Charity Launches 10th Edition Of E-TALC - A Medical Information CD For Developing World Health Staff

Main Category: HIV / AIDS
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Article Date: 03 Jun 2009 - 3:00 PDT

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International development charity Teaching-aids At Low Cost (TALC) has launched the 10th edition of its e-TALC CD.

The e-TALC CD, which is distributed free of charge to health workers in 148 countries world, has up-to-date information on various topics, including HIV/AIDS. For example, there is information on breastfeeding in the presence of HIV and counselling children that have been orphaned by HIV.

Professor David Morley CBE, the founder of TALC, says, "The latest version of e-TALC contains the latest medical information for health staff working in the developing world. The information on the CD will help health staff make the right diagnosis and provide the right treatment."

Dr Michael Dobson, a Consultant Anaesthetist at Radcliffe Hospital and Honorary Senior Clinical Lecturer at the University of Oxford, is an expert on Anaesthetics in the developing world. He said the e-TALC CDs are a vital resource for health staff working in poor countries.

"The e-TALC CDs make lifesaving information available to people who wouldn't otherwise have it due to the high costs and poor availability of books," said Dobson. "The CDs give people in the developing world access to the latest medical information."

Dr Biku Ghosh, a consultant surgeon at Nevill Hall Hospital in Abergavenny, agreed that the CDs make a big difference.

"The eTALC CDs are extremely useful. In isolated clinics there is no-one that health workers can contact for advice, so the CDs are used as reference materials," said Ghosh.

Ghosh is actively involved in the Southern Ethiopia Gwent Health Link, which trains front-line health workers in rural areas of Ethiopia. Ghosh says that the CDs, combined with the training the Gwent Health Link provides, has a big impact on healthcare.

"The CDs, in conjunction with the training we provide, will have definitely saved people's lives. It gives health workers the confidence to deal with things on their own," said Ghosh.

One person who has made direct use of the e-TALC CDs is VSO volunteer Jean Skeen, who worked as a midwife in Cameroon between 2003 and 2005. Skeen, who is now retired and living in East Anglia, said the CD was an invaluable resource during her VSO placement.

"The volume of resources available on the CD is huge and it's so portable. When you're working in a rural health centre you have to deal with anything that comes through the door - whether it's someone who has been gored by a bull or fallen off their tractor, or people with malaria," said Skeen.

Teaching-aids at Low Cost first started the e-TALC project in 2001, and has produced CDs regularly since then.

A variety of resources are put on the CD including excerpts from journals, books and interactive educational content. The resources are donated by a variety of NGOs, publishers and individuals involved in health in developing countries. For example, information for the 10th e-TALC CD has been donated by The Lancet, British Medical Journal and Africa Health, among others.

The CD has information on various topics, including breastfeeding in the presence of HIV. This is a fast-moving field as data is constantly emerging comparing the risks of passing on the virus through breast-milk with the risk of malnutrition or diarrhoea-related mortality due to contaminated formula milk or early weaning. e-TALC 10 has information on the latest World Health Organisation recommendations along with counselling materials for those dealing with this situation on the ground.

Other topics covered by the CD include surgery in resource-poor settings and assessment of malnutrition in infants and young children by measuring middle upper arm circumference.

TALC is hoping to raise £10,000 to send out the next edition of its e-TALC CD. To sponsor the next e-TALC CD, or to donate to the charity, please contact 01727 853869 or visit http://www.talcuk.org.

Source
TALC