A round-up of today's other stories in brief
Mobiles to be used to prevent spread of HIV
NOVEL MOBILE communications technology developed by researchers in Galway will be used to help prevent the transmission of HIV from pregnant mothers in Africa to their children.
Hewlett Packard (HP) Ireland has announced a new collaboration with South African-based NGO mothers2mothers (m2m), which counsels more than a million women in nine countries in sub-Saharan Africa each year. The new technology developed by a team at HP in Galway will convert the current paper-based patient records system into a digital format that enables easy sharing of information across the m2m network of more than 700 sites in sub-Saharan Africa.
Paul Ellingstad, HP director of Global Social Innovation, explained that m2m employs local mothers living with HIV to mentor HIV-positive pregnant and new mothers in health facilities. They work side by side with doctors and nurses, supporting and educating women about how to take their medicines and care for themselves and their babies.
“There are more than 1.3 million pregnant women living with HIV in Africa. Without any interventions, 40 per cent of those women will have HIV-positive babies. The m2m mentor mothers are given mobile phones or tablet PCs which they can use to download information on training and health in real time and to upload information about the women they are seeing, connecting all of these sites like never before,” he said.
Mother-to-child HIV transmission rates remain high in Africa in part due to the challenge of ensuring mothers adhere to medical treatment.
'Artificial pancreas' help for pregnancy
SCIENTISTS HAVE shown how an “artificial pancreas” can help pregnant women with type 1 diabetes and say their finding could significantly reduce cases of stillbirth and death among diabetic expectant mothers. British researchers used a so-called “closed-loop insulin delivery system” or artificial pancreas, in 10 pregnant women with type 1 diabetes, finding it provided the right amount of insulin on time, maintained near normal blood sugar, and prevented dangerous drops in blood sugar levels at night.
Pieta House opens new centre in Limerick
PIETA HOUSE, the centre for the prevention of self-harm or suicide, is opening a new centre in Limerick later this week to cover the midwest region.
Director of Pieta House, psychologist Joan Freeman, said that while there were superb services in Limerick, there was a gap in terms of the particular type of intensive counselling intervention that the centre offers. “I think we will be very, very busy in Limerick. The Northern Ireland Registry of Deliberate Self Harm reports Limerick as having the seventh-highest suicide rate of any city in Britain and Ireland,” she said.
Five years ago, Ms Freeman closed her private psychology practice to set up Pieta House in Ballyfermot as a reaction to a personal loss.
“I carried out a feasibility study on suicide intervention and the services that were available and found there was a gap there for people who have already attempted to take their lives and also for people who have engaged in self-harming behaviours,” she said.
The services at Pieta House are free of charge regardless of a person’s financial circumstances. The bulk of the funding to run its centres comes through donations from people who have been affected by suicide.
Businessman JP McManus has donated funding to Pieta House to purchase its new premises in Mungret, Co Limerick, which opens on Friday. Ms Freeman said the HSE in the midwest and the local people have also been hugely supportive.
For further information, tel: 061-484444 or see pieta.ie
