165 research outputs found
DESIGN AND PRODUCTION OF ASBESTOS FREE BRAKE PAD USING CASHEW NUTSHELL
A brake is a mechanical device used in controlling the speed of a moving vehicle using a frictional material and dissipates the absorbed kinetic energy as heat to the surroundings. A new brake pad composition has been developed with the Cashew Nutshell (CNSL), Silicon Carbide (SC), Steel Dust (SD), Carbon Black (CB), Epoxy Resin and Hardener (ERH). Five different samples of varying constituents were made with two different sieve sizes for each sample was investigated. The result showed that sample D of the 100 μm with composition 55g of (CNSL), 15g of (SC), 10g of (SD), 5g of (CB) and 15g of Epoxy resin and hardener had the best properties. The Brinell hardness value, Coefficient of Friction, Porosity, Ash content, Density and Wear rate were 75.65, 0.3528 1.925, 45.6, 1.521 kg/m3 for 100 μm and 1.17 respectively. These values are acceptable, though the 75μm samples fared better in many of the test results but lacked in the aspect of density when compared with the other sieve grades. This shows that Cashew Nutshell can be used as filler in the production of eco-friendly brake pads
Contamination and Possible Health Risks of Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons in Soil and Crops from Cultivated Floodplains of Some Rivers in Ekiti State, Southwest Nigeria
The demand for food in Nigeria has increased pressure on land use including floodplains despite possible contamination from the river catchments. The objective of this paper is to evaluate the contaminations and possible health risk of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) in soil from Irintan (Ogbese), Omi-Eye (Erio) and Egbigbu (Ayetoro) cultivated floodplains in Ekiti State, Nigeria using standard techniques. The soil samples were collected from 0-30cm depth at 5m, 25m and 45m perpendicular distances to the river course at lower, middle and upstream. The crop samples randomly collected on the floodplains were Talinum triangulare, Caspicum annum and Zea mays from each farm. Samples were appropriately treated and analyzed for polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons and results used to estimate the possible health risk. PAHs concentration at each of the farm sites was found to be more than their corresponding controls.The ∑PAHs (µg/kg) in soil ranged 0.62-3.20, 0.38-2.33 and 0.09-1.75 at Irintan (Ogbese), Omi-Eye(Erio) and Egbigbu (Ayetoro) floodplains respectively and these values were categorized unpolluted. The ∑PAHs (µg/kg) was 1.24, 0.64 and 21.15 for T. triangulare, 2.62, 2.76 and 18.43 for C. annum and 0.70, 1.78 and 1.31 for Z. mays at Irintan, Omi-Eye and Egbigbu floodplain respectively. All the Benzo (a) pyrene equivalent concentration were less than the cancer screening value except in T. triangulare and C. annum at Egbigbu floodplain suggesting possible carcinogenic health concern in T. triangulare and C. annum at the floodplain. There could be a cause for concern for the consumption of these food crops by the exposed population
The Next WHO Director-General’s Highest Priority: a Global Treaty on the Human Right to Health
Amidst the many challenges facing the next WHO Director-General, the new WHO head should find WHO’s foremost priority in its most important constitutional pillar: the right to health. The centerpiece of this endeavor should be leadership on the Framework Convention on Global Health (FCGH), the proposed global treaty based in the right to health and aimed at national and global health equity. The treaty would reform global governance for health to enhance accountability, transparency, and civil society participation and protect the right to health in trade, investment, climate change, and other international regimes, while catalyzing governments to institutionalize the right to health at community through to national levels. It would usher in a new era of global health with justice – vast improvements in health outcomes, equitably distributed.
With the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control having served as a proof of concept, the FCGH would be an innovative treaty finding solutions to overcome global health failings in accountability, equality, financing, and inter-sectoral coherence. It would include a global health accountability framework, encompassing, civil society engagement, independent monitoring, and plans for redress, while catalyzing national health accountability strategies, accountability mechanisms, disaggregated data, and community participation. National health equity strategies, pro-poor pathways to universal health coverage, and robust non-discrimination provisions could elevate the voices, priorities, and ultimately power of marginalized populations. The FCGH would include a national and global health financing framework, while reaching beyond the health sector with right to health assessments, public health participation in developing international agreements, and responsibility for all sectors for improving health outcomes. The FCGH would reinvigorate WHO’s global health leadership, breathing new life into its founding principles. It could become the platform for reforming WHO as a rights-based 21st century institution, with badly-needed reforms, such as community participation, new priorities favouring social determinants of health, and a culture of transparency and accountability. The next Director-General should launch a historic effort to align national and global governance for with human rights through the FCGH, bringing the world closer to global health with justice
Access to lifesaving medical resources for African countries: COVID-19 testing and response, ethics, and politics
Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has revealed how strikingly unprepared the world is for a pandemic and how easily viruses spread in our interconnected world. A governance crisis is unfolding alongside the pandemic as health officials around the world compete for access to scarce medical supplies. As governments of African countries, and those in low-income and middle-income countries around the world, seek to avoid potentially catastrophic epidemics and learn from what has worked in other countries, testing and other medical resources are of concern. With accelerating spread, funding is urgently needed. Yet even where there is enough money, many African health authorities are unable to obtain the supplies needed as geopolitically powerful countries mobilise economic, political, and strategic power to procure stocks for their populations.
