| 2008 |
Marburg
virus |
Following the death of
a tourist in The Netherlands after a trip to Uganda, this is
a quick information bite to those concerned and wanting to know
more about this rare disease. Where is Marburg virus found?.
. . |
| 2007 |
Malaria |
Christmas
is coming, the bazungu are getting fat, and all the new arrivals
will be off to the game parks with visitors from Europe and
America escaping the cold and rain. Or snow. And all asking
the same question: what about malaria?
The next few articles will be
the latest information we have on malaria in Uganda, what
is malaria, how do you get it and why is there so much confusion
over what is essentially an easy disease to prevent, diagnose
and treat.. . . . . . . . . .
|
| Sep 06 |
Update
on Everything |
A few weeks ago a patient
of mine got a message from a worried relative of his. She had
spoken to her doctor in the UK about him and had been given
a list of test that she now wanted done. This was too great
an opportunity to miss. I got her email address and sent this
message. “I have received the list of tests you want done.
Unfortunately I couldn’t understand them, so I put on
my grass skirt, sat outside my hut, threw some bones in the
air and then danced for 15 minutes. I think I got the dance
wrong because it started raining instead.” . . . . . . |
| Jun 06 |
Cough |
Why don’t you give
her an antibiotic, then she can come back to school?
This extraordinary advice was given to one of my nurses when
her child missed school due to a cough. Now let’s leave
aside the ethics of school teachers giving health advice to
nurses, but where on earth did the idea come from that antibiotics
help children with coughs? . . . . . . . . . . |
| Mar 06 |
Bird
Flu |
As was said in the pantomime,
bird flu only affects birds, and I’m a bloke, so I don’t
need to worry. Unfortunately this simple truth hasn’t
got through to the world’s media, and as I write we are
in the middle of a major panic. As we have all heard many times,
the first casualty in war is the truth, so what is the truth
about bird flu and do we in Uganda need to worry a dickey bird
about it? . . . . . . . . . . |
| Jan 06 |
Appetites |
When I was at medical
school the hottest issue for young mothers was potty training.
Whenever a midwife or GP or paediatrician held a child care
course the first subject they wanted to discuss was how to let
a baby poop. Mothers had been convinced by various magazine
child psychology articles that if they got it wrong their child
would grow up a serial killer or a psychopath. Fortunately .
. . . . . . . . . . |
| Dec 05 |
Tea
Doctor |
I have always been skeptical
about infusions, concoctions, teas, herbal remedies and all
other unscientific treatments, as eye readers are well aware.
There are 2 types of medicine, that which works and that which
doesn’t. If something works, then why not do a proper
trial with thousands of people and get proper data on how many
live, how many die, how many get better how fast, and what side
effects occur? . . . . . . . . . |
| Aug 05 |
Charcoal |
Tony Blair is visiting
a new hospital in Tyneside. He is ushered at speed from ward
to ward; chatting to patients and exploiting the photo shoot
opportunity. “And how have you benefited from New labours’
increased spending on health?” he asks one patient. The
man looks at him and says “Some have meat and cannot eat
and some lack meat that want it. But we have meat and we can
eat and so the Lord be thankit”. “Er, quite”,
says Blair feeling he may have missed something politically
profound.. . . . . . . . . |
| Mar 05 |
Skin |
My professor of anatomy
at medical school specialized in skin and it was all he ever
lectured on. When he was asked if this was fair on the students,
he said that lecturing only about skin was fine because it covered
the whole body. So here is skin care in Uganda. . . . . . .
. . . . . . |
| Oct 04 |
Stress |
Why are so many new arrivals
in Uganda on Prozac? Seems to be more and more every year. I
covered stress in an eye article about 4 years ago, but it’s
time we looked at it again. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
| July 04 |
Diarrhoea. |
This time of year sees
loads of new arrivals in Uganda, visitors, tourists and those
starting a new contract. They all seem to arrive in August September
and leave in June. Best time to buy a second hand 4x4 is in
June and July but though that may be common sense it has nothing
to do with health. So this article is for the newly arrived
visitor or tourist.
Uganda is a very healthy place to live. Most visitors never
get seriously ill, very very few ever die. Almost all deaths
are from road accidents or the normal diseases of old age. Most
medivacs are due more to panic than disease! . . . |
| May 04 |
Neck
Injuries |
Christopher Reeve broke
his neck Horse riding. Joni Earikson is paralysed from diving
into a swimming pool and breaking her neck. The chairman of
the Uganda Archery Federation was out with a neck injury from
a simple rear collision at a traffic light, and couldn’t
pull a bow for years. There are many reasons I don’t play
Cricket, not least of which is the simple matter of an object
harder than my skull coming at me at 50 miles an hour! However
you can even injure your neck throwing a cricket ball. Every
time I try, the resulting twist of my neck as I throw pulls
a muscle in my neck and I can’t move my head for an hour.
.............. |
| April 04 |
Feet |
Bad feet have changed
the history of Uganda. About 100 years ago a military expedition
set out from Kampala to go and beat up the Toro, if I remember
correctly. They got as far as Masaka and the whole army got
such terrible Jiggers they couldn’t walk any further.
