Karen Forrest

Can you provide a link to the app on iPhone? If I follow the link on the bbc website, I get a screen that says it can’t connect to the iTunes Store.

Neurocysticercosis school outbreak in Belgium Human cysticercosis results from ingesting microscopic Taenia solium eggs shed by a tapeworm carrier, forming cystic larvae (ie, cysticerci) in tissues. These larvae normally encyst in the pig, the natural intermediate host. Upon consumption by humans, they develop into a new intestinal tapeworm. Affecting the human brain, neurocysticercosis is responsible for a third of epilepsy cases in endemic tropical and subtropical regions.1,2

1/ Imagine being a kid, just vibing at school, when boom—a tapeworm decides to set up camp in your brain. 🧠🏕️
Welcome to the wildest, most unexpected outbreak Belgium has seen. And no, this isn’t an episode of House MD but it reads like it.
I love ID #IDSky #MedSky
www.thelancet.com/journals/lan...

Where in the world does the press give you maps like this for? Oh, right, Africa. Continuing with a very old tradition, rendering it as terra incognita. www.nytimes.com/2024/12/15/w...

As part of its 100th anniversary celebrations, the Institut Pasteur de Dakar inaugurates the new diaTROPIX diagnostic manufacturing site in Mbao. Financially and technically supported by FIND & Unitaid, this aims to improve access to high-quality #diagnostics4all.

🔗 unitaid.org/news-blog/fi...

This doctor raised the alarm about a deadly mpox outbreak that went global Placide Mbala is part of Nature’s 10, a list of people who shaped science in 2024.

Congratulations to my dear friend & colleague Placide Mbala at INRB in Kinshasa! 🎉

He is one of Nature's 10 people who shaped science this year

He is an incredible scientist and person who has dedicated his career to fighting diseases like Ebola, COVID, and #mpox. 🙌

www.nature.com/articles/d41...

Despite the failure of international plans to cut plastics pollution, the Gambia is redoubling its efforts.

A new bold roadmap hopes to eliminate plastic over the next decade. As experts believe the world will soon be “unable to cope” with the volume of plastic waste.

My latest @theguardian.com ⬇️

1/17
[Why] is furosemide susceptible to malabsorption from "gut edema"?

When a patient with heart failure is hospitalized with congestion I often hear "let's use IV furosemide; they're probably not absorbing the PO."

It's a comment unique to furosemide.

But is it accurate?

Global health researcher Madhukar Pai believes scientific innovations must reach everyone Working toward a more diverse, inclusive, and equitable future for global health with Dr. Pai.

'To me, innovations mean little if they cannot save lives (...) Yes, mRNA vaccines are great, Nobel-prize-winning innovations, but they never reached most Global South countries. To date, they continue to remain a monopoly of Big Pharma and rich nations that hoarded vaccines.'
@madhupai.bsky.social

Fractional Doses of Pneumococcal Conjugate Vaccine — A Noninferiority Trial | NEJM Pneumococcal conjugate vaccines are an expensive component of the routine immunization schedule. Fractional-dose regimens may be one option to increase the sustainability of the vaccine program. We...

A 40% dose of the PCV13 vaccine proved noninferior to full doses, enhancing immunization sustainability for infants.

by Gallagher KE, Lucinde R (...) Scott JAG et 18 al. in @nejm.org #MedSky

📖 read the article:

Institutions reverting to in-person-only events are reinstating pre-COVID exclusion. Knowledge-sharing events must include an online option, at the very least, to allow people in the Global South to hear and contest what is being said about them. Do better. #AcademicSky

Ten years ago Ebola tore through Sierra Leone. Can a vaccine drive stop history repeating itself? Memories of 2014, when the disease ravaged west Africa, are raw, while risk remains high. This week the first ever nationwide prevention programme begins – and doctors hope it will be enough to fend o...

Sierra Leone will this week become the 1st country to launch a nationwide preventive #Ebola vaccination campaign for people at the highest risk. Over 3 weeks, will deliver 20k doses of Merck’s Ervebo vaccine in a drive that will be repeated every 2-3 years. #IDSKY
www.theguardian.com/global-devel...

