All Posts: global health
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Jesse Goodman: Taking on a "Slow Emergency"
On September 21, for only the fourth time in its history, the United Nations General Assembly is conducting a high-level meeting to address a critical global health issue. The topic is antimicrobial resistance, described by Georgetown’s Jesse L. Goodman, MD, MPH, as a “slow emergency” and an alarming situation that first grabbed his attention two decades ago.
Category: GUMC Stories
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Collateral Harm: The Impact of Ebola and Related Fears on Facility-Based Child Deliveries
WASHINGTON — The first known household survey examining the collateral harm to pregnancy services in areas affected by the West African Ebola epidemic suggests a significant slide backwards in child and maternal health. The study, conducted in Liberia, points to the deep disruptions caused by the Ebola epidemic — even in parts of the country with relatively limited transmission.
Category: News Release
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Zika Has Arrived, But is the U.S. Ready?
WASHINGTON –The Florida Department of Health, investigating non-travel related cases of Zika in Miami-Dade and Broward counties, has concluded “that a high likelihood exists that four cases are the result of local transmission.” Despite the advance warning of Zika’s approach, Georgetown experts in infectious disease, public health law, health systems readiness and mosquito research say the United States isn’t ready for a Zika outbreak.
Category: News Release
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Smartphone Apps Not So Smart at Helping Users Avoid or Achieve Pregnancy
WASHINGTON — You might not want to depend on your smartphone app alone to help you avoid or achieve pregnancy, say the authors of a new study. A review of nearly 100 fertility awareness apps finds that most don’t employ evidence-based methodology.
Category: News Release
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Gulf War Illness: Looking Back to Move Forward
Georgetown University Medical Center and the Brookings Institution co-hosted “Desert Storm after 25 years: Confronting the Exposures of Modern Warfare” on June 17 to examine the history of GWI and discuss a way forward.
Category: GUMC Stories
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“Disease Outbreak Guarantees” – A Proposed Mechanism for Enhancing Public Health Capacity
WASHINGTON — What if private companies could obtain some coverage to protect their foreign investments in developing countries against crippling infectious disease outbreaks such as Ebola? The possible path to offering disease outbreak guarantees is an idea being posed by two global health researchers who suggest that a mechanism for establishing such an instrument could be tied to public health investments.
Category: News Release
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Seeking guidance for clinicians facing a question of human rights
Should a physician, after helping deliver a child to a women whose genitals had been cut and vulva stitched together — an outlawed procedure generally called female genital mutilation or FGM — close her up again? A Georgetown physician, ethicist and lawyer explore this complex moral problem.
Category: GUMC Stories
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Rebecca Katz: Creating public health infrastructure to handle pandemics — before they occur
Meet Rebecca Katz, PhD, MPH. She and her global health team are watching with more than keen interest the way the U.S. is positioning itself to handle a potential Zika outbreak this summer.
Category: GUMC Stories
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A Yellow Fever Epidemic: A New Global Health Emergency?
WASHINGTON — Evidence is mounting that the current outbreak of yellow fever is becoming the latest global health emergency, say two Georgetown University professors who call on the World Health Organization to convene an emergency committee under the International Health Regulations. In addition, with frequent emerging epidemics, they call for the creation of a “standing emergency committee” to be prepared for future health emergencies.
Category: News Release
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West Africa, Ebola and the Threat of Zika
WASHINGTON — Rapid testing for the Zika virus is a critical need in the recent Ebola-affected countries of Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea, says a Georgetown University professor, because of the recent Zika outbreak on nearby Cape Verde and the similarity in symptoms between Zika and early Ebola.
Category: News Release