We have seen this before. In the AIDS pandemic lifesaving diagnostics and drugs came to many African countries long after they were available in Europe and North America. In 2020, this situation can be avoided. Although health system weakness remains acute in many places, investments by national governments, the African Union, and international initiatives to tackle AIDS, tuberculosis, malaria, polio, and post-Ebola global health security have built important public health capacities. Global leaders have an ethical obligation to avoid needless loss of life due to the foreseeable prospect of slow and inadequate access to supplies in Africa
Assessment of Yellow Fever Epidemic Risk: An Original Multi-criteria Modeling Approach
This article describes the use of an original modeling approach to assess the risk of yellow fever (YF) epidemics. YF is a viral hemorrhagic fever responsible in past centuries for devastating outbreaks. Since the 1930s, a vaccine has been available that protects the individual for at least 10 years, if not for life. However, immunization of populations in African countries was gradually discontinued after the 1960s. With the decrease in immunity against YF in African populations the disease reemerged in the 1980s. In 2005, WHO, UNICEF, and the GAVI Alliance decided to support preventive vaccination of at-risk populations in West African endemic countries in order to tackle the reemergence of YF and reduce the risk of urban YF outbreaks. Financial resources were made available to scale up a global YF vaccine stockpile and to support countries with limited resources in the management of preventive vaccination campaigns. This article describes the process we used to determine the most at-risk populations using a mathematical model to prioritize targeted immunization campaigns. We believe that this approach could be useful for other diseases for which decision making process is difficult because of limited data availability, complex risk variables, and a need for rapid decisions and implementation
The Value Proposition of the Global Health Security Index
Infectious disease outbreaks pose major threats to human health and security. Countries with robust capacities for preventing, detecting and responding to outbreaks can avert many of the social, political, economic and health system costs of such crises. The Global Health Security Index (GHS Index)—the first comprehensive assessment and benchmarking of health security and related capabilities across 195 countries—recently found that no country is sufficiently prepared for epidemics or pandemics. The GHS Index can help health security stakeholders identify areas of weakness, as well as opportunities to collaborate across sectors, collectively strengthen health systems and achieve shared public health goals. Some scholars have recently offered constructive critiques of the GHS Index’s approach to scoring and ranking countries; its weighting of select indicators; its emphasis on transparency; its focus on biosecurity and biosafety capacities; and divergence between select country scores and corresponding COVID-19-associated caseloads, morbidity, and mortality. Here, we (1) describe the practical value of the GHS Index; (2) present potential use cases to help policymakers and practitioners maximise the utility of the tool; (3) discuss the importance of scoring and ranking; (4) describe the robust methodology underpinning country scores and ranks; (5) highlight the GHS Index’s emphasis on transparency and (6) articulate caveats for users wishing to use GHS Index data in health security research, policymaking and practice
Yellow Fever Outbreak, Imatong, Southern Sudan
In May 2003, the World Health Organization received reports about a possible outbreak of a hemorrhagic disease of unknown cause in the Imatong Mountains of southern Sudan. Laboratory investigations were conducted on 28 serum samples collected from patients in the Imatong region. Serum samples from 13 patients were positive for immunoglobulin M antibody to flavivirus, and serum samples from 5 patients were positive by reverse transcription–polymerase chain reaction with both the genus Flavivirus–reactive primers and yellow fever virus–specific primers. Nucleotide sequencing of the amplicons obtained with the genus Flavivirus oligonucleotide primers confirmed yellow fever virus as the etiologic agent. Isolation attempts in newborn mice and Vero cells from the samples yielded virus isolates from five patients. Rapid and accurate laboratory diagnosis enabled an interagency emergency task force to initiate a targeted vaccination campaign to control the outbreak
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