Middle East Health eNews

Sunita Teckchand

The Holistic Institute, a completely new concept in complementary health education, will open its doors in Jumeira Lake Towers, Dubai, UAE, on 1 October 2010, offering IFPA (International Federation of Professional Aromatherapists) accredited courses in Aromatherapy, Reflexology, Anatomy/Physiology and Therapeutic Massage.

Sunita Teckchand, the Principal Tutor of the Holistic Institute, is a fully qualified holistic therapist and trainer in alternative therapies. She has worked in Complementary and Alternative Medicine (CAM) for many years and has in-depth experience in conducting workshops in Aromatherapy, Jin Shin Jyutsu self-help classes, life empowering classes and other areas of CAM.

The concept of the Institute is to ‘Inspire excellence, leadership and wisdom in complimentary health education and self-development’. Their core values are Excellence, Professionalism, Teamwork, Ethical Standards and an open door policy between students and tutors.

The Holistic Institute will offer 45 different courses set up to suit individual needs – whether it is an academic career, or simply for self-empowerment and life change.

As well as offering academic courses, the Holistic Institute will offer more than 45 self-empowering short courses in Bach Flower Remedies, Reiki, Beautiful Skin with Aromatherapy, Shiatsu, Back Massage, Foot Massage, Lymphatic Drainage, Iridology, First Aid with Essential Oils, Beautiful Hair with Aromatherapy, Introduction to Feng Shui, Mental & Emotional care with Essential oils, Face Reading, Self Help Jin Shin Jyutsu classes, and many more.

The institute will collaborate with a range of foreign and local teachers and consultants to provide the wide range of courses.

Workshops
Several workshops are planned including ‘Life Transformation’ workshops, such as ‘Power to Love’ commencing 30 September for 3 days; ‘A New Beginning’ on 8-9 October by the One World Academy and recommended by Anthony Robbins; and ‘Transcending Conventional Healing Methods’ by world renowned healer Anita Moorjani, who will talk about her Near Death Experience.

• The Holistic Institute is having a free open day on 10 October with the official opening ceremony at 10am. Throughout the day there will be a series of inspirational talks. The day will draw to a close with a mass meditation at 7.30pm.  All are welcome to attend. Register at the website www.theholisticinstitute.org after the site’s launch on 15 September.
• Contact Sunita on sunita@theholisticinstitute.org for further information.

Men load medicine from a WHO warehouse in Islamabad. -- © WHO/Syed Haider

Gulf states have stepped up to the plate in a major effort to provide much need aid to flood-ravaged Pakistan.

The latest initiatives – according to an IRIN News report on 26 August is that Saudi Arabia has sent 130 rescue workers to Pakistan with relief equipment including motorboats, vehicles and generators.

Saudi King Abdulalh has also ordered the dispatch of two 200-bed field hospitals. Each hospital has an operation room, laboratory, pharmacy, intensive care unit and X-ray room.

The UAE Red Crescent is sending medics to Pakistan and launching a US$100,000 vaccination programme to protect young women and children from disease.

The UAE Red Crescent has been running a telethon in the and as of yesterday had raised Dh75 million (about $20.5million). The telethon continues today and tomorrow.

According to WAM news agency, the UAE has also sent 50,000 blankets, 12,000 tents, 220,000 food packets, 6,000 mineral water bottles, food utensils, 227 tons of dates and medicines.

WAM says two teams of UAE doctors are working in Peshawar and Jacobabad and are vaccinating 6,000 women and children in coordination with UNICEF.

The UAE Air Force has also sent a number of Chinook helicopters to assist the Pakistani army with relief efforts.

The Qatar Charity, in collaboration with the UN World Food Programme, has distributed $1.92 million worth of food parcels to affected families since mid-August. The charity has set up an “air bridge” to fly in relief to Pakistan in cooperation with Qatar Airways. It also said it would airlift 80 tons of emergency relief items worth $604,229.

IRIN reports that the Qatar Red Crescent Society distributed aid to 3,200 families in the first stage of its relief operations.

