Leading health professionals of Bangladesh and India have urged their prime ministers to keep public health collaboration high on their agenda in Dhaka summit, as they believe prioritisation on health 'can spur human development' and ensure health for all.
Five Indian and six Bangladeshi professionals and public health experts made the request in a letter handed over to the prime ministers offices in Dhaka and New Delhi, just before Manmohan Singh's two-day Dhaka visit on Tuesday.
obtained a copy of the letter signed by Prof. K Srinath Reddy, president, Public Health Foundation of India on behalf of others.
The letter addressed to the both prime ministers sought 'considered' support for a strong bilateral initiative for strengthening public health in both countries through 'collaboration in education, learning and research.'
Prof Reddy handed over the letter to the Indian prime minister's office on Sunday while Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujib Medical University (BSMMU)'s vice-chancellor Prof Pran Gopal Datta handed over the letter to the Bangladesh prime minster's office on Monday.
The Indian professionals are Prof Reddy, Dr A K Shiva Kumar, UNICEF adviser and member of National Advisory Council; Dr Mirai Chatterjee, Social Security Self Employed Women's Association director; Prof Rama V Varu, Centre of Social Medicine & Community Health, Jawaharlal Nehru University; and Dr Abhay Bang, director, Society for Education, Action & Research in Community Health.
The Bangladeshi professionals were: National Professor Shahla Khatun; BRAC founder and chairman Sir Fazle Hasan Abed; Bangladesh Diabetic Association president Prof A K Azad Khan; Obstetrician Prof. Samina Chowdhury; ICDDR'B deputy executive director Dr Abbas Bhuiya; and Prof Datta.
"Our (letter) focus is on bilateral cooperation in public health issues," the vice-chancellor Prof Datta said while confirming about handing over the letter.
They identified some common gaps that still remain in both countries, despite progress and initiatives to improve the health sector and reduce health inequities.
According to the letter, the gaps are in the availability and quality of health services, health information systems based on which policy and programmes are designed, and the size and skills of the multi-layered health workforce required to meet the health system's requirements.
The letter suggested 'collaboration in capacity building for public health in all of the above dimensions' to strengthen health systems in both countries.
"We have much to gain by learning from each other and even more by learning together," it said.
The letter outlined that collaboration should involve shared educational resources, joint academic programmes, joint research projects for the design and evaluation of innovations in health service delivery, and studies of different models of health financing for Universal Health Coverage.
The doctors extolled Bangladesh's progress in recent years with different health indicators and the role of women has been seen as catalysts for community action in health.
India's launch of the National Rural Health Mission was commended for transforming access to health care and improving maternal and child health across the country.
health experts earlier suggested a joint infectious diseases contingency plan between the neighbours to control the 'emerging' viruses as Bangladesh shares most of its border with India.
Long-disputed border issues, sharing of river water, trade, power and transit would dominate Manmohan's visit.
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Bangladesh will share a new strain of bird flu virus, identified as a possible pandemic threat, with US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (US CDC) to develop 'seed virus,' key ingredient to make a vaccine in emergency.
"We will share the vaccine for scientific use," health secretary Muhammad Humayun Kabir told as he confirmed about the sharing of the H9N2 strain of bird flu—A/Bangladesh/0994/2011 (H9N2).
The strain was found in humans in March and recently confirmed by US CDC after its sequencing.
The Institute of Epidemiology Disease Control and Research (IEDCR) has detected the virus, mild in nature, through its countrywide surveillance.
"But it has the potential to be a pandemic threat," IEDCR director Prof Mahmudur Rahman said, sounding the alarm, as the virus can reassort with H5N1—also 'widespread' in the country—with its changing strains.
"If clades 2.2; 3.2 of H5N1 and new H9N2 mutate, it can be devastating," he said, "but nothing can be predicted about virus."
The United Nations warned Bangladesh on Aug 29 of a possible major resurgence of bird flu as it observed a mutant strain of the H5N1 virus is spreading in Asia and elsewhere.
The IEDCR director suggested maintaining bio-security in poultry farms that livestock officials said cannot be ensured due to 'a large number of backyard poultry in Bangladesh.'
"But we are taking new strategies for backyard poultry," Dr Md Mehedi Hossain, senior scientific officer, Department of Livestock Services (DLS), said on Sunday at a seminar jointly organised by IEDCR and Unicef at IEDCR office.
According to IEDCR, the government would share the virus under standard procedure of virus sharing coordinated by the World Health Organization.
"We will get access to affordable vaccines derived from them and other technical support in exchange (for the new strain of virus)," Prof Rahman said.
"They (US CDC) approached us in the first week of September for government permission to use the virus. They already have the virus with them as we have sent it for confirmation."
He said the virus is also circulating in some countries, but in Bangladesh it is different.
The DLS scientist said they would prepare a guideline for backyard poultry.
"We will sensitise backyard farmers about how to dispose of debris and faeces," Dr Hossain said and added that people litter chickens' giblets and dead chickens just anywhere that can spread the virus.
"Crows eat those carcasses and can get the virus and die. Those dead crows can again pass the virus to poultry birds in the same way," Dr Hossain explained.
The livestock department has culled over 2.4 million chickens across the country after the first outbreak in Mar 22, 2007.
