HIV/AIDS in South Africa : Towards a New Paradigm

Includes bibliographical references (leaves 96-[100]).The HIV/AIDS epidemic in South Africa is more severe than almost anywhere else in the world and continues to grow. Here, and elsewhere in southern Africa, it is now a generalized epidemic, largely heterosexually spread. This is very different from the more limited epidemic in the United States of America and other developed countries. It was in the USA in the five years after the first cases of AIDS that the understandings and explanations of HIV/AIDS were constructed. HIVIAIDS was defined as a transmittable infection causing a progressive deterioration of the immune system, leaving it vulnerable to opportunistic infections and disease of increasing severity resulting in inevitable death. Virology identified the virus that is the infectious agent and provided explanations of how it had its effect on the host, reproduced and was transmitted. Influenced by the early association of AIDS with homosexuals, the social construction of HIVIAIDS has focused on risk groups and risk behaviours. These are now central components of a dominant paradigm that has informed but also limited research. This paradigm also informs and limits responses to and strategies to prevent the spread of the virus

A description of the hearing profile in gold miners with tuberculosis

Two of the primary occupational health threats to employees in the mining industry are noise-induced hearing loss (NIHL) and occupational lung diseases (OLD) with Tuberculosis (TB) included in the latter. The objective of this study was to investigate the hearing profile of a group of gold miners with and without TB to determine the effect of TB and its associated risk profile on hearing. Workers in AngloGold Ashanti mine in South Africa were recruited due to the fact that they present with these two health threats namely NIHL and TB. The audiological and medical surveillance data of 2698 subjects (between the years 2001 and 2009) were used in analyses. Hearing thresholds for the air conduction frequencies (0.5, 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 8 KHz) in both ears were analysed in conjunction with biographic and occupational data. Subjects were divided into three groups, two experimental groups (Single TB treatment, n= 911 and Multiple TB treatment, n= 376) and one control group (n= 1411). A highly significant difference (p<0.01) was noted between the control group and both TB treatment groups across most frequencies and hearing parameters analysed, although the higher frequencies were more affected. Pair wise comparisons revealed the largest differences in hearing thresholds throughout between the control group and the multiple TB treatment groups. The smallest differences in hearing thresholds were evident between the two TB groups with the multiple TB treatment group presenting with the poorest thresholds. TB and its related risk profile had a pronounced influence on the decline of hearing thresholds. Thresholds for the multiple TB treatment group indicated more deterioration than the hearing thresholds of the single TB treatment group. This may point to the possibility that the influence of repeated TB on the subjects’ hearing thresholds over time was more pronounced than a single incidence of TB. It is still necessary however to separate the effects of the disease from the effects of the treatment on hearing.Dissertation (MCommunication Pathology)--University of Pretoria, 2012.Speech-Language Pathology and AudiologyUnrestricte

Guidelines for Drinking-Water Quality

The fourth edition of the World Health Organization's (WHO) Guidelines for drinking-water quality (GDWQ) builds on over 50 years of guidance by WHO on drinking-water quality, which has formed an authoritative basis for the setting of national regulations and standards for water safety in support of public health.It is the product of significant revisions to clarify and elaborate on ways of implementing its recommendations of contextual hazard identification and risk management, through the establishment of health-based targets, catchment-to-consumer water safety plans and independent surveillance.This first addendum updates the fourth edition. Updates reflect new evidence and further, provides additional explanations to support better understanding and application of the guidance

Hepatic Surgery

Longmire, called it a "hostile" organ because it welcomes malignant cells and sepsis so warmly, bleeds so copiously, and is often the ?rst organ to be injured in blunt abdominal trauma. To balance these negative factors, the liver has two great attributes: its ability to regenerate after massive loss of substance, and its ability, in many cases, to forgive insult. This book covers a wide spectrum of topics including, history of liver surgery, surgical anatomy of the liver, techniques of liver resection, benign and malignant liver tumors, portal hypertension, and liver trauma. Some important topics were covered in more than one chapter like liver trauma, portal hypertension and pediatric liver tumors

Medical-Data-Models.org:A collection of freely available forms (September 2016)

MDM-Portal (Medical Data-Models) is a meta-data repository for creating, analysing, sharing and reusing medical forms, developed by the Institute of Medical Informatics, University of Muenster in Germany. Electronic forms for documentation of patient data are an integral part within the workflow of physicians. A huge amount of data is collected either through routine documentation forms (EHRs) for electronic health records or as case report forms (CRFs) for clinical trials. This raises major scientific challenges for health care, since different health information systems are not necessarily compatible with each other and thus information exchange of structured data is hampered. Software vendors provide a variety of individual documentation forms according to their standard contracts, which function as isolated applications. Furthermore, free availability of those forms is rarely the case. Currently less than 5 % of medical forms are freely accessible. Based on this lack of transparency harmonization of data models in health care is extremely cumbersome, thus work and know-how of completed clinical trials and routine documentation in hospitals are hard to be re-used. The MDM-Portal serves as an infrastructure for academic (non-commercial) medical research to contribute a solution to this problem. It already contains more than 4,000 system-independent forms (CDISC ODM Format, www.cdisc.org, Operational Data Model) with more than 380,000 dataelements. This enables researchers to view, discuss, download and export forms in most common technical formats such as PDF, CSV, Excel, SQL, SPSS, R, etc. A growing user community will lead to a growing database of medical forms. In this matter, we would like to encourage all medical researchers to register and add forms and discuss existing forms

Faculty Publications and Creative Works 1997

One of the ways we recognize our faculty at the University of New Mexico is through this annual publication which highlights our faculty\u27s scholarly and creative activities and achievements and serves as a compendium of UNM faculty efforts during the 1997 calendar year. Faculty Publications and Creative Works strives to illustrate the depth and breadth of research activities performed throughout our University\u27s laboratories, studios and classrooms. We believe that the communication of individual research is a significant method of sharing concepts and thoughts and ultimately inspiring the birth of new of ideas. In support of this, UNM faculty during 1997 produced over 2,770 works, including 2,398 scholarly papers and articles, 72 books, 63 book chapters, 82 reviews, 151 creative works and 4 patents. We are proud of the accomplishments of our faculty which are in part reflected in this book, which illustrates the diversity of intellectual pursuits in support of research and education at the University of New Mexico. Nasir Ahmed Interim Associate Provost for Research and Dean of Graduate Studie

Compilation of Abbreviations and Terms

This paper contains glossaries of terms and abbreviations compiled from selected reports issued between 1987 and 1992 by the Health Program and the Biological and Behavioral Sciences Program of the Office of Technology Assessment