SSMJ February 2010

Editorials

Editorial: Evidence Based Medicine

Evidence Based Medicine (EBM) is "the conscientious, explicit and sensible use of current best practice in making decisions about the care of individual patients1". Components include the use of evidence, clinical judgement and patient preference. Clinical judgement is vital in the evidence based approach to care because the evidence found may not be relevant a specific patient...

News, Reports and Policy

News and Reports from Southern Sudan - February 2010

WHO warns: Aid shortfall may leave millions sick and starving in Southern Sudan Data from: Weekly Epidemiology Bulletin Week 7-13 December 2009. Ministry of Health GoSS

Clinical Guidance

What do you know about Hand Washing?

Handwashing at critical times – including after using the toilet and before eating or preparing food – can reduce diarrhoea rates by almost 44 percent among children under 5. More than 5,000 children every day – 1.7 million children every year – under the age of 5 die from diarrheal diseases. Diarrhoea is the second most common cause of death in children, accounting for...

Non-severe pneumonia in childhood: guidelines for management in first-level health facilities

Among the under 5-year-olds worldwide there are about 156,000,000 cases of pneumonia each year. This causes about 20% of all deaths in this age group. Effective implementation of the WHO Integrated Management of Childhood Illness (IMCI) reduces this morbidity and mortality. The recommendations for treating pneumonia for first-level health facilities were made over ten years ago although there was an update in 2005

Evidence Based Medicine - How To Search the Literature

All health professions should be practising 'evidence-based care'. This is defined as the "integration of the best research evidence with our clinical expertise, and our patient’s unique values and circumstances"...

What do you know about Gonorrhoea?

Gonorrhoea is caused by the sexually transmitted bacterium Neisseria gonorrhoeae. The incubation period ranges from two to 30 days. The risk of infection differs between the sexes: Males: 20% risk after sexual contact with an infected female. Females: 60-80% risk after sexual contact with an infected male. During childbirth an infected woman may transmit gonorrhoea to her newborn and cause ophthalmia neonatorum...

Action Against Childhood Pneumonia

More than two million children under age 5 years die each year from pneumonia. This is more than the combined mortality from HIV, malaria and measles: an astonishing and not widely realised fact! Appropriate vaccination could prevent half of these deaths. Inexpensive antibiotics (about $0.27 for an average course of treatment) are available for treating most cases yet only...

Research

Evaluation of surgical outcome after cataract surgery with lens implantation using air or viscoelastic to maintain the anterior chamber

Findings from specular microscope studies have demonstrated increased endothelial cell loss associated with the use of air for lens implantation. The objective of this study was to evaluate the surgical outcome after cataract surgery with lens implantation using air or viscoelastic to maintain the anterior chamber

Caesarean Sections at Juba Teaching Hospital 2008 - 2009

A summary and analysis of all recorded emergency and elective caesarean sections (CS) performed at Juba Teaching Hospital (JTH), Juba, Southern Sudan from October 2008 to September 2009 was made. During this period 430 CS were performed giving a mean of 1.2 each day, the main reason being cited as obstructed labour. Thirty of the babies delivered by CS died giving a neonatal morality rate of 7%. Due to various /non-comprehensive reporting methods it is difficult to measure the maternal mortality rate associated with CS...

Case Reports

No documents found.

Summaries

Extracts from Journals / For your Resource Centre - February 2010

Why hypertensive patients are not taking their medication in DRC. 'Harmonising the Metabolic Syndrome'. Global health risks: Mortality and burden of disease attributable to selected major risks is a new downloadable report from WHO. Text, charts, and data show the nature of 24 health risks and discuss the joint effects of risk factors. Among the many findings are...