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Health Crisis
A health crisis or public health crisis is a difficult situation or complex health system that affects humans in one or more geographic areas (mainly occurred in natural hazards), from a particular locality to encompass the entire planet. Health crises generally have significant impacts on community health, loss of life, and on the economy. They may result from disease, industrial processes or poor policy. Its severity is often measured by the number of people affected by its geographical extent, or the disease or death of the pathogenic process which it originates. Features Generally there are three key components in health crises: * Public health problem * Problem health coordination * Alarm care: Poor communication of risks to the population resulting in social upheaval. Types * Environmental * Food * Toxic Examples * 1858: Swill milk scandal * 1905: American meat scandal due to the publishing of Upton Sinclair's book "The Jungle". * 1918-1920: Spanish flu * 1963: B ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Health System
Health, according to the World Health Organization, is "a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease and infirmity".World Health Organization. (2006)''Constitution of the World Health Organization''– ''Basic Documents'', Forty-fifth edition, Supplement, October 2006. A variety of definitions have been used for different purposes over time. Health can be promoted by encouraging healthful activities, such as regular physical exercise and adequate sleep, and by reducing or avoiding unhealthful activities or situations, such as smoking or excessive stress. Some factors affecting health are due to individual choices, such as whether to engage in a high-risk behavior, while others are due to structural causes, such as whether the society is arranged in a way that makes it easier or harder for people to get necessary healthcare services. Still, other factors are beyond both individual and group choices, such as genetic disorder ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
2001 Anthrax Attacks
The 2001 anthrax attacks, also known as Amerithrax (a portmanteau of "America" and "anthrax", from its FBI case name), occurred in the United States over the course of several weeks beginning on September 18, 2001, one week after the September 11 terrorist attacks. Letters containing anthrax spores were mailed to several news media offices and to Democratic Senators Tom Daschle and Patrick Leahy, killing five people and infecting 17 others. According to the FBI, the ensuing investigation became "one of the largest and most complex in the history of law enforcement". A major focus in the early years of the investigation was bioweapons expert Steven Hatfill, who was eventually exonerated. Bruce Edwards Ivins, a scientist at the government's biodefense labs at Fort Detrick in Frederick, Maryland, became a focus around April 4, 2005. On April 11, 2007, Ivins was put under periodic surveillance and an FBI document stated that he was "an extremely sensitive suspect in the 2001 anthrax ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
2010 Haiti Earthquake
A catastrophic magnitude 7.0 Mw earthquake struck Haiti at 16:53 local time (21:53 UTC) on Tuesday, 12 January 2010. The epicenter was near the town of Léogâne, Ouest department, approximately west of Port-au-Prince, Haiti's capital. By 24 January, at least 52 aftershocks measuring 4.5 or greater had been recorded. An estimated three million people were affected by the quake. Death toll estimates range from 100,000 to about 160,000 to Haitian government figures from 220,000 to 316,000, although these latter figures are a matter of some dispute. The government of Haiti estimated that 250,000 residences and 30,000 commercial buildings had collapsed or were severely damaged. The nation's history of national debt, prejudicial trade policies by other countries, and foreign intervention into national affairs contributed to the existing poverty and poor housing conditions that increased the death toll from the disaster. The earthquake caused major damage in Port ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
New England Journal Of Medicine
''The New England Journal of Medicine'' (''NEJM'') is a weekly medical journal published by the Massachusetts Medical Society. It is among the most prestigious peer-reviewed medical journals as well as the oldest continuously published one. History In September 1811, John Collins Warren, a Boston physician, along with James Jackson, submitted a formal prospectus to establish the ''New England Journal of Medicine and Surgery and Collateral Branches of Science'' as a medical and philosophical journal. Subsequently, the first issue of the ''New England Journal of Medicine and Surgery and the Collateral Branches of Medical Science'' was published in January 1812. The journal was published quarterly. In 1823, another publication, the ''Boston Medical Intelligencer'', appeared under the editorship of Jerome V. C. Smith. The editors of the ''New England Journal of Medicine and Surgery and the Collateral Branches of Medical Science'' purchased the weekly ''Intelligencer'' for $600 in ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
2009 Flu Pandemic
The 2009 swine flu pandemic, caused by the H1N1 influenza virus and declared by the World Health Organization (WHO) from June 2009 to August 2010, is the third recent flu pandemic involving the H1N1 virus (the first being the 1918–1920 Spanish flu pandemic and the second being the 1977 Russian flu). The first two cases were discovered independently in the United States in April 2009. The virus appeared to be a new strain of H1N1 that resulted from a previous triple reassortment of bird, swine, and human flu viruses which further combined with a Eurasian pig flu virus, leading to the term " swine flu". Some studies estimated that the real number of cases including asymptomatic and mild cases could be 700 million to 1.4 billion people—or 11 to 21 percent of the global population of 6.8 billion at the time. The lower value of 700 million is more than the 500 million people estimated to have been infected by the Spanish flu pandemic. However, the Spanish flu infected approxim ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
2008–2009 Chile Listeriosis Outbreak
