

pubhealth:

U.S. Health Costs vs. The World: Is It Still The Prices, and Are We Still Stupid?

Comparing health care prices in the U.S. with those in other developed countries is an exercise in sticker shock.

The cost of a hospital day in the U.S. was, on average, $4,287 in 2012. It was $853 in France, a nation often lauded for its excellent health system and patient outcomes but with a health system that’s financially strapped…

(From Healthpopuli.com)

the-progressive-opinion:

(via otownhealthcare)

nprglobalhealth:

Will Some Tiny — But Potent— Foes Benefit From Sequestration?

There’s been a lot of discussion recently about how the U.S. sequestration will impact funding for public health, both here in the U.S. and worldwide.

The Washington Post’s World Views blog speculated on how “people living with TB, AIDS and malaria in developing countries would be impacted by the 5.3 percent across-the-board funding cut:” 

• HIV/AIDS treatment for 171,900 people would not be available, potentially leading to 39,200 more AIDS-related deaths
• 1.2 million fewer insecticide-treated mosquito nets would be procured; 2 million fewer people would receive treatment.
• 37,400 fewer people with TB would receive treatment, 200 fewer people with multidrug-resistant TB would get treatment.
• 836,800 fewer pentavalent vaccines for children would be available, potentially leading to 8,900 more deaths from preventable diseases.

To bring attention to this issue, Pulitzer Prize-winning cartoonist Matt Davies recently drew a cartoon, titled “Sick,” in collaboration with the non-profit The ONE Campaign,

Here’s what Davies said motivated him to create the cartoon:

A decade of genuine progress in preventing and controlling the proliferation of preventable, lethal diseases among the most vulnerable populations within developing nations (aka: women and children) will literally be devastated by across-the-board budget sequestration. Not many people know that. 

Cartoon courtesy of Matt Davies.

(via pubhealth)