Some 524 outbreaks have been recorded so far.
"We observe that we cannot control the virus until we make people aware, we motivate them," said Dr Musaddique Hossain, a director of the DLS.
The IEDCR advised people consume well-cooked poultry products and maintain personal hygiene - cough into the crook of elbow and wash hands with soap often - to keep bird flu infection away.
People recently diagnosed with lung cancer are at higher risk of having a stroke than those without lung tumors, suggests a large new study from Taiwan.
Researchers looking at data covering more than 150,000 adults found that among those with lung cancer, 26 in every 1000 experienced a stroke each year, compared with 17 in 1000 who did not have cancer.
"This is one more telling sign of the long term risk of smoking," said Dr. Andrew Russman, a stroke specialist at the Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit, who was not part of the study.
The Taiwanese researchers didn't factor in lifestyle issues -- such as smoking, drinking or diet -- that might influence stroke risk, explained senior author, Dr. Fung-Chang Sung of the China Medical University, to Reuters Health in an email.
Still, they report in the journal Stroke, that stroke risk was highest during the first three months after lung cancer diagnosis for men and during the first four-to-six months for women. Risk decreased in men after one year and after two years in women.
They also found that a less common type of stroke -- hemorrhagic stroke, caused by sudden bleeding into the brain -- occurred more often among the lung cancer patients than ischemic stroke, which is usually caused by a clot blocking blood flow to brain tissue.
Some evidence suggests that excessive bleeding and blood clots, both of which can be caused by tumors, as well as chemotherapy side effects, could partly explain the apparent link between cancer and stroke, researchers note.
"The most common type of lung cancer, adenocarcinoma, increases the body's propensity to form blood clots, even more so than other types of cancers," Russman told Reuters Health.
More than 52,000 people with lung cancer and more than 104,000 people without lung cancer were selected from a nationwide health insurance database.
Most of the study population were blue-collar workers such as farmers, fishermen and vendors, who tended to have high blood pressure, diabetes and heart disease.
"There's a higher rate of high blood pressure and diabetes and pulmonary disease in patients with lung cancer," said Russman. "I think this reflects the heavy burden of smoking and smoking related risk factors in the population," he said.
According to the American Lung Association, smoking is directly responsible for approximately 90 percent of lung cancer deaths.
"In the US, smokers have twice the risk of having a stroke, regardless of lung cancer," said Russman.
Stroke accounted for one out of eighteen deaths in the US in 2007, based on a report by the American Heart Association.
BNP says a transit corridor would turn separatists of India's north-east against Bangladesh.
The party's acting secretary general told a discussion on Saturday that a corridor for easy transport and shipment of Indian goods would anger the secessionists of India's seven north-eastern states.
"They will then target Bangladesh. And in such a scenario what will happen to our security?" asked Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir.
The BNP spokesman said the government has created an impression that it refused to give away transit because India backed away from the Teesta water sharing deal.
"But in essence, transit is all but done pending the small matter of official consent," claimed Fakhrul.
He told the discussion on Indian prime minister Manmohan Singh's Sep 6-7 visit that the visit had failed and the government failed to secure its interests.
He said his party, the BNP, also desired a healthy bilateral relationship with the large neighbour. "But it has to be in such a manner that is equitable and dignified for both countries."
Fakhrul told the meeting that prime minister Sheikh Hasina had signed a security agreement which compromised national interests. "Furthermore, we still do not know the details of that agreement."
The discussion was organised by a research group named 'G-9' where Kallyan Party chief, former major general Syed Muhammad Ibrahim was also present.
BNP has urged the prime minister to move to establish global peace only after taking steps to bring peace in Bangladesh.
The party's acting secretary-general Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir made the call on Sunday, a day after prime minister Sheikh Hasina spoke at the United Nations General Assembly.
"The prime minister of a country where people are trampled under police boot, the poor eat from dustbins and where there is no democracy and good governance, has presented a model for global peace," Fakhrul told a discussion.
"I laughed after reading the news. So, I'll tell the prime minister to look at her home first," he added.
Prime minister Sheikh Hasina had presented a peace-centric development model while addressing the 66th General Assembly on Saturday. She outlined her "People's empowerment and a peace-centric development model", which she said was inspired by her own life-time experiences.
"Throughout my half a century in politics, I have always been a crusader of peace. I believe that peace is achievable with the removal of injustice," she said.
Fakhrul said, "Good governance has been done away with during this government's tenure. Partisanship has made its way into the administration, judiciary, educational institutions… everywhere. They (the government) first see what anyone's father or grandfather was when he applies for a job. There is no job or promotion if you support BNP."
"Police have uprooted a nail of such a leader who had been elected MP five times. Recently, a top leader of a political party has been beaten up so much after arrest that he cannot even stand. He has been photographed in chains," he said.
"What democracy is this, what culture?" the BNP leader asked.
Pointing his finger at Hasina, he said, "You said you wanted to present the proposal for global peace. But what is the condition of the people of the country? Forty percent of the country's people are living under the poverty line."
Fakhrul also slammed the ruling party. "Awami League speaks about democracy, but it doesn't believe in democracy. Because it led the nation in the Liberation War, the party considers itself superior proprietor of Bangladesh."
He asked the supporters to be active in the agitations to be declared at a rally on Tuesday.