E-Doc Interactive

Fertility rates will drop drastically - SAIRR

The fertility rate will drop below two births per woman by 2040, according to the latest South Africa Survey, published in January this year by the South African Institute of Race Relations in Johannesburg.

Respiratory infection: Acute respiratory infections � the unsettling facts

Acute respiratory infections (ARIs), a disease group that includes pneumonia, influenza, and respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), are responsible for 4.25 million deaths each year, according to the Acute Respiratory Infections Atlas, published by the World Lung Foundation in 2009. ARIs are the third largest cause of mortality in the world and the top killer in low- and middle-income countries. Compared to the illness and mortality they cause, ARIs receive a fraction of government, donor agency, and philanthropic support.

Midwifery: The doula and midwife: match made in heaven?

Michelle van der Westhuizen*

In Greek doula means supportive companion (not a loved one) in labour. As early as 1973 Raphael described “optimal postpartum care for breastfeeding women” and reintroduced the concept of a post partum doula. In Greek Midwife means ‘with women’.

TB News: Lack of diagnostic tools puts HIV patients with asymptomatic TB at risk

Khopotso Bodibe

South Africa has the third highest incidence of tuberculosis globally and the incidence is closely linked to the country’s high HIV epidemic. With almost six million people living with HIV, the country has the highest number of HIV-positive people in the world. And this group of people is more at risk of contracting TB than those who don’t have HIV. A Tuberculin Skin Test, whereby Tuberculin is injected into the patient’s forearm, demonstrates whether the person has been exposed to TB or not. “For people who are HIV non-infected, if your skin tests positive, it means you’ve been exposed to TB and you’ve developed some form of latent to sub-clinical infection; in your lifetime you will have a 10% chance of that breaking down to active disease,” said Dr Francesca Conradie, president of the Southern African HIV Clinicians’ Society. However, in the HIV-infected person there is a 10% chance per year of developing active disease; this means about a 30 times increase (of TB incidence) in the HIV-infected person, she said.

TB News: TB Alliance launches new combination drug trial

In an ambitious effort to stem the dangerous tide of tuberculosis (TB) and deadly drug-resistant TB around the world, TB Alliance announced in March this year that it has launched a first-of-its-kind clinical trial to test a novel drug combination – in both patients who have TB and those who have multidrug-resistant TB (MDR-TB).

Medicine: Aspirin - the wonder drug

Steve Devrell*

I was brought up in the generation that had a very modest medicine cabinet. A tin of plasters, some out of date TCP, Calamine lotion and a good old fashioned bottle of aspirin. That was it, the full gambit of household remedies in the 1950s. My mother’s views on taking tablets was so sceptical that I had to be burning up or wracked with pain before she opened the aspirin bottle, removed the small dab of cotton wool and reluctantly gave me half a tablet. Little did I know at the time, that this humble half tablet was the most amazing drug in the whole world. Not my words, but the words of Professor Alistair Watson, consultant gastroenterologist at the University of East Anglia. He concedes that penicillin has probably saved more lives, but he maintains in terms of broad applications, nothing has come close to aspirin.

Industry news

Gauteng DoH aims to test 3 million by 2013, but calls for outside help
Phasing-in of NHI commenced in pilot districts

Detol industry news:

Public-private partnerships key to addressing South Africa�s childhood mortality rate
Dettol brings �Health for More Life� to South Africans

Industry news: Most nurses don�t use recommended intramuscular injection site de

Seven out of ten hospital nurses who took part in a Canadian study used the dorsogluteal (DG) buttock site to administer intramuscular injections - despite the potential risks of sciatic nerve injury - with only 14% using the ventrogluteal (VG) hip site recommended by the nursing literature.

Industry news: Patients happier if nurses are happy, international study finds

In one of the largest studies of its kind, a consortium of investigators from 13 countries, led by the University of Pennsylvania School of Nursing in the US, and the Catholic University of Leuven, Belgium, found that nurses who reported better working conditions in hospitals and less likelihood of leaving, also had patients who were more satisfied with their hospital stay and rated their hospitals more highly. The study was released in April this year in the British Medical Journal.