In the nineteenth century, cholera epidemics ravaged Victorian London. The medical orthodoxy of the time mistakenly believed that cholera was spread by “miasma” – foul-smelling vapours that seemed to collect around the houses and latrines of the poor. Cholera was often presented as a moral consequence of the poor sanitary habits of the lower classes.
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Policy discussion on Urban Primary Healthcare
In July, a Policy Breakfast to discuss Urban Primary Healthcare was organised by the EU-supported SHARE (Strengthening Health, Applying Research Evidence) project at icddr,b, in collaboration with the Institute of Informatics and Development, in order to promote evidence-informed debate on urban health and primary health care. Dr Alayne Adams, Senior Social Scientist at icddr,b and
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Closing the gap on vaccine efficacy in the ‘global south’
Vaccines and antibiotics occupy a privileged position in the history of medicine. They are humanity’s “magic bullets” — categories of intervention so effective and easy to deliver that they have the capacity to single-handedly eradicate entire diseases from human history. But just as the heady utopia of an antibiotic age has given way to the
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Bringing rotavirus vaccines to Bangladesh
Diseases like cholera and smallpox have become widely known cultural symbols for human suffering and medical progress. The same can hardly be said for rotavirus – outside of doctors and diarrhoeal disease specialists, the word ‘rotavirus’ has failed to find a foothold in everyday speech. Despite this, rotavirus is currently the most common cause of
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Breastfeeding: The benefits behind the biology
Located in the heart of Bangladesh’s capital city, icddr,b’s Dhaka Hospital specializes in the treatment of one condition—diarrhea. Known locally as “The Cholera Hospital”, the facility admits between 250 and 1,000 patients a day. Many patients are from families earning less than US$5 a day. Over half are children under five years of age. As