Must be true, I read it in the eye. And imagine: If it wasn’t
for my brother’s smelly feet, I might have been an Uncle
by now. Feet can smell, itch, cause extreme pain, trip you up
and fall over. Especially Saturday nights. Yes, I can right
an article on feet......... |
| Mar 04 |
Antibiotics
Trick or Treat? |
I recently saw a patient
who told me he had a cold. As usual I asked if he was taking
any medicine. Yes. He was taking cipro, cephclor, arinate and
tinidazole. He
was right, he did have a cold. So why was he taking 3 antibiotics
and an antimalarial?
In Europe antibiotic
use is a hot issue. A recent meeting of EU ministers of health
discussed the estimate that 80% of antibiotics prescribed
for respiratory infections are prescribed for no reason. They
agreed to start a campaign directed mostly at doctors to reduce
prescribing of unnecessary antibiotics................ |
| Feb 04 |
Sports
Injuries |
You are the greatest
mauler in the team. No one else has your cunning, your strength,
your ferocity, your commitment. Once the opposition see you
holding the ball in a rolling maul they know a try is inevitable.
They see you coming into the breakdown and they know there is
going to be a turnover ball................ |
| Jan 04 |
Malaria |
After Christmas we had
the biggest malaria epidemic ever. Everyone and his dog went
away for Christmas or New Year and most of you didn’t
take antimalarials, did you? Result lots of people with malaria
10 days later. So far we have seen only 2 cases of malaria in
someone who was in Kampala 10 to 14 days previously, both at
the same party! Everyone else had been up country, mostly the
classic areas for malaria, Murchison and Jinja. Lesson: In Kampala
we hardly see malaria, the risk is minimal. Up country the risk
is almost inevitable, so take the tabs. Even those who took
the old much-maligned chloroquin and paludrine did not get malaria.
So it is still better than nothing according to our experience........... |
| Dec03 |
Malaria |
Never goes away does
it? Yet again loads of new arrivals coming in convinced they
have malaria because they’ve talked to someone who thinks
they have been here a long time. Having malaria is like owning
a pair of safari boots; people need a diagnosis of malaria to
convince them they know Africa. We believe your health is more
important than being polite and doctors who know what malaria
really is need to speak out......... |
| Nov03 |
Healthy
Skepticism |
Chap goes to a doctor,
and says he has a headache. Doc checks him out and says take
a few brufen and see how you are in a few days. Aren’t
you going to do any tests, he demands? OK says the doc, he whistles,
and in comes a dog: beautiful golden Labrador. The dog sniffs
him over, looks up at the Doc, wags his tail and barks. See?
Says the Doc. It’s nothing...... |
| Nov 03 |
Flu
Season |
Click on the link left
for one of THE Funniest News articles from the Miami Herald
columnist Dave Barry.............. |
| June03 |
HIV
Treatment |
A week is a long time
in politics; a year is a long time in medicine. Many of our
recent advances are out of date before they are even published,
and probably more in one subject than any other: HIV. Huge advances,
big changes with lots of people way behind in their understanding
and practice......... |
| May03 |
Tropical
Diseases |
Common in almost all
freshwater lakes and the Nile. Beware of any place advertising
their water as “bilharzia free” as this is based
on very scanty evidence. Lake Bunyoni and some of the soda (dead)
crater lakes are genuinely bilharzia free........... |
| Mar03 |
Bites |
Bites by wild game are
very rare, the only large bite most of us will ever see are
dog bites. Most people are worried about rabies. I've seen 5
people die of rabies in Karamoja in Northern Uganda and 4 cases
in my 10 years here in Kampala. . . . . . |
| Jan 03 |
Backs |
In my first article I
stressed that Uganda is a very healthy place to visit or live
in, that most people are perfectly well most of the time. I
said that we hardly ever see tropical diseases, but mostly the
same sort of thing doctors see in the UK: backache, in-growing
toenails and haemorrhoids. I
suppose I could write an article on haemorrhoids: it would
really be scraping the bottom of the barrel, I wouldn’t
want to descend to such depths, every writer has his pride
and I wouldn’t want to stoop so low. But Bad Backs.
A nice safe subject, with very little scope for low humour.......
|
| Nov02 |
Diarroea |
Visitors often expect
to see tropical diseases in a tropical country. However
here in Uganda most tropical diseases are rare and seldom seen
in visitors and expatriates. Two exceptions are Malaria
and Bilharzia. This
does not mean that visitors are seldom sick. In fact
they tend to get everything that is going due to lack of immunity
to local germs. In particular, a lot of common colds,
flu and a lot of diarrhoea. Eventually you become immune
to the local bugs and pathogens and you can go anywhere and
eat anything with renewed confidence............................ |
| Sep 02 |
Fatigue |
‘Tired all the
time’ is one of the commonest reasons for consulting a
doctor anywhere in the world. The feeling of being constantly
tired may be interpreted as “weak” or even “fever”.
It may be accompanied by a variety of vague symptoms such as
abdominal pain or chest pain. It is often a diagnostic challenge
and common sense may be a better diagnostic tool then extensive
laboratory work. There
are a few diseases that make us tired anywhere in the world.
There are some that are commoner in the tropics. However in
many cases the problem is Life not disease.................
|
