EHPnet: PAHO Communicable Disease Unit

EHPnet: Disease-free Zone

Mothers of a population-based series of 86 children with osteosarcoma or chondrosarcoma were traced and their health status or cause of death ascertained. There were 6 cases of breast cancer among these mothers and 6 other cancers. Risk of breast cancer was approximately three times that expected, and appeared to be highest in mothers of boys and in mothers of children under the median age at d...

SPECIAL THEME: COMMUNICABLE DISEASE Back pain, a communicable disease?

Background Back pain (BP) is a frequent disorder affecting currently up to 40% of adults in Western Europe. Most of it is said to be ‘non-specific’, i.e. lacking an obvious patho-anatomical explanation. It is seldom the consequence of a contagious disease caused by microorganisms. This does not exclude it from being communicable if ‘communicable’ is to refer to something being transmitted by sh...

EHPnet.

After attending the sarcoma session of the 1990 meeting of the American Society for Clinical Oncology, one might be forgiven for wondering if chemotherapy for metastatic soft tissue sarcoma (STS) has come a full circle. It is 18 years since the South West Oncology Group (SWOG) published results of the first large scale study of doxorubicin (ADR) (O'Bryan et al., 1973). In 45 evaluable patients ...

Acute Communicable Disease Control

The Survey Effectiveness of Active Method in Communicable Disease Surveillance

Background and purpose: Surveillance is a system of continuing health checks, is considered as a critical part of public health practice for planning and implantation of effective prevention and control interventions for communicable diseases in the region. The aim of this study was to determine the effects of an active method of data collection on the improvement of these d...