Tag: Imperial College London

COPD – son of a TB

By Andre F.S. Amaral, Research Associate, National Heart and Lung Institute

Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) is characterised by chronic airflow obstruction and is the third most common cause of death worldwide, especially in low and middle income countries (LMICs). The main risk factor for this disease is tobacco smoking. However, smoking is still uncommon in many LMICs and more than 20% of people with COPD do not have a history of smoking.

What could then be causing COPD among people who do not smoke?
Some have advocated that the high number of deaths by COPD among non-smokers, especially in LMICs, could easily be explained by a high exposure to smoke from burning biomass for cooking, heating and lighting. However, large studies have ailed to find an association of airflow obstruction with use of biomass.

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Others have suggested that infectious diseases, which are still common in LMICs, could have a role in COPD. Pulmonary tuberculosis (TB) is the leading cause of mortality due to respiratory infection worldwide, but with its death rate decreasing since 1990 several millions of people are saved every year. Broadly speaking there is considerable overlap between regions with high incidence of TB and high mortality from COPD, therefore it makes sense to improve our understanding of the relationship between these two diseases.

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World Blood Donor Day 2016: Blood connects us all

By Professor Kathryn Maitland, Professor of Tropical Paediatric Infectious Diseases and Director of Centre of African Research and Engagement, Imperial College London. 

Each year, World Blood Donor Day highlights the importance of blood donations as the transfusion of blood is a life-saving intervention. In any health system, the provision of adequate supplies of safe blood for transfusion is an essential undertaking.

Slide1The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates the blood requirement for countries to be in the region of 10 – 20 units per 1000 population per year. Yet in many sub-Saharan African countries, donations are far lower, in some countries as low as 2 units/1000 population/year. The demand for blood transfusion is very high, especially in children (largely due to infection) where up to 15% of children admitted to hospitals are transfused, with most being given as emergency interventions.

Over the past decade, several countries in sub-Saharan Africa have made progress in achieving the goals defined by the WHO to improve both the supply and blood safety, which have been financed largely by international donors.  This has led to an increase in the number of total blood donations and the proportion from voluntary donors, and improved safety of blood; but this is expensive to maintain therefore concerns about the sustainability of systems requiring a high level of financial support in low-income countries when cost recovery is unlikely. (more…)

World No Tobacco Day 2016: Get ready for plain packaging

By Tahrima Choudhury, Centre for Health Policy Intern

On the 31st of May every year the World Health Organisation (WHO) and partners mark World No Tobacco Day (WNTD), drawing attention to the dangers and health risks associated with tobacco consumption, and advocating for better policies to reduce tobacco use. This year’s WNTD will focus on the standardised (also known as plain) packaging of tobacco products, in the hope that it gains traction worldwide (1).

Australian_cigarette_pack_with_health_warning_December_2012The standardised packaging of tobacco products refers to limiting or banning of brand images, company logos, colours and promotional information on packaging. This only permits the display of brand and product names on a dark olive green coloured box with a standard font in conjunction with a graphic health warning image (2).

The notion behind this campaign is that tobacco packaging is seen as a mobile billboard. It is the final communication vehicle tobacco companies have left with people, silently promoting the consumption of tobacco, and distracting individuals, particularly children, from health warnings. Stripping away the glossy veneer will expose tobacco products for what they really are: a box of toxic, addictive product that is responsible for the death of around six million people a year (2).

Worryingly in the UK, two-thirds of smokers currently start smoking before they reach 18 years of age (3), beginning an addiction which kills up to two in three long-term smokers from a smoking-related cause (4). Tobacco use in the UK is the single greatest cause of avoidable deaths and preventable illness, with 100,000 people dying from a smoking associated cause each year (4). (more…)

The importance of the Access to Palliative Care Bill 2015

By Mark Steedman from the Institute of Global Health Innovation

eolcThe Access to Palliative Care Bill is to be given its second reading tomorrow (23rd October). While palliative care is widely viewed to be excellent in the UK, there are gaps in access to it, and this Bill hopes to eliminate these gaps.

The Bill’s stated aim is to “make provision for equitable access to palliative care services; for advancing education, training and research in palliative care; and for connected purposes”.

I’ve now worked in palliative care for two and a half years, and despite the knowledge I’ve gained and the progress I’ve seen, I’m still amazed at the reception I get when I speak at conferences. The disparity in the quality of care people receive around the world is staggering, particularly when people are in pain at the end of their lives, yet very few people are aware of this fact. Four billion people in the world don’t have access to opioids, and the chances of needing strong pain medication at the end of your life if you’re suffering from cancer, HIV/AIDS, or any number of other diseases is way too high for this to be tolerated.

Most presentations I give are not to palliative care experts – they’re either to the general public or to a specific segment of the medical community – the most recent to a room full of liver experts. I know very little about the liver, and yet at the end of my talk I received so many questions that the moderator had to eventually move on due to time. How can so many people who know so much about cancer, HCV, and other liver diseases not know how people are cared for once all curative treatment options are exhausted? It can be a bit disheartening, but I’m always encouraged that I feel that everyone has learned something when I’ve finished. I’m also encouraged that audience members often come up to me afterward and thanked me for spreading the word. (more…)

Wisdom of the Crowd: 65 views of the NHS at 65

happy birthday NHSThe 5th July marked the 65th anniversary of the NHS.  To mark the occasion, the Nuffield Trust has published a new report ‘Wisdom of the Crowd: 65 views of the NHS at 65’ which invites 65 health and political leaders to give their opinion on the current state of the NHS and social care system.  They have been asked specifically to reflect on what they think needs to happen now and over the coming years to ensure the NHS and social care system is viable and fit for purpose in ten years’ time.

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Professor Lord Ara Darzi, Director of the Institute of Global Health Innovation

Contributors consisted of current and former health secretaries and ministers, senior civil servants, clinicians, managers, academics, patient representatives, journalists and other key individuals. Amongst the contributors is Lord Ara Darzi, the Director of the Institute of Global Health Innovation at Imperial College London and former Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State at the Department of Health from 2007 to 2009. Over the past 10 years, NHS funding had more than doubled and there were a series of reforms in England aimed at improving the quality and timeliness of care.  Darzi states that the injection of money did a lot of good; there was a huge amount of progress, fantastic outputs and outcomes, but he feels we could have pushed the reforms even further.

He goes on to offer four suggestions of what the NHS needs to do now to remain viable and to divert the tsunami that is about to hit.  They are: (more…)