Disease Surveillance & Global Health
An effective disease surveillance system is comprised of cyclical elements, which provides vital pieces of information. Shine for Health Professionals will help prepare and implement disease surveillance and response programs.
Preparedness and response
Shine for Health helps with the preparedness, investigations and implementation of control activities in order to respond to epidemics.
Infectious diseases that have been around for long as well as emerging and re-emerging diseases are a constant threat for Global Health security. Shine for Health experts have enormous experience in developing countries’ health systems. They worked in many countries in Africa, helping communities, local organizations and governments improve their health systems. Shine for Health experts also help improve surveillance of epidemic prone diseases thru implementation of donor funded projects. Shine for Health professionals have experience in implementing World Bank, DFID, USAID, JICA, WHO, CIDA SIDA , UN, ECOWAS ( to name a few) projects in Africa, Asia and Southern America. They participated in the preparedness and response plans in the Hispaniola Peninsula (Haiti and Dominican Republic), Ebola outbreak preparedness, and other emerging disease outbreak preparedness and response in fifteen countries in West Africa, and other part of Africa.
From 2014 to 2016, the international community was shaken by a public health tragedy under the threat of the Ebola virus (MVE). National governments have been working with technical assistants and donor agencies to ensure an adequate response and Shine for Health professionals were at the center of actions taken in the affected countries. Shine for Health has tremendous experience tackling diseases such as cholera and other outbreaks that follow the 2010 earthquakes in Haiti, helping at the same time strengthen the local health system.
At the height of health threatening diseases affecting flood prone Bangladesh, Shine for Health experts worked with local and international organizations to alleviate the suffering of affected communities and restore their pride and self-sufficiency. Moreover, Shine for Health professionals worked with international stakeholders to design prevention and diseases control programs as part of a comprehensive humanitarian assistance in war stricken Darfur (Chad and Soudan) and in the protracted humanitarian crisis in Zimbabwe.
Implementation of “One Health” approach.
Human, Animal, and Environmental Health, Niger.
The Ebola virus outbreak of 2013-2016 in Guinea, Sierra Leone, Liberia, with some cases in Mali, Senegal, Nigeria, USA and Spain, and the re-emergence and spread of highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI), Lassa fever, Zika virus infection, and other highly contagious diseases can easily cross borders through the movement of people, animals and goods. Taylor and Wo (Taylor et al., 2001; Wo et al., 2005) estimated that 60% of all human diseases and about 75% of emerging infectious diseases are of animal origin (zoonotic).
Recent estimates show that communicable diseases account for more than one-third of the global burden of disease and that most of the burden is attributed to the African continent, especially Sub-Saharan Africa. Hence, these communicable diseases are generally of animal, environmental, human and social etiology.
Understanding this synergism allows for the development of local, regional and international strategies to advance healthcare and health programs by accelerating biomedical research, improving public health effectiveness and expanding the scientific knowledge base to enhance medical education and clinical care.
Shine for Health proposes that the response to epidemics should be understood as an approach that embraces disaster risk reduction and risk management. This requires a paradigm shift by strengthening human, animal and environmental health systems.
Multisectoral approach: elimination of malaria and reduction of the prevalence of HIV / AIDS and Tuberculosis, and others.
Malaria Elimination in Africa: Despite recent progress in reducing common health threats in Africa (and partly of Asia), malaria has remained a fact of everyday life especially, killing more people and crippling the economy of the affected countries. Despite being both preventable and curable, the burden of malaria and its socio-economic impact remain enormous in Africa. Africa accounts for 90% of all malaria cases worldwide, and it is reported to have 174 million of these cases. In addition, the disease killed one African child every two minutes in 2015, according to WHO data. Several economic and socio-environmental factors to malaria such as hygiene and sanitation (Minister of Health, territorial administration, town halls, etc.), houses or habitat built according to standards (Ministry of Habitat), good agriculture with irrigation standards (Ministry of Agriculture), etc. early childhood and adult education (Ministry of Education), ministry of security, police and army, finance etc., and so many others are sectors which must help countries eliminate the disease. Thus, beyond being a health problem, the fight against malaria has become an economic imperative for nations, and as such, calls for a comprehensive involvement of other sectors.
In order to provide HIV prevention, treatment and care services, global partnership and engagement of civil society groups, health workers, governments, and local and international organizations are constantly building resilient and sustainable systems for health, enabling partners to make progress in implementing new treatments and approaches to serve the most at risk. However, efforts to eliminate malaria, HIV and tuberculosis need to be sustained and increased.
Shine for Health is committed to helping its customers and communities build this resilience and eliminate these diseases.
Laboratory and biomedical strengthening.
A better technical and operation system to detect and respond to biological threats as quickly as possible, is required in order to have a public health “maze” function at its best.
Laboratory research and surveillance through the public health and health care systems are complementary; it is a tremendous asset in which the health care system in developing countries should tap in. Laboratories have become an important part of the puzzle, not only for communicable diseases, but also for non-communicable diseases such as cancer. The epidemiological transition in the developing world is now carrying the double burden of communicable and non-communicable diseases, straying away from the classical definition of that transition.
Creative hand-washing station during 2014 Ebola outbreak response.