Kuwait has said it will double aid to Pakistan to $10 million.

Bahrain is to send urgent humanitarian aid worth $2.6 million, according to Bahrain News Agency.

Dr Hussein A. Gezairy, WHO Regional Director for the Eastern Mediterranean, has appealed to the international community to double its response effort to the floods hitting parts of Pakistan. Dr Gezairy called for preventive measures to be undertaken to halt the outbreak of infectious and waterborne diseases among nearly 20 million flood-affected people, suffering from severe illness, hunger and loss of shelter and property.  

credit: © Abdul Majeed Goraya/IRIN

The Regional Director is expected to make a field visit to Pakistan to assess the situation and follow up on the relief work and health services being provided by WHO, in collaboration with other UN agencies and humanitarian organisations in flood-stricken provinces.

He pointed out that in previous floods, many deaths among victims had not resulted from drowning or directly from the disaster, but rather from the terrible situation following the floods, particularly the acute shortage of food and potable water, disease outbreaks such as cholera and typhoid, deteriorating healthcare services, insufficient numbers of health personnel and increasing mortality among children as a result of measles and polio.

Dr Gezairy added that there had been nearly 1,600 deaths, in addition to tens of thousands of people inflicted with diarrhea, malaria, skin diseases, respiratory and eye infections, reptile bites and insect stings.

He said that the disaster in Pakistan was an example of the perils of man-made climate change of which WHO and environmental activists have been warning. He noted that victims of the Pakistani flood outnumbered the total number of victims of the 2004 Tsunami, the 2005 earthquake in Kashmir and the 2010 earthquake in Haiti combined.

It is expected that this phenomenon will increase globally with  tens of millions of  people vulnerable to malaria, hunger and water shortages over the next decades.

“To reduce the risks [of climate change] greenhouse gas emissions have to be reduced which requires a reversal of global bad practices contributing to the problem,” said Dr Gezairy.

Egypt has the highest rates of new hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection in the world, according to a new study published 9 August 2010 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The study estimates that more than 500,000 new HCV infections occur in Egypt every year, likely signalling an epidemic in a country of more than 77 million people. The authors suggest this high rate of HCV transmission may be due to the lack of sufficient standard safety precautions in medical and dental facilities.

“Nearly 7 out of every 1,000 Egyptians acquire HCV infections every year, suggesting intense ongoing transmission. This is the highest level of HCV transmission ever recorded at a national level for a blood borne infectious disease transmitted parenterally, that is, by use of non-sterile medical instruments,” said Dr F. DeWolfe Miller, lead author of this study and professor of epidemiology at the Department of Tropical Medicine and Medical Microbiology and Pharmacology at the University of Hawaii.

Although the high prevalence of hepatitis C in Egypt has been well established for many years, and linked in part to limited safety measures during anti-bilharzia campaigns, published estimates of prevalence from different Egyptian communities failed to provide a nationwide picture of the magnitude of ongoing HCV infection transmission. To estimate the rate of new HCV cases of infection in Egypt, the authors of the study performed epidemiologic modelling of data from a range of studies, including a 2008 national HCV survey with a representative sample and well-documented study design.

“The study opened our eyes to a disease burden similar in scale and challenge to the HIV problem in sub-Saharan Africa: Millions of cases of an infection for which there is no vaccine, no effective treatment, and where case management is so expensive that it is beyond the reach of most patients,” said Dr Laith J. Abu-Raddad, co-author of the study and assistant professor of public health at the Infectious Disease Epidemiology Group at the Weill Cornell Medical College–Qatar.

The study necessitates not only further analysis of HCV transmission in Egypt, but also justifies the immediate increase of resources to strengthen public health measures aimed at reducing the transmission of HCV in clinical and non-clinical settings, according to the authors. Failure to address this problem will result in a massive disease burden in the nation in terms of HCV infection complications, including active liver disease, liver failure, or liver cancer.

