Friday Newsletter
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Dear Centre Leaders,
In today's newsletter:
  • INDEPTH elected member of the WHO/TDR Joint Coordinating Board
  • The newly designed INDEPTH Strategic Plan 2017-2021
  • A gaping research gap regarding the climate change impact on health in poor countries
  • Call for Papers: AJLM Special Issue
  • Visit to Rakai HDSS
  • APHRC and Awi-Gen lose team member
  • Crop yield variation, child survival and nutrition among subsistence farmers in B.Faso
1. INDEPTH elected member of the WHO/TDR Joint Coordinating Board
INDEPTH has been elected to serve on the WHO/TDR Joint Coordinating Board. The JCB is the top governing body of TDR. Its principal role is to coordinate the interests and responsibilities of all parties cooperating with TDR. The JCB meets annually to review TDR's activities, evaluate progress and plans, and determine TDR's budget.
 
The JCB consists of 28 members. Membership was formerly for a three-year period but those selected for membership from 2009 onwards will serve for a period of 4 years. JCB members may be reappointed as has been the case with INDEPTH.  TDR, the Special Programme for Research and Training in Tropical Diseases, is a global programme of scientific collaboration that helps facilitate, support and influence efforts to combat diseases of poverty. TDR is hosted at the World Health Organization (WHO), and is sponsored by the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), the World Bank and WHO.
2. The newly designed INDEPTH Strategic Plan 2017-2021
The INDEPTH Resource and Training Centre has shared the newly designed INDEPTH Strategic Plan 2017-2021. Please see it at this link: INDEPTH Strategic Plan 2017 - 2021.
3. A gaping research gap regarding the climate change impact on health in poor countries
Prof. Rainer Sauerborn (Author)
Compared to other disciplines and sectors, the epidemiological and medical communities have been slow to turn their interest to the climate impacts on health . Embarrassingly, there are particularly few studies in those populations, where the exposure to health damaging climate change is highest, while adaptation capacity is lowest. Why is this so? Read more in this paper that also mentions INDEPTH: Paper 
4. Call for Papers: AJLM Special Issue on African laboratories in antimicrobial resistance surveillance
Submissions deadline: January 31, 2018
Projected publication date: October 2018
The African Journal of Laboratory Medicine (AJLM) is pleased to announce a special issue on the role of African laboratories in antimicrobial resistance surveillance. Surveillance is critical to estimating the burden from the growing problem of antimicrobial resistance, as well as to formulating and guiding interventions. A recent assessment found that Africa had the fewest resistance data available; prior to 2015 very few African countries had national surveillance programmes, even though they are projected to bear the brunt of the disease burden from resistance. African countries that signed on to WHA A68/20, a 2015 global action plan, have now presented their National Action Plans on antimicrobial resistance. These countries have also committed to enrolment in the World Health Organization’s Global Antimicrobial Resistance Surveillance (GLASS). Read more
News from Centres
1. Rakai HDSS

Dr. Mamusu Kamanda (4th from left) from INDEPTH Resource and Training Centre in Accra, Ghana and Frank DelPizzo from Boston Consulting Group (4th from right) visited Rakai HDSS in Uganda earlier this week. This came after meetings between Dr. Kamanda, INDEPTH Maternal and Child Health Working Group Leader Associate Prof. Peter Waiswa (centre) and Del Pizzo on MNCH issues.
2. Nairobi HDSS:
    APHRC and Awi-Gen lose team member
Brian Njamwea - who was the Nairobi  AWI-Gen data manager passed away suddenly on Friday last week. “Brian spent the whole of Thursday at work and left late in the evening in apparent good health; he was found unresponsive on Friday afternoon by his wife and declared dead on arrival at the hospital. He leaves behind a young widow (who is a former member of staff) and a 4-months old baby as well as his mother and two younger sisters. As you can imagine we are devastated here at APHRC and coming to terms with this sudden loss of a very remarkable young man. We have organized a memorial event here at the Center on Wednesday; he will be buried on Friday here in Nairobi,” writes Dr. Catherine Kyobutungi, Director of Research at the African Population and Health Research Center (APHRC).” Read more
3.  Nouna HDSS:
    Crop yield variation, child survival and nutrition among subsistence farmers in B.Faso
Nouna Centre Leader, Dr. Ali Sie
Whether year to year variation in crop yields affects the nutrition, health, and survival of subsistence farming populations is relevant to the understanding of the potential impacts of climate change. However, the empirical evidence is limited. This study “Annual crop yield variation, child survival and nutrition among subsistence farmers in Burkina Faso” published in the American Journal of Epidemiology  examined the association of child survival with inter-annual variation in food crop yield and middle-upper arm circumference (MUAC) in a subsistence farming population of rural Burkina Faso. Results suggest an adverse impact of variations in crop yields which could increase under climate change. Read more:
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