The 2008–2009 Chile listeriosis outbreak was an epidemic outbreak of listeriosis in that country, caused by the species ''Listeria monocytogenes'', which spread mainly through foods of animal origin, such as ''cecina'', sausages, cheese and other dairy products. As of August 2009, 164 cases had been recorded, with a total of 16 deaths, among whom different strains of the bacterium were detected. While in 2008 the outbreak was restricted to the Santiago Metropolitan Region, where the strain called "clone 009" predominated, in 2009 it spread to the regions of Valparaíso, O'Higgins, Maule, Biobío and Araucanía, through a different strain, called "clone 001". Background The study of listeriosis in the world is recent, since the first analyses of the bacterium ''Listeria monocytogenes'' date back to the early 1980s in the United States. Its mortality rate is around 25% of cases in healthy adults, a figure that may be higher in at-risk groups. Listeriosis has mainly af ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
2008 Canada Listeriosis Outbreak
The 2008 Canadian listeriosis outbreak was a widespread outbreak of listeriosis in Canada linked to cold cuts from a Maple Leaf Foods plant in Toronto, Ontario. There were 57 total confirmed cases, resulting in 23 deaths. Origin and spread Listeriosis is an infection caused by the bacterium ''Listeria monocytogenes''. The outbreak originated from lines 8 and 9 of the Maple Leaf Foods Bartor Road facility (Establishment No. 97B) in Toronto, Ontario. There were about 220 possibly contaminated products, each stamped with the code "97B" near the "Best before" date. Since the bacteria travelled through deli meats, which are cooked (and as a result are usually free of pathogens), the contamination likely occurred during packaging. The outbreak was first noticed in July 2008 when regular surveillance detected an increase in cases reported. Federal inspectors usually spent less than 5 hours a day at the plant in the months before the outbreak of the illness, sometimes as little as 70 m ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
2008 Chinese Milk Scandal
The 2008 Chinese milk scandal was a significant food safety incident in China. The scandal involved Sanlu Group's milk and infant formula along with other food materials and components being adulterated with the chemical melamine, which resulted in kidney stones and other kidney damage in infants. The chemical was used to increase the nitrogen content of diluted milk, giving it the appearance of higher protein content in order to pass quality control testing. 300,000 affected children were identified, among which 54,000 were hospitalized, according to the latest report in January 2009. The deaths of six babies were officially concluded to be related to the contaminated milk. The timeline of the scandal dated back to December 2007, when Sanlu began to receive complaints about kidney stones. One of the more notable early complaints was made on 20 May 2008, when a mother posted online after she learnt that Sanlu donated the milk she had been complaining about to the orphans of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
2007 Chinese Export Recalls
In 2007 a series of product recalls and import bans were imposed by the product safety institutions of the United States, Canada, Western Europe, Australia, and New Zealand against products manufactured in and exported from the mainland of the People's Republic of China (PRC) because of numerous alleged consumer safety issues. The many product recalls within the year led Consumer Reports and other observers to dub 2007 '' "The Year of the Recall.”'' Events in the confidence crisis included recalls on consumer goods such as pet food, toys, toothpaste and lipstick, and a ban on certain types of seafood. Also included were reports on the poor crash safety of Chinese automobiles, which were slated to enter the American and European markets in 2008. This created adverse consequences for the confidence in the safety and quality of mainland Chinese manufactured goods in the global economy. Pet food On March 15, 2007, a Canadian pet food manufacturer notified the US Food and ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Trans Fat
Trans fat, also called trans-unsaturated fatty acids, or trans fatty acids, is a type of unsaturated fat that naturally occurs in small amounts in meat and milk fat. It became widely produced as an unintentional byproduct in the industrial processing of vegetable and fish oils in the early 20th century for use in margarine and later also in snack food, packaged baked goods, and for frying fast food. In nature, unsaturated fatty acids generally have ''cis'' configurations as opposed to ''trans'' configurations. While saturated fatty acids without any double bonds are created from unsaturated fats by the process of fat hydrogenation, partial hydrogenation converts some of the ''cis'' double bonds into ''trans'' double bonds by an isomerization reaction with the catalyst used for the hydrogenation, which yields a trans fat. In food production, liquid cis-unsaturated fats such as vegetable oils are hydrogenated to produce saturated fats, which have more desirable physical prope ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
2006 Côte D'Ivoire Toxic Waste Dump
The 2006 Ivory Coast toxic waste dump was a health crisis in Ivory Coast in which a ship registered in Panama, the ''Probo Koala'', chartered by the Singaporean-based oil and commodity shipping company Trafigura Beheer BV, offloaded toxic waste to an Ivorian waste handling company which disposed of it at the port of Abidjan. The local contractor, a company called Tommy, dumped the waste at 12 sites in and around the city in August 2006. The dumping, which took place against a backdrop of instability in Abidjan as a result of the country's first civil war, allegedly led to the death of 7 and 20 hospitalisations, with a further 26000 people treated for symptoms of poisoning. In the days after the dumping, almost 100,000 Ivorians sought medical attention after Prime Minister Charles Konan Banny opened the hospitals and offered free healthcare to the capital's residents. Trafigura originally planned to dispose of the slops – which resulted from cleaning the vessel and contained ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Avian Influenza
Avian influenza, known informally as avian flu or bird flu, is a variety of influenza caused by viruses adapted to birds.Chapter Two : Avian Influenza by Timm C. Harder and Ortrud Werner in ''Influenza Report 2006'' CDC has a showing the relationship between dozens of highly pathogenic varieties of the Z genotype of avian flu virus H5N1 and ancestral strains. The type with the greatest risk is highly pathogenic av ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