“There is only one way to deal with the HCV challenge in this country: HCV prevention,” warned Dr Miller. “Effective and stronger HCV prevention programmes are urgently needed in Egypt. Failure to act could swamp the public health system over the coming decades with millions of cases of HCV disease complications with an economic and social cost that this nation does not have the means to confront.”

Key scientific findings of the study

• Nearly 7 out of each 1,000 Egyptians acquire HCV infection every year for a total of 537,000 new HCV infections every year. This is by far the largest ever recorded rate of occurrence of HCV at a national level of all countries in the world.
• One in every 10 Egyptians is a carrier of the HCV infection, which means that there are at least 4,459,000 persons infected with HCV who are infectious to others. This is the largest reservoir of HCV infection in the world. 
• Contrary to the widely-held perception that this rate of occurrence reflects merely the limited safety measures during anti-bilharzia campaigns, HCV incidence likely continues at alarming levels due to limitations in the implementation and enforcement of stringent standard precautions in public and private medical and dental facilities.

One in fifteen Afghan women die due to complications during pregnancy.

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The region’s first long-term care and rehabilitation facility will officially open its doors in Abu Dhabi in September 2010. Pro Vita Abu Dhabi is the first facility of its kind in the MENA to offer state of the art long-term care for ventilated patients in a non-hospital setting.

 With a capacity of 42 beds, more than 100 employees provide round the clock medical care. The facility will have 24 hour physician coverage staffed by German physicians and has a formal affiliation with the University of Munich. Pro Vita is an internationally leading, fully accredited and highly specialised provider of care in Germany and the original founder and managing partner of the German operation has relocated as founder and general manager of Pro Vita Abu Dhabi.

Currently only hospital beds exist for ventilator supported care across the GCC, meaning that approximately 200 hospital ICU beds are used for long-term care ventilator patients.

High rates of vehicle accidents and congenital disease factors in the region contribute to an environment where long-term ventilator care and rehabilitation services are in high demand across the GCC.  Pro Vita is expected to significantly improve the quality of life for patients who need such treatment, allowing them the opportunity to receive care at a specialised facility in their home country as opposed to similar facilities abroad or ICU beds at local hospitals. It will also alleviate financial and logistical pressure on over-subscribed hospital ICU units in Abu Dhabi and the GCC.  

Christina Shawky-Bohme, founder of Pro Vita and general manager of Pro Vita Abu Dhabi, said: “In Germany, Pro Vita has been providing care since 1996 and has seen over 500 patients, including several dozen from the Middle East region. Modern medical possibilities and increasing life expectancy have led to increased cost consciousness in healthcare, meaning greater demand for out-of-hospital intensive care. This need is not currently being met in the MENA.

“For us the person requiring care is seen not only as a patient with medical treatment needs, but as a human being with dreams, hopes and expectations. When dealing with family members, hospitals and financial sponsors we also attach significance to a person-centred, goal-oriented approach. In terms of daily patient care this means that we efficiently and effectively conserve all resources.”

There is a significant need for several dozen facilities across the GCC and MENA and Pro Vita plans to expand its offering with additional locations in the UAE as well as other countries in the region.

Speaking at a virtual press conference yesterday evening Dr Margaret Chan, the director-general of the World Health Organisation, said the new H1N1 virus has largely run its course and that the world is no longer in phase 6 of influenza pandemic alert. “Put simply,” she said, “the pandemic is over.”

“We are now moving into the post-pandemic period,” she said.

She reiterated that these were the views of the Emergency Committee, which met earlier yesterday.

The Committee based its assessment on the global situation, as well as reports from several countries that are now experiencing influenza.

However, she warned that as we enter the post-pandemic period, this does not mean that the H1N1 virus has gone away.

“Continued vigilance is extremely important, and WHO has issued advice on recommended surveillance, vaccination, and clinical management during the post-pandemic period.

“Based on experience with past pandemics, we expect the H1N1 virus to take on the behaviour of a seasonal influenza virus and continue to circulate for some years to come.

“Globally, the levels and patterns of H1N1 transmission now being seen differ significantly from what was observed during the pandemic. Out-of-season outbreaks are no longer being reported in either the northern or southern hemisphere. Influenza outbreaks, including those primarily caused by the H1N1 virus, show an intensity similar to that seen during seasonal epidemics,” Dr Chan said.

