Author: Liu

A range of molecular biological tools based on characterization of the genotype of the organism by analysis of plasmid and chromosomal DNA have now been developed either to supplement the more traditional phenotypic methods of typing (serotyping, phage typing, biotyping) or, in some cases, as methods of discrimination in their own right (see Threlfall, 2005b;…

A variety of phenotypic methods have been used both independently and in combination for subdivision within serovars. Those currently in use include bacteriophage typing (phage typing) and resistance (antibiogram) typing. Bacteriophage Typing The underlying principle of phage typing is the host specificity of bacteriophages and on this basis several phage-typing schemes have been developed for…

Certain other serovars – for example, Blegdam, Bredeney, Cholerae-suis, Dublin, and Virchow – are also invasive but tend to cause pyemic infections and to localize in the viscera, meninges, bones, joints, and serous cavities. In developed countries many other serovars may also be invasive in certain circumstances, often related to the infective dose and the…

A growing interdisciplinary literature informs our understanding of how individuals perceive and respond to public health risk communication. In particular, research has focused on the cognitive mechanisms through which individuals are exposed to and attend to information about risk, how they interpret risk information in relation to themselves, and whether and how they act upon…

Equally important is recognition of the pivotal role frequently played by the mass media in distributing public health risk communication messages and, consequently, their potential influence on subsequent events. This fact is emphasized by the range of major public health organizations (e.g., Thesenvitz, 2000; U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 2002; World Health Organization,…

Throughout the history of public health, effectively communicating about health risks with a broad range of constituents has proven a fundamental and enduring challenge. John Snow, for example, faced local officials who were ‘‘reluctant to believe’’ his claim that the epicenter of the 1854 cholera outbreak in London was the Broad Street water pump, and…

The subsequent variations across the health-care systems of countries in the region reflect diverse political and economic trajectories. Generally, health-care systems have experienced difficulties since the 1980s, exacerbated by their countries’ shift to market economies (McKee et al., 2002). The political and economic transition as well as declining government financing and support for reform has…

The pretransition health-care system in the former Soviet Union, also known as the Semashko model (Nikolai Semashko (1874–1949) was a member of the Bolshevik Party who became USSR’s People’s Commissar of Public Health in 1923 and was instrumental in setting up the Soviet model of health care.), sought to provide universal access through an extensive…

  Because estrogens are prothrombotic, there are theoretical reasons for predicting that women taking exogenous estrogens in the form either of oral contraceptive pills (OCPs) or hormone replacement therapy (HRT) would have an increased risk of occlusive cardiovascular events. This prediction was certainly fulfilled for first-generation OCPs, which had relatively high levels of estrogen. It…

Although all regions in the world suffer from the epidemic of road traffic injuries, the low and middle-income countries bear a disproportionate burden of the injuries and fatalities (Ameratunga et al., 2006). According to World Health Organization data (Peden et al., 2004), these regions account for about 85% of traffic deaths each year. The overall…