GCB Health

Archive for April, 2009

Malaria

Malaria is an infectious disease caused by a parasite that’s transmitted by mosquitoes. The illness results in recurrent attacks of chills and fever, and it can be deadly.

Estimate your risk of being exposed to malaria. You can find out from the Destinations section of this website if there is risk of malaria in the countries you will be visiting, what regions are most infected, and what type of malaria is most common.

How To Prevent Malaria

preventing disease, by using antimalarial drugs prophylactically. The drugs do not prevent initial infection through a mosquito bite, but they prevent the development of malaria parasites in the blood.

This factsheet is for people who are travelling to, or are going to live in, a country with malaria and want to know how to protect themselves against malaria.

Malaria is an infection. It’s caused by a parasite called Plasmodium which is carried by a certain type of mosquito and is passed through bites.

Seek immediate medical treatment if symptoms of malaria occur. Always consider malaria if you develop a fever after being in a malarious area.

Causes and Symptoms of Malaria

Malaria is mainly caused by parasitic protozoa, which spends most of its life in the red blood cells of humans. Malaria is spread by the female Anopheles mosquito, which transmit the parasites by first ingesting them from an infected person’s blood and then injecting the parasite in to an healthy person.

Plasmodium falciparum – this is the only parasite that causes malignant malaria. It causes the most severe symptoms and results in the most fatalities.

If you are bitten by a mosquito carrying the P. vivax, P. ovale or P. malariae parasite, symptoms can appear a year or more after being bitten. This is because the parasite can lay dormant in your liver and become active months later. These parasites may also cause you to have repeat symptoms.

Malaria cannot be casually transmitted directly from one person to another. Instead, a mosquito bites an infected person and then passes the infection on to the next human it bites.

Treatments Of Malaria

Doctors recommend that treatment should be started within 24 hours after you see the first symptom of malaria. Treatment of patients with a simple type of malaria can be conducted at their own homes, but patients with severe type of malaria should be hospitalized as soon as possible.

Malaria has been with us long enough to have changed our genes. The reason why many people of African descent suffer from the blood disease sickle cell anemia is because the gene that causes it also confers some immunity to malaria.

Treatments of Malaria

void going outside between dusk and dawn when the mosquitoes commonly feed.

use screens or mosquito nets over doors, windows and beds.

Pharmacokinetics

After a treatment dose of SP (25 mg sulfadoxine/1.25pyrimethamine per kilogram body weight), plasma concentrations of The antimalarial effect depends on synergy between the two components, but the effect from one treatment dose can last as long as 60 days with fully sensitive P

Any traveler in a malarious area with symptoms of a “flu-like” illness, e.g., fever, muscle pain, nausea, headache, fatigue, chills, and/or sweats, should consider the diagnosis of malaria and seek medical attention immediately. A traveler with these symptoms within several months after returning from an endemic area should also seek medical care and relate travel experiences to the treating physician.

In today’s society, it is vital for business owners to provide their employees with first aid training for a variety of reasons. Regardless of industry, implementing a first aid training program for employees ensures that they are ready to respond to any medical crisis when needed. This is important for the safety of customers as well as the employees themselves.

When a person suffers a medical crisis such as a heart attack, it is often the first aid or CPR administered at the scene that ultimately saves their life. The American Heart Association reports that effective CPR, started immediately after cardiac arrest, can double a victim’s chance of survival.

Here are four important reasons why a business can benefit from first aid training its staff members:

It’s The Law

Based on the industry in which a business operates, first aid training may be required by law. The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) oversees the first aid and CPR training requirements for the workplace. OSHA requirements typically concern industries that put their employees in harms way such as electrical power, health care, and construction. However, even general industry businesses such as manufacturing, wholesale and retail have OSHA first aid training requirements to follow.

Knowing where a business falls within the OSHA requirements is a first step in determining the type of first aid and CPR training to give employees. Even businesses that are not required to administer training through OSHA can benefit from having employees on staff that can provide a broad range of first aid at any given moment.

Employee Safety

Thousands of employees are hurt on the job every year in this country. This results in loss of work and less productivity. Some industries such as construction and manufacturing have higher instances of injury than other less dangerous businesses. Still, first aid training for all employees ensures that if anyone is injured on the job immediate action can be taken.

It typically takes several minutes for paramedics to respond to a call. If employees are trained in general first aid and CPR, treatment can be administered in those crucial first few minutes before medical help arrives. This can have a huge impact on the overall outcome or survival of the victim.

Customer Safety

People get hurt or suffer cardiac arrest in the most inopportune places. If injury happens at a place of business, they expect employees to be trained to help them. Businesses typically want to do everything in their power to ensure customers have a good experience. Providing them with a safe environment is the ultimate way to show you care!

On a secondary note, the publicity a business receives as a result of a medical emergency handled properly is excellent marketing. The general public knows that a business that takes the time and money to properly train their employees in first aid and CPR techniques really cares about people. The public will want to reward that company by doing business with them! It is a win-win situation. The victim suffers less with proper first aid care and the business wins accolades in the media.

Insurance Premiums

Every insurance company is different, but many offer premium discounts for businesses that have offered first aid and CPR training to their staff. Liability insurance is sometimes one of the largest expenses a business faces. The ability to lower this cost while providing a community service to employees and customers is a huge advantage.

There are many reasons to provide first aid training to employees, but one of the most important is simply the fact that they can be good stewards in the community and use their training to help others no matter where they are. If more citizens were knowledgeable about proper first aid and CPR training, thousands of lives could be saved each year. The American Heart Association reports that 75 to 80 percent of all out-of-hospital cardiac arrests happen at home. A person who received on-the-job first aid training could very well wind up saving the life of a loved one!

Dogs have become entrenched in our family lives. Is it any wonder that we would do whatever it is possible to ensure their good health? This goes beyond taking the dog to routine check ups at the vet. Devoted dog owners are now taking CPR classes that includes the resuscitation of pets.

Knowing the importance of pets in family units, the American Red Cross has been offering CPR for pets to their human companions for quite some time. These classes include all manner of first aid and mouth-to-snout resuscitation.

Technically speaking, the resuscitation techniques between human and animal CPR is quite similar. The basics still include checking that the patient has a clear airway, checking that the patient is breathing, and checking that the patient has a heartbeat. However, if the animal patient wakes up during the process, be careful that you don’t get bit. This is one of the reasons why during the resuscitation process, you close the dog’s mouth and provide breaths through the dog’s nose.

In addition to providing the mouth-to-snout procedure if your dog is not breathing, you can also perform chest compressions after ascertaining that there is no heartbeat. To be perfectly clear, it is imperative that you do not start chest compressions without checking for a heartbeat. Just because the patient is not breathing does not mean they have no pulse. Or if they do, they won’t for long if they can’t breath due to an obstructed airway. Checking for a heartbeat can be difficult especially if it is faint. Therefore, check for about 10 seconds before starting chest compressions. There are also different compression rates for small, medium and large dogs. Make sure you are informed on the differences.

Quite frankly, there is almost nothing we wouldn’t do for our four legged companions. Technology has really advanced where we can provide our beloved dogs blood transfusions, pacemakers, leg prosthetics, etc. However, this will all go for not if Fido chokes on a bone on the way to the animal hospital.

CPR and first aid classes for pets is an option that every animal lover must consider. If we truly say that our dogs are members of the family, then should we not walk the talk and provide the same basic health care as for the rest of our family? Check your local branch of the Red Cross and see about taking some classes. The idea is not as radical as you might think and it might save your beloved dog’s life.