She said that during the pandemic, the H1N1 virus crowded out other influenza viruses to become the dominant virus. This is no longer the case. Many countries are reporting a mix of influenza viruses, again as is typically seen during seasonal epidemics.

“In addition, a small proportion of people infected during the pandemic, including young and healthy people, developed a severe form of primary viral pneumonia that is not typically seen during seasonal epidemics and is especially difficult and demanding to treat. It is not known whether this pattern will change during the post-pandemic period, further emphasizing the need for vigilance.

“Pandemics are unpredictable and prone to deliver surprises. No two pandemics are ever alike. This pandemic has turned out to be much more fortunate than what we feared a little over a year ago. This time around, we have been aided by pure good luck. The virus did not mutate during the pandemic to a more lethal form. Widespread resistance to oseltamivir did not develop. The vaccine proved to be a good match with circulating viruses and showed an excellent safety profile,” she said.

In reply to a question from Reuters about the implications for countries holding remaining stockpiles of oseltamivir vaccine Dr Chan reiterated that the virus was still sensitive to the vaccine. “So they would continue to be useful. And WHO strongly recommends where vaccines are available, high risk groups should be immunized.”

Dr Chan added in response to another question that vaccines that have a shelf life that has expired should be destroyed in keeping with best practice. 

• WHO recommendations for the post-pandemic period

Abu Dhabi’s Ambulatory Healthcare Services (AHS), a SEHA Health System Facility, has announced revised Ramadan timings for its healthcare centers and Disease Prevention and Screening Center (DPSC) in Abu Dhabi and Al Ain.

The revised work timings will be as following:
AHS Headquarter: Sunday to Thursday – From 9 am to 3 pm
Ambulatory Healthcare Centers: From 9 am to 3 pm and 8 pm till 12:30 pm
Disease Prevention and Screening Center – Abu Dhabi: Sunday to Thursday – from 9am to 5pm, and in Saturday from 9am to 3pm

Disease Prevention and Screening Centers – Musaffah, Al Ain and Western Region: Sunday to Thursday – - from 9 am to 2 pm

Florence Nightingale (1820-1910) -- 2010 is the International Year of the Nurse and marks the centennial of the death of Florence Nightingale - considered to be the founder of modern nursing.

Calling all nurses! 2010 is the International Year of the Nurse. It is also the centennial year of the death of the founder of modern nursing – Florence Nightingale (1820-1910).

To celebrate this historic milestone, the 2010 International Year of the Nurse is planned as a sustained public awareness initiative to actively involve the world’s nurses – estimated to be more than 15 million – in a celebration of commitment to bring health to their communities, locally and worldwide.

• Visit the IYNurse 2010 website: www.2010iynurse.net to read nurse tributes and nurse stories and to find out more about the International Year of the Nurse.
• Nurses may also want to visit the Nightingale Initiative for Global Health, or NIGH, and the Nightingale Declaration — www.nightingaledeclaration.net. This is a grassroots, nurse-inspired movement to increase global public awareness about the priority of health and to empower nurses and concerned citizens to stand for a healthy world everywhere.

The Health Authority of Abu Dhabi (HAAD) Medicines and Medical Products Department have released their latest news update which includes medication safety alerts for healthcare professionals, information about current progress with H1N1 influenza immunization, new medications, a survey on household products and their health hazards, and a variety of other useful pharmacology and toxicology information.

• The newsletter can be downloaded here. (PDF – 1MB)
  Toxi-Drug Newsletter for Abu Dahbi Health Authority

Report adverse drug events
HAAD is also urging healthcare professionals to report adverse event information on patient receiving any of the newly added medications (listed on the newsletter) to Abu Dhabi Pharmacovigilance Center by any of the following means;
Phone 800 424 (in the UAE)
Fax +971 (0)2 444 3125
or e-mail pv@haad.ae

Visit the HAAD Pharmacoviligence website.