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Health Check: 11/04/2012

11/04/2012

BBC World Service - Health Check, 11/04/2012

BRICS spend more on global health. Virtual blood bank in South Sudan. Acute pain relief

The BRICS report on funding global health. A novel solution to the lack of supplies of blood in South Sudan. And effective pain relief when you’ve got a bad headache

BRICS REPORT

A new report suggests that foreign assistance from the so-called BRICS countries – Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa – is increasing at a much faster rate than that from the G7 countries. Claudia discusses the impact this could have on the world’s health with contributors to the report Sridhar Venkatapuram from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, and Kirill Danishevskiy of Moscow Medical Academy, and the lead author David Gold - co-executive director of Global Health Strategies Initiatives. 

SOUTH SUDAN VIRTUAL BLOOD BANK

Blood transfusions have become an essential part of medical practice – whether for use in an emergency, during childbirth or in planned surgery. But in the new country of South Sudan there is just one storage facility for blood - and when there’s a power cut the blood can go off in just half an hour. So a group of doctors has come up with an imaginative interim solution – a virtual blood bank. Anna Cavell reports from Juba.

ACUTE PAIN RELIEF 

When they have a headache, some people go for paracetamol or aspirin, others choose ibuprofen. Now a review of more than 300 studies has come up with some intriguing conclusions, conclusions you might want to put into practice yourself. Dr Andrew Moore from the Pain Research Unit at the Churchill Hospital in Oxford talks to Claudia about his findings.

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