IGH Podcast: Recent Episodes
Institute of Infection and Global Health
The Institute of Infection and Global Health is an international centre of excellence dedicated to improving the health and well-being of humans and animals. We bring together doctors, vets and basic scientists to put Liverpool at the forefront of the 'one health' agenda.
“By 2040, our vision is of a world in which antimicrobial resistance is effectively contained and controlled...” So says the British Government. That sounds great but veiled beneath the vision is the suggestion that if we continue on our current course, antimicrobial resistance isn’t being effectively contained and controlled at present.
Over the past few decades infections caused by antimicrobial resistant ‘superbugs’ have caused 700,000 deaths globally. If no action is taken, that figure is expected to rise to 10 million by 2050 with a cumulative cost of $100 trillion dollars.
Antimicrobial resistance is a global problem and we all have to understand what we can do to help the cause either as a health professionals, patients or members of the public.
In this episode we talk to Dr Jennie Wilson, Vice President of the Infection Prevention Society. Jennie is a Professor of Healthcare Epidemiology at the University of West London. She is an experienced infection control practitioner with extensive knowledge of healthcare associated infection, surveillance and data management, teaching and implementing infection control strategy.
In modern Britain tuberculosis, often shortened to TB, is more associated with infection in cattle than people. You would be forgiven for thinking that TB is no a concern in the age of widespread vaccination and antibiotics. In 2013, Public Health England recorded 7,892 cases of TB giving a rate of 12.3 cases per 100,000 people, one of the highest rates in Western Europe. The poorest in the UK are seven times more likely to be affected by TB than the most well off. Between 2011 and 2017, cases of tuberculosis fell by more than a third in the UK, however, there’s still plenty of work to be done. World Tuberculosis Day falls on the 24th of March each year and is designed to raise public awareness around the disease. In the spirit of this, we are dedicating this episode to discussing tuberculosis with Dr Thomas Wingfield, an NIHR Academic Clinical Lecturer and Specialist Registrar in Infectious Disease working at IGH. He was awarded his PhD in 2015 for a project entitled “Preventing tuberculosis in high risk people” which involved working with 32 shantytown communities in Peru to improve TB prevention and control.
Malaria is a disease usually associated with the tropics. However, avian malaria, caused by similar parasites, is distributed worldwide with the exception of Antarctica.
Avian malaria is spread by biting mosquitoes. The impact of the disease on bird populations varies. Some birds will not show any symptoms, but other populations can be driven to extinction by avian malaria. Zoos in particular have suffered from avian malaria outbreaks. London Zoo lost six penguins in 2012 and Longleat took the decision to close their penguin exhibit in 2018 after a second outbreak called into question the viability of keeping penguins. Despite these problems, little is known about the distribution of mosquitoes around zoos and their ability to infect birds with avian malaria.
This month we spoke to Arturo Hernandez Colina about his work looking into avian malaria in the UK.
Acute encephalitis describes a rapidly developing inflammation of the brain. It is a life-threatening disease with a mortality rate of up to 15%. However, the cause of 37 to 62% of encephalitis cases is not identified, even after a thorough diagnostic investigation. Mark Ellul is a Specialist Registrar in Neurology and Clinical Research Fellow funded by the Association of British Neurologists at IGH. He recently published a paper in Clinical Medicine “Acute encephalitis – diagnosis and management” (http://www.clinmed.rcpjournal.org/content/18/2/155.abstract). He came to talk to us about acute encephalitis and his work searching for new diagnostic tools to help doctors in the emergency room.
The Horn of Africa, located in the north-east of the continent, is comprised of several countries including Eritrea, Djibouti, Somalia, Ethiopia and Kenya. Here, more than in other parts of the world, animal health is inextricably linked to human health. While some of this impact comes from zoonotic diseases that pass between animals and humans, disease which only affect animals can have a detrimental effect on human health and welfare in a region where so many depend on agriculture for their income and subsistence. This month we talk to Professor Matthew Baylis about The One Health Regional Network for the Horn of Africa, or HORN project, a collaboration between UK and African institutions to research One Health problems in the Horn of Africa.