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This article analyzes the outbreak of yellow fever in Northeastern Brazil in 1926 and its related scientific developments. After the epidemic, inspections were carried out in cities where outbreaks occurred and elsewhere in order to refute the existence of yellow fever. Additionally, the Rockefeller Foundation created a yellow fever laboratory in Salvador in 1928 as part of a redirection in its activities. This paper uses Brazilian newspapers as well as correspondence, reports, and diaries from the Rockefeller Foundation to understand the specificities of the 1926 epidemic, which was of great importance for the development of international health strategies and actions for controlling yellow fever. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article studies the rationalization of public health in the city of Rosario during the 1920s starting from the initiatives of the physician Manuel Pignetto during his administration. His Sanitary Plan constitutes a key perspective to analyze institutional fields, the creation of technical agencies, and the articulation of local and international debates in the rearrangement of municipal health devices. Through triangulation and the hermeneutics of official and journalistic documentary materials, we are able to address the possibilities and the limits of a plan that reinforced municipal competencies regarding public health under a new social perspective. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This text analyzes the trajectory of Brazilian doctors from the Oswaldo Cruz Institute who secured Rockefeller Foundation funding to study at Johns Hopkins University between 1919 and 1924. The article is based on material from the Rockefeller Archive Center--such as correspondence between the philanthropic agency's offices in Brazil and United States--a doctoral thesis, a medical report, and oral histories. These sources help illuminate the conflicts, difficulties, and negotiations that occurred during the selection of scholars, their training in North America, and their return to Brazil. Regional and local issues and exchanges of knowledge about public health also characterized the experience of international professional training. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Lancet Commission on Hypertension identified that a key action to address the worldwide burden of high blood pressure (BP) was to improve the quality of BP measurements by using BP devices that have been validated for accuracy. Currently, there are over 3 000 commercially available BP devices, but many do not have published data on accuracy testing according to established scientific standards. This problem is enabled through weak or absent regulations that allow clearance of devices for commercial use without formal validation. In addition, new BP technologies have emerged (e.g. cuffless sensors) for which there is no scientific consensus regarding BP measurement accuracy standards. Altogether, these issues contribute to the widespread availability of clinic and home BP devices with limited or uncertain accuracy, leading to inappropriate hypertension diagnosis, management and drug treatment on a global scale. The most significant problems relating to the accuracy of BP devices can be resolved by the regulatory requirement for mandatory independent validation of BP devices according to the universally-accepted International Organization for Standardization Standard. This is a primary recommendation for which there is an urgent international need. Other key recommendations are development of validation standards specifically for new BP technologies and online lists of accurate devices that are accessible to consumers and health professionals. Recommendations are aligned with WHO policies on medical devices and universal healthcare. Adherence to recommendations would increase the global availability of accurate BP devices and result in better diagnosis and treatment of hypertension, thus decreasing the worldwide burden from high BP. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Ebola virus disease (EVD) can be clinically severe and highly fatal, making surveillance efforts for early disease detection of paramount importance. In areas with limited access to laboratory testing, the Integrated Disease Surveillance and Response (IDSR) strategy in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) may be a vital tool in improving outbreak response.Methods: Using DRC IDSR data from the nation's four EVD outbreak periods from 2007-2014, we assessed trends of Viral Hemorrhagic Fever (VHF) and EVD differential diagnoses reportable through IDSR. With official case counts from active surveillance of EVD outbreaks, we assessed accuracy of reporting through the IDSR passive surveillance system.Results: Although the active and passive surveillance represent distinct sets of data, the two were correlated, suggesting that passive surveillance based only on clinical evaluation may be a useful predictor of true cases prior to laboratory confirmation. There were 438 suspect VHF cases reported through the IDSR system and 416 EVD cases officially recorded across the outbreaks examined.Conclusion: Although collected prior to official active surveillance cases, case reporting through the IDSR during the 2007, 2008 and 2012 outbreaks coincided with official EVD epidemic curves. Additionally, all outbreak areas experienced increases in suspected cases for both malaria and typhoid fever during EVD outbreaks, underscoring the importance of training health care workers in recognising EVD differential diagnoses and the potential for co-morbidities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Teachers of the Microbiology and Parasitology and Computer Science Departments (University of Alcalá, Alcalá de Henares, Madrid, Spain) have collaborated for two years in the analysis, design and implementation of a virtual learning game, understood as an instrument to enhance the dissemination of various concepts related to Tropical Diseases and International Health, in an easy and enjoyable environment. The game is targeted to university students as a learning tool to support this teaching (reinforcement, self-concept and incorporate virtual platform...). During this time we have worked pedagogical and technical issues as a whole, developing the concept of Play-Learning in a scientific environment, so that the contents and teaching methods are disseminated through art technology but accessible. The design simulates a board game with dice and feed boxes with different levels of difficulty (low, medium and high), and random questions that the player must answer correctly to advance. The levels of difficulty make the game challenge within limits but not desperate. At the end of the route is received and useful information on the subject of the game. It is designed to be multi-user (up to four players), bilingual (English/Spanish, with possibility of extending into other languages) and two implementation options: stand-alone and online. The game is to be expanded for use on mobile. Future adjustment to the different areas of knowledge (parasitology, history, chemistry, physics, etc) only involves changing the user interface and the selection criteria of the questions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]