Since its establishment in 1948, the World Health Organization (WHO) has organized a series of expert committee meetings to address individual tropical diseases that are included in WHO’s list of neglected tropical diseases (NTDs) in order to formulate appropriate evidence-based control strategies. Between 1948 and 2012, as many as 66 resolutions have been adopted for individual diseases. In response to trends in the global public-health agenda—notably primary health care in the 1970s and the Millennium Development Goals in the 2020s—WHO established the Department of Control of Neglected Tropical Diseases in 2005. The aim was to contribute to poverty alleviation and achievement of the Millennium Development Goals by addressing 17 NTDs in an integrated manner rather than by vertical disease-specific programmes.
Since then, WHO has led a dynamic trend in the global community to overcome NTDs, including organization of the first global partners meeting on NTDs in 2007, publication of the first WHO report on NTDs in 2010 and in 2012 the WHO roadmap to accelerate work towards the 2015 and 2020 targets for control, elimination and eradication of NTDs, and the announcement in 2013 of the London Declaration by 13 pharmaceutical companies and various donors and partners, and the publication of the second WHO report on NTDs. In May 2013, the World Health Assembly adopted the first resolution to call for increased efforts and support to control, eliminate and eradicate NTDs as a whole, contrary to the past disease-specific resolutions.
The present paper is intended to introduce Japanese audiences in the field of public health to this 66th World Health Assembly Resolution on NTDs and to the work of WHO in leading the global trend towards control and elimination of NTDs.

Hemiplegia after a cerebrovascular event is a complication that causes problems in daily life such as difficulty of walking and may lead to social disadvantages. Furthermore, various subsequent health issues that accompany hemiplegia tend to hinder rehabilitation. In particular, Shoulder-Hand Syndrome (SHS) is an intractably painful disease with primary symptoms of pain and swelling in the upper limbs of patients. We investigated the effect of the acupuncture treatment on those patients with hemiplegia after a cerebrovascular event who are suspected to have SHS because of such symptoms as pain, swelling, and paresthesia in the upper limb of the affected side by measuring the changes in the numerical scale (NS), Gibbons' RSD score, and range of motion (ROM) in upper extremities.
The present study consisted of 13 hemiplegic subjects (eight males, five females) with pain, swelling, and paresthesia in the upper limbs. Acupuncture treatment was applied twice a week for over two months. Specifically electrical acupuncture and/or the retaining needle technique was applied to the upper extremities for 20 minutes in each session. Of 13 participants, 10 showed a significant decrease in NS (reduced by five or more points), eight showed improvement of the swelling in the upper limbs, and nine showed reduction in paresthesia.
From these results, we concluded that the acupuncture treatment was effective for SHS that accompanies hemiplegia after a cerebrovascular event and that the improvement of the peripheral blood flow might play an important role in generating treatment effects.

OBJECTIVES: The number of patients with bilateral cochlear implant (CI) has gradually increased as patients and/or parents recognize its effectiveness. The purpose of this report is to evaluate the efficacy of 29 bilateral CI out of 169 pediatric CI users, who received auditory-verbal/oral habilitation at our hearing center. METHODS: We evaluated the audiological abilities 29 Japanese children with bilateral CIs including wearing threshold, word recognition score, speech discrimination score at 1 m from front speaker (SP), 1 m from second CI side SP, speech discrimination score under the noise (S/N ratio=80 dB sound pressure level [SPL]/70 dB SPL, 10 dB) at 1 m from front SP, word recognition score under the noise (S/N ratio=80 dB SPL/70 dB SPL, 10 dB) at 1 m from front SP. RESULTS: Binaural hearing using bilateral CI is better than first CI in all speech understanding tests. Especially, there were significant differences between the results of first CI and bilateral CI on SDS at 70 dB SPL (P=0.02), SDS at 1 m from second CI side SP at 60 dB SPL (P=0.02), word recognition score (WRS) at 1 m from second CI side SP at 60 dB SPL (P=0.02), speech discrimination score (SDS) at 1 m from front SP under the noise (S/N=80/70; P=0.01) and WRS at 1 m from front SP under the noise (S/N=80/70; P=0.002). At every age, a second CI is very effective. However, the results of under 9 years old were better than of over 9 years old on the mean SDS under the noise (S/N=80/70) on second CI (P=0.04). About use of a hearing aid (HA) in their opposite side of first CI, on the WRS and SDS under the noise, there were significant differences between the group of over 3 years and the group of under 10 months of HA non user before second CI. CONCLUSION: These results may show important binaural effectiveness such as binaural summation and head shadow effect. Bilateral CI is very useful medical intervention for many children with severe-to-profound hearing loss in Japan as well as elsewhere.
Asian Continental Ancestry Group ; Child ; Cochlear Implantation ; Cochlear Implants ; Head ; Hearing ; Hearing Aids ; Hearing Loss ; Humans ; Japan ; Noise ; Parents ; Speech Perception

