Necessary, Optional, and Undesirable Drug Products

1983 ◽  
Vol 17 (7-8) ◽  
pp. 574-575
Author(s):  
Jerome A. Halperin

The distinction between necessary and optional drugs depends on national policies of drug regulation, economics of the health care system, and traditions of competition and freedom of choice for physicians and patients. The World Health Organization (WHO) calls drugs that are basic to the medical needs of a country “Essential Drugs,” but more developed countries go beyond this category and expand the therapeutic armamentarium to include at least some optional drugs. However, financial considerations, including government payment, may keep the spectrum of choice narrow. Generic copies, while not optional therapeutic copies, stimulate free market competition in other countries. Undesirable drugs are easier to categorize. They are unsafe, ineffective, improperly manufactured or packaged, impure, subpotent, or falsely or misleadingly labeled. Once a country determines its policies for necessary and optional drug products, it is essential that criteria to prevent the marketing of undesirable drugs be maintained.

Author(s):  
V. O. Belash ◽  
Yu. O. Novikov

According to experts of the World Health Organization the lower back pain (LBP) prevalence in developed countries reaches the pandemic size, and it is a serious medical and socio-economic problem. Acute back pain is transformed into chronic in 10–20 % of working age patients′ cases; this causes serious psychological disorders appearing, forms painful behavior and persists even when the initial pain trigger is eliminated. Data from metaanalyses of randomized controlled trials indicate the effectiveness of the osteopathic approach in the treatment of LBP patients. At the same time the osteopathic correction is effective not only for acute pain, but also for chronic pain. A case from clinical practice is described demonstrating the possibility of osteopathic correction of a LBP patient.


2020 ◽  
Vol 17 (1) ◽  
pp. 117-123
Author(s):  
N. G. Zumbulidze ◽  
V. M. Khokkanen ◽  
I. B. Litvin

According to statistical studies in recent decades, there has been an increase of allergic diseases in most countries of the world. Predisposing factors are the deterioration of the environmental situation, the total “chemicalization” of life and the forced use of drugs. Twenty years ago, the World Health Organization called the new century “the century of allergies” and the disease itself as an “epidemic”. As time has shown, these forecasts have come true: from 2001 to 2010, the number of allergic people in the world increased by 20 % and many of these patients suffer from ophthalmic manifestations of the pathology: the eyes are involved in the process in almost every second case. This is due to the fact that the eyes are directly exposed to the environment and a variety of external allergens. The most common disease of an eye-allergic nature is allergic conjunctivitis: approximately 15 % of the total population of economically developed countries suffer from it. Allergic blepharitis, eyelid dermatitis, keratitis, iritis, uveitis, retinitis and optic neuritis are much less common. The following manifestations are typical for allergic conjunctivitis: burning, lacrimation, pruritus, hyperemia of the eyelids and conjunctiva, photophobia. In the case of a transition to a chronic form, pronounced tissue changes are observed. Therefore, timely diagnosis and effective treatment certainly have a positive effect on the quality of life of the patient and the course of the disease. The treatment of patients with allergic conjunctivitis, first of all, consists in the maximum possible restriction of contact with the allergen. During desensitizing therapy, local and general drugs are used. Numerous studies have proven the advantage of targeted and effective antiallergic local therapy compared with systemic exposure. Currently used local ophthalmic antiallergic drugs belonging to various groups. The tactics of their use is determined by the acuity, severity and etiology of the process. When choosing a drug, in some cases, you should focus on the presence of substances that provide a double mechanism of action: a pronounced antihistamine activity in combination with the stabilization properties of mast cells, which has a quick and long therapeutic effect. This study evaluated efficacy of Vizallergol (olopatadin 0.2 %) application in cases of allergic conjunctivitis in 239 patients was evaluated. The medication arrested the symptoms of allergic conjunctivitis in 89 % of patients, at that the mean period of treatment made 10.7 ± 0.3 days. In the treatment of allergic conjunctivitis, the therapeutic efficacy of Vizallergol 0.2 % was comparable to opatanol 0.1 % and was found to be more comfortable for most patients due to the convenience of a single use.


