Spotlight on Infectious Diseases - The Global Health TV Show

Oh

hello and welcome to global health TV we

have a very special program for you

today as you know swine flu is very much

in the headlines we're going to look at

the whole gamut of infectious diseases

and today we're going to look at the

importance of hygiene and tackling those

diseases and I'm delighted to be joined

by Sally Bloomfield who's just authored

a very important report on the subject

Sally welcome hello back to Sally in a

moment swine flu is of course the

infectious disease dominating the

headlines margaret chan wa cho

director-general has warned that swine

flu could become the biggest flu

pandemic ever seen however most cases

continue to produce only mild symptoms

the overwhelming majority of patients

usually recover even without medical

treatment within a week of falling ill

but at the same time it's spreading fast

in past pandemics flu viruses have

needed more than six months to spread as

widely as the new h1n1 virus is spread

in less than six weeks and while

government's rush to order vaccines to

protect their populations people in

general have a role to play in

preventing the spread of infection how

do you say in your report that all of us

share responsibility for trying to

prevent diseases such as swine flu or

even the common cold is that fair well

despite our obsession with heart disease

and cancer and all those diseases

infectious diseases worldwide still

exerts a huge toll on health and

well-being across the global community

for example 10 million deaths every year

across the world from infectious and

parasitic diseases now the the global

health budget to deal with those

diseases is huge in terms of providing

us with antivirals when we suddenly want

the more antibiotics as an ongoing

concern the cost is is enormous so we

have to find ways of trying to prevent

these diseases and we now know a recent

w.h.o reports suggested that by water

sanitation and improved hygiene we could

reduce the global burden of do

by up to nine point one percent and

reduce deaths by six point three percent

so hygiene is one of the ways in which

we can prevent int diseases but of

course hygiene is all about shared

responsibility it's not something the

government could do it's not something

local authority couldn't do it's

something that we as a family in our

homes and in our everyday life have to

do it has to be shared now you you give

a lot of emphasis in your report the

role of the family what do you think how

do you think we can help the family what

sort of role do families need to play in

good hygiene I think we need to change

in mindset because at the moment if you

think about it the separate acts aspects

of infectious disease like food hygiene

care of small children the treatment of

infectious diseases from people in

hospital mrs a health care of the ald at

home they're all dealt with by separate

agencies who give advice to the family

actually what what we need to do is to

look at it from a more family-oriented

perspective you and your own home you've

got a family you have to cook for them

you have to look after the baby you've

got to protect your elderly parents at

the same time we really do need to stop

looking at this problem from an angle

which is convenient for the agencies and

look at it from the point of view of the

family what they know understand need to

know and how we can get them to change

their behavior now does this approach

does this approach to go across borders

can we use the same approach in the

developing world as we can in the

development work yes I think so although

the entry point is quite different

because for the last 10 to 20 years

there's been a huge investment on

improved water improved sanitation the

Millennium Development Goals and we all

know about that what has become very

apparent in the last five to ten years

is that if you don't incorporate hygiene

promotion in with those with those

programs then the health benefits will

not be commensurate with the investment

which is made it's all very well having

good sanitation and feces disposal but

if you've got the feces on your hands

and you don't wash your hands then it's

going to be transmitted so but so it's

more the entry point it's doing it

through the water and sanitation

programs which is quite different from

the way we approach health promotion in

developed world urban communities so we

thank you ever so much indeed for

joining us on global health TV be very

much appreciated thank you I'm now

absolutely delighted to be joined by

Mike mandelbaum who's chief executive of

TB alert Mike thank you for joining us

later don't you think there's a bit of a

danger at the moment that all the focus

that's on swine flu is going to take

attention away from diseases such as TB

swine flu is a very serious pandemic so

it's no surprise that there's so much

attention on it but tuberculosis disease

which has been neglected for many years

it really hasn't taken that much

attention away from it this is a disease

which kills still 1.7 million people a

year yet it's a curable disease and if

there'd been more focused on the disease

over the last decades we could have been

a long way towards eradicating TV

completely so mike many people in the

global community would have thought that

they've actually tackled TV some 50

years ago well there were many advances

made in the first half in the middle of

the last century the BCG vaccine was

discovered in the 1920s and there were

developments in the drugs that are used

for for treating TV which is a curable

disease but we're still using today the

same diagnostic tools the same vaccines

and the same drugs that we were 50 200

years ago so there was a lot of

complacency that set in as people

thought especially in the Western world

the TB was a disease of the past give us

a flavor if you will of some of the more

recent development in tackling to be

well there has been more focused and

there is more political will today on

tackling arm tackling TV and especially

in the development of new tools in those

three areas of Diagnostics of vaccines

and of drugs there's a what's called a

product development partnership for each

of those which is a mechanism for

bringing public and international

funding to develop new tools for example

in the area of vaccines the product

development partnership air us is at the

moment in the late stage clinical trial

in South Africa for a vaccine which will

make the BCG more effective and just in

the last week they've announced the

extension of that vaccine to people who

are hiv-positive people who living with

HIV are especially vulnerable to

tuberculosis and it's especially

important they access treatment fast and

the access effective treatment so their

TB can be cured and they can then be

given antiretrovirals to continue their

lives Mike thank you ever so much indeed

for joining us today pleasure well

that's it for this show but keep tuned

for all the latest developments on

global health from around the world

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