I am not campaigning for or against assisted dying, but it is clear to me (& NCEPOD) that the Human Right to living without preventable suffering is not being met here, & the answer is to prevent what suffering is preventable before we change the law.
We can do better.
6/

A snip of my profile. Banner image incldes Arendt, Durkheim, Fanon and others drawn rouglys on eggs in Black and White. Profile picture is me in front of some autumn leaves. Key descriptive text identifies me as a criminologist working on atrocity crime. At the bottom, highlighted by a big red arrow is my ORCID ID: 0000-0002-7463-1302

A snip from my ORCID profile page - at the left is a list of institutional and other links to social media, including one to Bluesky, highlighted by a big red arrow.

Academics wanting to 'verify' their Bluesky profile as genuine might give an ORCID identifier in their profile and link back to their Bluesky profile from ORCID.

#AcademicSky

This, but also needs to include how to read papers and interpret them for practice. The course I had on this was delivered in our 4th year and I distinctly remember the sense of revelation it engendered. This plus the bits of stats needed for this purpose in 1st year. The rest (much) later.

This coupled with a high influx of international medical graduates (IMGs) indicates problems for UK trained Doctors progressing in their careers.

WHERE does the ascites actually come from?

The weeping liver!

Check this 1955 paper out:

Method: clamped IVC in dogs
Result: Ascites beaded on the liver surface. Covering the liver with a bag collects all the ascites, keeps the gut dry

1/
Back to the basics today: let's talk about common pitfalls in obtaining cardiac #POCUS images ❤️

Here are some very common image acquisition errors in basic views, as well as the simple moves to correct them ✅

🧵

#emimcc #POCUSky #echosky #MedSky

When I’m picky with which airlines I fly for international events it’s not because I’m being difficult. It’s because I’ve been doing this for more than a decade and I know how to get the minimum pain out of Western airlines and airports when travelling with an African passport.

“Unfair knowledge practices easily beset our efforts to achieve health equity within & between countries. Enacted by people from a distance & from a position of power…”

Please read our realist synthesis using pose & gaze to make sense of epistemic injustice.

Here: academic.oup.com/heapol/artic...

Book cover for A children’s Bible by Lydia Millet. A green cover with stylised drawings of deer, a lamb and rabbits.

This is a hard do not recommend! A post apocalyptic dystopia. The author tries to mirror various Bible stories along the way, this doesn’t serve an obvious purpose and was unconvincing.

So here is a starter pack of African scientists and researchers across disciplines. It will continue to grow as I find more people and more migrate to this platform but gotta start somewhere 😊.
go.bsky.app/GixA4xP

Thank you! Thank you! Been missing African Twitter and this a good start.

Oh - and if it’s not too much trouble, if you don’t mind Rt this so people can find me here, I’d be very grateful. Thank you

Good day to remind everyone

Around the globe the measles vaccine has saved nearly 94 million lives over the past 50 years

www.scientificamerican.com/article/see-...

1/📢 In our new PREPRINT - tinyurl.com/yc6kbay9 - we estimate that 156 million people globally carry a recent, viable M. tuberculosis (Mtb) infection and are at high risk of progressing to TB disease.

Hi Claire, long time!

#14: How many people die from snakebites? This week: Missing data – the most underrated problem in global health.

• What are people dying from in poorer countries?

This is an extremely important q, but our understanding is very limited by region & time.

(I've written about an example before; how surveys overturned our understanding of the large burden of snakebite: www.scientificdiscovery.dev/p/14-how-man...)

Latest read. Some difficult moments. 1st 60 pages nothing happens and I wasn’t sure I could keep reading, but I’m glad I stuck at it. Really interesting to hear from a male Nigerian author talking about the hopelessness of so many young African men. Much to think about.

Parachute research remains a major problem in global health research. This piece builds on our experience of implementation of authorship reflexivity statements in what has turned out to be a major thread of work over the last few years

🧪 #medsky #globalhealth

gh.bmj.com/content/9/1/...