2003 ◽  
Vol 12 (3) ◽  
pp. 279-284 ◽  
Author(s):  
N. YASEMIN OGUZ ◽  
STEVEN H. MILES ◽  
NUKET BUKEN ◽  
MURAT CIVANER

Most physicians confront the moral and technical challenges of treating persons who are coming to the natural end of their lives. At the level of the health system, this issue becomes a more pressing area for reform as premature death decreases and more people live a full life span. Well-developed countries and international organizations such as the World Health Organization (WHO) and the Organisation of Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) have made recommendations for improving healthcare problems in aging societies. Turkey belongs to the WHO and the OECD. This article describes end-of-life healthcare in Turkey, the design of the healthcare system to meet this need, challenges that should be addressed, and solutions that would be appropriate to Turkish culture and resources.


Modern management of computerization of health services provided by nursing care in developed countries is based on an extensive system of the International Classification of Nursing Practices. The international classification of nursing diagnoses has been classified in the World Health Organization classification by the International Council of Nurses (ICN-International Council of Nurses), which encourages European Union countries to introduce the system created to standardize nursing diagnoses used in nursing [1, 2].


2012 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Donna Lou E. Neri

The World Health Organization (2003) stated that there is growing evidence that changes in the global climate will have profound effects on the well-being of citizens in countries throughout the world. The “business as usual” frame of mind in dealing with this phenomenon is no longer feasible. Rather, there is a great need for a “sense of urgency” to empower and actively involve every individual to adapt and to mitigate the worsening of climate change. A great number of studies show that the leadership of the educational system in developed countries for more than 2 decades has been successful in promoting environmental sustainability. Some of these studies are reviewed and documented in this paper so that vulnerable countries may learn and benchmark from their experiences. Keywords - Education, sustainable development, climate change


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Abir Lassoued ◽  
Afef Ben Saad ◽  
Hela Lassoued ◽  
Raouf Ketata ◽  
Olfa Boubaker

AbstractApril 9, 2020 marks 100 days since first cases of the Coronavirus Disease 2019 in China. In this crucial day with 1 436 198 confirmed infected cases in the world (New confirmed infected cases 82 837) and 85 521 deaths (6286 New daily deaths), the Global Level of the Covid-19 pandemic is evaluated at very high according to the World Health Organization (WHO) situation report. For most people, COVID-19 infection will cause mild illness (fever and at least one sign/symptom of respiratory disease), however for more than 3.4% of people, it can be fatal. Older people and those with pre-existing medical conditions (such as cardiovascular disease, chronic respiratory disease or diabetes) are at risk for severe disease and mortality. The incubation period of the virus is estimated to be between 2 and 14 days but longer incubation are reported. Furthermore, Data published by world authorities shows that statistics are different for different geographical regions and depends on many social and environmental factors. The sad reality of the COVID-19 is that there are currently no medications or vaccines proven to be effective for the treatment or prevention of the disease. The pandemic spread is consequenctly followed by a worldwide panic. Facing this dramatic uncertain situation, implementing a country wide strategy for social distancing and a general logistic policy for critical and life-saving supplies is an urgency for governomental and sanitaire authorities. Several mathematical models have been proposed for developed countries to predict the epidemic spread. However these models can’t be adapted to developing countries due to the major differences in geographic, societal, economic and political adopted strategies. Here, we propose the application of the well known SIR model to the case study of Tunisia where Data are collected from three official databases showing differences in reporting methods. The proposed data could be useful to predict the spread of COVID-2019 and design a more reliable model that can estimate the finale size of the spread and help in monitoring infection control.Specifications Table


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
AISDL

The meteoric rise of social media news during the ongoing COVID-19 is worthy of advanced research. Freedom of speech in many parts of the world, especially the developed countries and liberty of socialization, calls for noteworthy information sharing during the panic pandemic. However, as a communication intervention during crises in the past, social media use is remarkable; the Tweets generated via Twitter during the ongoing COVID-19 is incomparable with the former records. This study examines social media news trends and compares the Tweets on COVID-19 as a corpus from Twitter. By deploying Natural Language Processing (NLP) methods on tweets, we were able to extract and quantify the similarities between some tweets over time, which means that some people say the same thing about the pandemic while other Twitter users view it differently. The tools we used are Spacy, Networkx, WordCloud, and Re. This study contributes to the social media literature by understanding the similarity and divergence of COVID-19 tweets of the public and health agencies such as the World Health Organization (WHO). The study also sheds more light on the COVID-19 sparse and densely text network and their implications for the policymakers. The study explained the limitations and proposed future studies.