OBJECTIVES: We conducted multi-directional language development tests as a part of the Research on Sensory and Communicative Disorders (RSVD) in Japan. This report discusses findings as well as factors that led to better results in children with severe-profound hearing loss. METHODS: We evaluated multiple language development tests in 33 Japanese children with cochlear implants (32 patients) and hearing aid (1 patient), including 1) Test for question and answer interaction development, 2) Word fluency test, 3) Japanese version of the Peabody picture vocabulary test-revised, 4) The standardized comprehension test of abstract words, 5) The screening test of reading and writing for Japanese primary school children, 6) The syntactic processing test of aphasia, 7) Criterion-referenced testing (CRT) for Japanese language and mathematics, 8) Pervasive development disorders ASJ rating scales, and 9) Raven's colored progressive matrices. Furthermore, we investigated the factors believed to account for the better performances in these tests. The first group, group A, consisted of 14 children with higher scores in all tests than the national average for children with hearing difficulty. The second group, group B, included 19 children that scored below the national average in any of the tests. RESULTS: Overall, the results show that 76.2% of the scores obtained by the children in these tests exceeded the national average scores of children with hearing difficulty. The children who finished above average on all tests had undergone a longer period of regular habilitation in our rehabilitation center, had their implants earlier in life, were exposed to more auditory verbal/oral communication in their education at affiliated institutions, and were more likely to have been integrated in a regular kindergarten before moving on to elementary school. CONCLUSION: In this study, we suggest that taking the above four factors into consideration will have an affect on the language development of children with severe-profound hearing loss.
Aphasia ; Asian Continental Ancestry Group ; Child ; Child Development Disorders, Pervasive ; Cochlear Implants ; Communication Disorders ; Comprehension ; Hearing ; Hearing Aids ; Hearing Loss ; Humans ; Japan ; Language Development ; Mass Screening ; Mathematics ; Rehabilitation Centers ; Vocabulary ; Weights and Measures ; Writing

BACKGROUND: Predictive factors for the efficacy of dipeptidyl peptidase-4 (DPP-4) inhibitors for lowering glycosylated hemoglobin (HbA1c) remain unclear in patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus. The aim of this study is therefore to clarify predictive factors of the efficacy of DPP-4 inhibitors for lowering HbA1c after 12 months of treatment. METHODS: A total of 191 consecutive type 2 diabetic patients (male sex 55%, mean age, 68.3+/-35.8 years), who had been treated with DPP-4 inhibitors for 12 months, were enrolled in this study and evaluated retrospectively. RESULTS: After 12 months of DPP-4 inhibitor treatment, random blood glucose level, and HbA1c level, decreased from 167+/-63 to 151+/-49 mg/dL (P<0.01), and from 7.5%+/-1.3% to 6.9%+/-0.9% (P<0.01) respectively, without severe side effects. Multiple regression analysis showed that predictors of DPP-4 inhibitor treatment efficacy in lowering HbA1c level after 12 months were a decrease in HbA1c level after 3 months of treatment, a high baseline HbA1c level, a low baseline body mass index, and the absence of coronary artery disease. CONCLUSION: Most suitable candidates for treatment with DPP-4 inhibitors are diabetics who are not obese and do not have coronary artery disease. In addition, long-term efficacy of DPP-4 inhibitors can be predicted by decrement of HbA1c after 3 months of treatment.
Blood Glucose ; Body Mass Index ; Coronary Artery Disease ; Diabetes Mellitus ; Diabetes Mellitus, Type 2* ; Dipeptidyl-Peptidase IV Inhibitors ; Hemoglobin A, Glycosylated ; Humans ; Retrospective Studies ; Treatment Outcome