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WFP Welcomes International Support For Emergency Operation In Pakistan
The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) thanked contributors for enabling a swift response to the humanitarian crisis
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Army Study Improves Ability To Predict Drinking Water Needs
When soldiers leave base for a 3-day mission, how much water should they bring? Military planners and others have long wrestled with that question, but new research from the Journal of Applied Physiology may now provide them an accurate answer.
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Reducing Medical Residents' Hours Would Cost $2.5B Annually, Study Says
Implementing proposed reductions in the number of hours medical residents work could cost as much as $2.5 billion annually, according to a recent study published in the New England Journal of Medicine, the Baltimore Sun reports. The study follows an Institute of Medicine report that proposed reducing the maximum hours that residents can work without sleep from 30 to 16, increasing the number of days they must take off and improving their supervision (Desmon, Baltimore Sun, 5/21). In 2003, the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education reduced the number of hours residents at teaching hospitals could work weekly from more than 100 hours to 80 hours. In the recent study, which was partially funded by IOM, researchers examined post-2003 literature on resident work hours and patient harm and evaluated it against additional labor costs. The authors concluded that the IOM recommendations "would be costly, and their effectiveness is unknown" (Shishkin, Wall Street Journal, 5/21). Teryl Nuckols, the lead author of the study, said that teaching hospitals would most likely need to hire more residents and experienced physicians to take care of patients, which would likely cost each teaching hospital $3.2 million annually (Baltimore Sun, 5/21). The study was accompanied by an NEJM editorial in which the authors "strongly disagree" with the IOM recommendations, claiming that reducing resident work hours "leads to an increase in the number of handoffs in care, and this increase outweighs the potential benefits of reducing residents" fatigue." The accreditation council said that more research is needed before it decides whether to adopt the IOM recommendations. The council"s decision will be announced in February 2010 (Wall Street Journal, 5/21).
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Project To Develop HIV/AIDS Strategy For Libya Led By Liverpool School Of Tropical Medicine

Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine (LSTM) is leading a project to provide technical assistance to the Libyan government to finalise the development of a national HIV strategy and programme of support. The project is supported by a 1 million euro grant from the Delegation of the European Commission to Libya. Between 2009 and 2010, The International Health Group of LSTM in partnership with Libyan institutions and Harvard University"s Biostatistics Department (HUBD), will produce updated and comprehensive information on the current epidemiology of HIV infection in the country in order to produce an effective national HIV strategy. Libya is faced with the challenge of controlling HIV and the provision of appropriate treatment, care and support to children and adults with HIV and AIDS. The problem of the provision of quality care to HIV infected children is compounded by the need to control a concentrated HIV epidemic affecting mainly persons most at risk for which there is limited epidemiological data. The disease is still the object of stigma and fear and there is little known about the drivers of the epidemic among those most at risk as well as the perception of risk and knowledge of HIV among influential sectors of the community. A skilled and diverse team will work with Libyan institutions to: * formulate a national HIV strategy that addresses Libya"s priority issues for HIV prevention and care * obtain critical biological, social and behavioural estimates to guide and assess the strategy * analyze the data and draw evidence-based conclusions from them * develop policies and procedures to effectively promote best practice and evidence-based harm minimisation activities amongst key high risk groups (intravenous drug users, female sex workers, men who have sex with men), especially in prisons * coordinate the dissemination of key HIV strategy messages and policies LSTM"s Professor Joseph Valadez will manage the project. He is one of the pioneers of methods to rapidly assess Knowledge, Attitudes and Practices (KAP), having utilised them within HIV assessment programmes throughout the world. The KAP studies will be designed to gather knowledge and misconceptions about HIV transmission and prevention, attitudes associated with stigma and discrimination and high risk behaviours. Surveys will be based on international instruments already field tested but adapted to the Libyan context and will be used to determine how to improve training and capacity building among health facility workers, religious leaders and young people. Commenting on the programme, Professor Valadez said: "This project will establish an overall HIV strategy for Libya and provide a framework for making important decisions about how to control HIV. It will also aid Libya to join the other countries of North Africa who have HIV strategies and participate in the international UNAIDS community. We hope this project will also allow us all to better understand how HIV is progressing in North Africa and hopefully provide us with information about how to better control it." Alan Hughes Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine


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