Index MDG IT Response 2 health threats, Research 2 sustainable ENVIRONMENT and Trade 2 poverty, Information Society

MDG

the Millennium Campaign organized by different groups and movements during the WYD 2005 in Cologne established the following Millennium Development Goals.
  • Goal 1. Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger
  • Goal 2. Achieve universal primary education
  • Goal 3. Promote gender equality and empower women
  • Goal 4. Reduce child mortality
  • Goal 5. Improve maternal health
  • Goal 6. Combat HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases
  • Goal 7. Ensure environmental sustainability
  • Goal 8. Develop a global partnership for development

    2 Health

    Regarding Goal6 (and its impact in 4 and 5) an Information Technology Response comes from initiatives such as Healt@Home and Bio4All.TK

    Source: the OMS / WHO.int and ITU.int and int'l publications.

    Hepatitis C

    http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs164/en/ HCV is a major cause of acute hepatitis and chronic liver disease, including cirrhosis2 and liver cancer. Globally, an estimated 170 million persons are chronically infected with HCV and 3 to 4 million persons are newly infected each year. HCV is spread primarily by direct contact with human blood. The major causes of HCV infection worldwide are use of unscreened blood transfusions, and re-use of needles and syringes that have not been adequately sterilized.

    No vaccine is currently available to prevent hepatitis C and treatment for chronic hepatitis C is too costly for most persons in developing countries to afford. Thus, from a global perspective, the greatest impact on hepatitis C disease burden will likely be achieved by focusing

    Treatment: Antiviral drugs such as interferon taken alone or in combination with ribavirin, can be used for the treatment of persons with chronic hepatitis C, but the cost of treatment is very high. Treatment with interferon alone is effective in about 10% to 20% of patients. Interferon combined with ribavirin is effective in about 30% to 50% of patients. Ribavirin does not appear to be effective when used alone.

    Electromagnetic fields and public health

    Static electric and magnetic fields http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs299/en/index.html

    The natural geomagnetic field varies over the Earth’s surface between about 0.035 - 0.07 mili tesla (mT) and is perceived by certain animals that use it for orientation. Man-made static magnetic fields are generated wherever DC currents are used, such as in electric trains or industrial processes such as aluminium production and in gas welding. These can be more than 1000 times stronger than the Earth’s natural magnetic field.

    HEALTH EFFECTS: For static magnetic fields, acute effects are only likely to occur when there is movement in the field, such as motion of a person or internal body movement, such as blood flow or heart beat. A person moving within a field above 2 T can experience sensations of vertigo and nausea, and sometimes a metallic taste in the mouth and perceptions of light flashes. Although only temporary, such effects may have a safety impact for workers executing delicate procedures (such as surgeons performing operations within MRI units). Powerfull fields are to be avoided.

    Electromagnetic fields and public health

    mobile telephones and their base stations http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs164/en/

    Current mobile phone systems operate at frequencies between 800 and 1800 MHz. It is important not to confuse such RF fields with ionizing radiation, such as X-rays or gamma rays. Unlike ionizing radiation, RF fields cannot cause ionization or radioactivity in the body. Because of this, RF fields are called non-ionizing. RF fields penetrate exposed tissues to depths that depend on the frequency (in Hertz) AND emission power (in Watts) AND tissue structure and composition (water and organic material..). All established health effects of RF exposure are clearly related to heating.

    WHO has identified research needs to make better health risk assessment and promoted the research to funding agencies. Briefly, at present time this research indicates:

  • Cancer: Current scientific evidence indicates that exposure to RF fields is unlikely to induce or promote cancers. One 1997 study found that RF fields increased the rate at which genetically engineered mice developed lymphoma. In human beings, three recent epidemiological studies found no convincing evidence of increase in risk of any disease with use of mobile phones.
  • Heat related risks: Scientists have reported other effects of using mobile phones including changes in brain activity, reaction times, and sleep patterns. These effects are small and have no apparent health significance. More studies are in progress to try to confirm these findings.
  • Driving: Research has clearly shown an increased risk of traffic accidents when mobile phones (either handheld or with a "hands-free" kit) are used while driving.

    Alzheimer

    Alzheimer impacts the 5% of the population older than 65 ans, and 30% among ages over 85 years old. At first the Memory Centre does not detect problem but there are other problems are about retaining information. In Alzheimer the problem is one of orientation and superior functions and lost of autonomy of movement. Fundamental to have a person in the environment able to keep a human life of quality. Is also important to let the elder know that having symptoms todays does not mean they will develop Alzheimer. There is a set of treatments and there is an important factor of prevention, for more information we refer to the center driven by Dr. Bruno Dubois, http://www.u610.ifrns.chups.jussieu.fr/Bruno_DUBOIS.htm . the intellectual stimulation, with games or activities, of memory, reasoning, reflection, ... can develop the interrelations among neurons that delays the Alzheimer. The research groups have identified two actors responsible of the pathology: amiloid, beta gamma enzymes, therefore we could expect (with research) future drugs that do not act on the symptoms but on the core sickness.

    Malaria

    The picture shows a Red blood cell infected with malaria (falciparum, Malaria, Vivax, Ovale) there is no known vaccination yet, however there are prevention measures at several levels (including that treatment should continue 1 month after the exposure in order to prevent for the hepatic refuge). It is a world problem and even in Turkey there is paludism, althought in its Vivax form and not the dangerous falciparum.

    The ICT RESPONSEs such as from NCSC, Health@Home BOINC, or Bio4All provide Opportunities for Biomedical Research and the NIH through High Performance Computing and Data Management. Todays research use a large set of software resources, hence the idea of sharing CPU-cycles for critical health research.

    Int'l Cooperations and IT Response against Poverty

    The expanding digital divide is producing a new dimension of poverty - information poverty - highly significant and visible. Our goal involves sustainability and capacity-building: teach to do, rather than just doing; build the capacity of those who will maintain the system (such as GIS for environmental monitoring)

    ICT 4 Development, Information Society for Development

    Online Volunteering is a key instrument for helpng organizations and projects worldwide, the volunteers can help with their particular experience. For instance locating addresses of associations, e-villages, community centers, local resources, ... worldwide and the name of key contact persons to be addressed. The onsite volunteering is important even in developed countries, where 80% of fireman are in a volunteer bases.

    Many had contributed technical and research skills to UN programs. For agencies from UNICEF, UNDP or Unesco and in volunteering jobs ranging from multicultural studies in english/spanish/french to databases for the Open Training Platform or OpenOffice database support for UNDP Afghanistan. This resulted in web sites such as www.Bio4all.tk or responsi.tk and overall UNITeS with two primary goals: 1) promote volunteerism in dev ICT 2) support UNV w tools.

    The volunteer profile covers from students to high skilled CVs worldwide, a typical example: Expert in automation of Internet data for populating excel or databases. graduated in computer engineering (1993, Master equivalent to Grande Ecole), developed a career in Information Systems and Telecommuniccations with positions involving from databases and internet search tasks to business development roles. experience doing internet research on centers and business contacts (4) as well as extensive search of online documentation while preparing university thesis (5). Work during 5 years in the USA, 1 in Asia, and 3 in France. Can dedicate weekends and evenings, could pass by office periodically to help on this work. Office and Database skills with excel table with all information gathered.

    UNESCO (inside United Nations) & IDRC (International Development Research Centre) are known for their work establishing Community Multi-media and Internet Centres (CMC) worldwide. Cisco Academy also another project helping expand the ICT Internet network worldwide.