Coronaviruses ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 01 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shaima S. Ali Miraj

Introduction: Of late several articles in prestigious scientific platforms have shown that, 'COVID-19 has questioned the global health expertise of some developed countries like the USA UK and other European nations as well as the international health agency, the World Health Organization, highlighting that they faltered in managing the crisis during the pandemic. The objective of this article is to highlight the fact that as there was no specific vaccine or treatment at hand, the portfolio available with these nations under the directions of the WHO to counter the measures against COVID19, was limited. There was no other alternative in this time of world’s most unprecedented emergency, and whatever immediate steps were taken to contain the virus spread by the WHO were justified. Methods: Using the available literature on the internet and library sources, a survey of published articles in leading journals of the world have been made to analyse the various articles describing the position of the WHO and its future strategies in dealing with the worlds most unprecedented pandemic. Results and Conclusion: The present communication suggests that a large scale fund allocation in a fixed percentage for Health for All, from every member country’s defence budget can be separately made for substantially replenishing the already depleting funding of the WHO. This will enable an effective control of the global pandemic crisis with significant international cooperation, allowing sharing of the financial burden. The specially created fund can be used under international monitoring for such unprecedented calamities in future. More focus can thus be given to special training of manpower, advancements in the protective equipment, development of vaccines, critical care hospitals and centres on a global basis.


1960 ◽  
Vol 14 (4) ◽  
pp. 673-674

The thirteenth session of the Assembly of the World Health Organization (WHO) was held in Geneva, from May 3 to 20, 1960. In his inaugural address, the President of the Assembly, Dr. H. B. Turbott, spoke of the ground gained by the idea of world health since the early days of WHO, of the new and growing challenges with which the Assembly would have to deal in discussing the 1961 program—such as the control of pestilential diseases, protection against radiation hazards, the evaluation of live poliomyelitis vaccine, extended nutrition programs, and the world shortage of competent health personnel—and of the problems of particular concern to the more developed countries, such as heart, cancer, and mental illness. Dr. Turbott also described the integration of preventive and curative services as one field to which WHO should devote more attention. The Director-General, presenting his report on the work of WHO during 1959, stressed the urgency of the world-wide malaria eradication campaign, pointing out that malaria was the most important single obstacle to the development of the economic and social potentials of the underdeveloped areas of the world. The year 1959, he continued, had witnessed intensified research activities by the Organization, an increase in experts trained under WHO's fellowship program, and improved coordination between inter-country and inter-regional projects, but the problem of the resistance of malaria vectors to insecticides remained an obstacle to malaria eradication, and the question of funds for international technical assistance was still unsolved. In concluding, the Director-General predicted diat, at die present rate of progress, malaria could be eradicated, at least from Europe, the Americas, North Africa, and large parts of Asia, within perhaps the next ten years.


1964 ◽  
Vol 18 (4) ◽  
pp. 859-870

Sixteenth Assembly: The sixteenth session of the Assembly of the World Health Organization (WHO) met in Geneva on May 7–23, 1963, under the presidency of Dr. M. A. Majekodunmi (Nigeria). During the discussion of the Director-General's report on the work of WHO in 1962, delegates expressed agreement on the importance of the planned development of health services, medical education, and the training of auxiliary staff. Endorsing the Organization's medical research program, some members suggested its extension to other fields. Other members felt, however, that WHO was devoting too much time and money to work that could be carried out by national research institutes. Several delegations appealed for a more flexible approach in providing aid to less developed countries. Dr. Candau, the Director-General, spoke of the efforts that had been made to secure staff from a wider range of countries.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document