br Last autumn the image of a young http

Last autumn the image of a young Syrian boy lying dead on a Turkish beach highlighted the humanitarian plight of refugees and influenced public opinion. The photograph of Alan Kurdi spoke to people more powerfully than any words could have done. Photographs can move us, enrage us, challenge our ideas, and provoke us to action. Other pictures can bring joy and hope. In last year\'s Highlights photography competition, one of the winning images showed a 5-year-old boy in Zimbabwe looking in a mirror with rapt attention at his newly repaired cleft lip. These two pictures remind us how photographs capture a moment in a powerful and moving way. Images can highlight an important health issue and we invite readers to send us photographs for our annual photography competition, Highlights 2016. Whether your focus is local or global, we want you to send us photographs that surprise and move us by telling a story about health today. We are interested in photographs that capture any health issue in a thought-provoking way. As in previous years, and will run the order Go 6976 together. Winning photographs will be published in \'s final issue of 2016 and could be selected for the front cover of . Each entry should be submitted with 300 accompanying words that put the image in context. Submissions should not have been previously published in print or online. If a person or patient is featured then you must obtain and keep written consent from the individual or, where this is not an option, their next of kin. Please complete the while retaining copies of the signed forms. We also encourage you to submit any additional media to support your submission online, such as video or audio features. All photographs—colour or black and white—should be , along with the required text and any supporting material for online publication. Please select Photograph as the article type. If a digital camera is used please set it to the highest possible quality setting and submit images as JPEG files. If you are using a film camera please submit an 8 × 11 inch glossy print to in the post. The entries will be judged by editors and there will be a £300 prize for winning entries. The deadline for entries is Nov 7, 2016. So share your photos with and : we look forward to looking at the stories you capture.
As a result of an unusual clustering of cases of microcephaly and Guillain-Barré syndrome, WHO declared the 2015–16 Zika virus outbreak in the Americas a “public health emergency of international concern”. As part of its strategic response to the outbreak, WHO is leading normative work to mitigate the potential impact on pregnant women, newborn babies, and other at-risk populations. Last week, WHO launched an updated version of its guidance on pregnancy care in the context of Zika virus infection. The guidance covers recommendations for preventing maternal Zika virus infection, antenatal care and management of women with infection, and care for all pregnant women with possible exposure to Zika virus through residence in or travel to an affected area.
Identification of the dead is fundamental for countless ethical and humanitarian reasons and a sometimes ignored legal obligation. Without identification, survivors are destined to the uncertainty of whether their loved ones are dead or alive, and children, spouses, parents, and siblings can suffer administrative, civil, and social repercussions. The deployment of pathologists and forensic scientists for the collection of medical and biological data from bodies—and from living relatives—to achieve identification, is a standard, quasi-automatic procedure in disaster settings. However, this procedure has not taken place for the victims of the Mediterranean sea crossings in the past years. Although the death toll is difficult to estimate, Italy, Malta, Greece, and Spain have buried in their cemeteries over 20 000 men, women, and children who died during crossings on crowded, unsafe, and frequently abandoned boats when fleeing from war. About 60% of these victims remain unidentified, yet no action has been taken.
Current WHO guidelines for the detection of meningococcal disease outbreaks in the meningitis belt in Africa define suspected meningitis as sudden onset of fever (>38·5°C rectal or 38·0°C axillary) and one of the following signs: neck stiffness, flaccid neck (infants), bulging fontanelle (infants), convulsion, or other meningeal signs. Although these signs are classic for meningitis, they were used when the predominant causal pathogen of these outbreaks was serogroup A (NmA). After widespread implementation of vaccination with MenAfriVac (NmA conjugate vaccine), the number of outbreaks caused by this strain has decreased with a relative or absolute increase in disease caused by other strains and other bacterial species. The change in epidemiology is likely to affect clinical presentation, and review of clinical management guidelines for the subregion is urgently needed. Because confirmation of the cause of most cases during these outbreaks is difficult due to resource constraints, lessons can be learnt from disease caused by similar strains in locations where resources for evaluation and monitoring are better.