The World Federation of Acupuncture and Moxibustion Societies (WFAS) 2011 International Acupuncture Conference was held in Sao Paolo, Brazil on November 5 - 6, 2011. The theme was "Traditional Medicine and Human Health -Acupuncture Research, Education, Regulamentation and Clinical Practice."
This was the first conference of WFAS in the Central and South American region. It was highlighted that acupuncture is included in the public health system of Brazil and supported by Brazilian government.
At the executive meeting which was held on the 4th, it was announced that Extra points nomenclature and location would be on the next standardization table. Also, the preparation process of the International Acupuncture Proficiency Test was reported. They announced that they would run International Multicenter Clinical Trials in the newly established Scientific Working Committee of WFAS.
Conference organization showed serious confusion. A protest letter from the domestic organizing committee was delivered. It led to the sudden cancelation of the closing ceremony.

The World Federation of Acupuncture and Moxibustion Societies (WFAS) 2010 International Acupuncture Conference was held in San Francisco USA on November 6 - 7, 2010. The theme was "Acupuncture Research, Education and Clinical Practice."
At the conference, the Society for Acupuncture Research (SAR), which was one of the organizers of the NIH Consensus Conference 1997, was one of the co-sponsors and also the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine (NCCAM) presented as one of the keynote speakers.
In recent years the international standardization of acupuncture related issues are moving to the forefront. WFAS is developing various standardization drafts related to acupuncture, starting with acupuncture needle regulations, which appear to be acting as a working unit of mainly Chinese ideas. WFAS has a plan to settle them as world standards through ISO, etc. However, the process of developing standard drafts does not appear democratic or fair. WFAS is indeed not democratically organized as inaccurate minutes for the executive committee meeting held at the conference contain crucial differences between the English version and the Chinese version.
We need to correspond firmly to WFAS that has a formal relationship with WHO and acts high-handedly, as it leads to obstruction of fair recognition and further development of a variety of acupuncture and moxibustion medicine that has been developed in diversity in each country.

The prevalence of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infection is lower in Madagascar than in continental African countries, but recently it has steadily risen. To identify factors that facilitate or deter condom use among married couples in Madagascar, a cross-sectional study was conducted by means of a questionnaire survey of 977 women attending 10 health facilities for antenatal care and child care. Information on reproductive and socioeconomic factors was obtained, and logistic regression analysis was used to identify factors contributing to condom use. Child death and women’s earnings were statistically significant factors for condom use, with an odds ratio of 2.0 (95% confidence interval (CI): 1.2-3.5) for the former and 1.6 (95% CI: 1.1-2.3) for the latter in the logistic regression analysis. The promotion of economic independence among women and the reduction of child mortality deserve greater attention in the planning of HIV prevention policy in Madagascar.

The first step of cancer medical treatment is to eliminate anxiety about opioids. It is recommended to use printed matter in the "Guideline for Cancer Pain Management" edited by Japanese Society of Palliative Medicine,but few medical professionals actually use it. We developed the Opioids' pamphlet designed by Aichi Prefectural Society of Hospital Pharmacists; abbreviated OPA. This pamphlet is little burdened for readers; focusing on eliminating anxiety about opioids. Evaluation of the utility of the OPA and the actual conditions of patient education about the use of opioids by medical professionals were investigated, since there have been no reports on these issues. A questionnaire survey was conducted in hospitals with more than 150 beds in Aichi Prefecture. It targeted doctors, pharmacists and nurses who were practicing palliative care using opioids. There were many pharmacists and nurses who had been consulted about opioids, and most of the consultations were about addiction. 60% of pharmacists and 30% of nurses voluntarily performed patient education. Awareness of the guideline for of cancer pain management was low. OPA, which was reviewed based on the guideline, was applicable to 99% of the cases where the nurses were consulted. Its size and contents were highly acclaimed. Therefore, OPA is extremely valuable in clinical practice. Palliat Care Res 2009; 4(1): 214-227

Rotational acetabular osteotomy (RAO) is a well-established surgical procedure for patients with acetabular dysplasia, and excellent long-term results have been reported. However, RAO is technically demanding and precise execution of this procedure requires experience with this surgery. The usefulness of computer navigation in RAO includes its ability to perform three-dimensional (3D) preoperative planning, enable safe osteotomy even with a poor visual field, reduce exposure to radiation from intraoperative fluoroscopy, and display the tip position of the chisel in real time, which is educationally useful as it allows staff other than the operator to follow the progress of the surgery. In our results comparing 23 hips that underwent RAO with navigation and 23 hips operated on without navigation, no significant difference in radiological assessment was observed. However, no perioperative complications were observed in the navigation group whereas one case of transient femoral nerve palsy was observed in non-navigation group. A more accurate and safer RAO can be performed using 3D preoperative planning and intraoperative assistance with a computed tomography-based navigation system.
Acetabulum/diagnostic imaging/*surgery ; Adult ; Female ; Hip Dislocation/diagnostic imaging/*surgery ; Humans ; Imaging, Three-Dimensional ; Male ; Osteotomy/*methods ; Surgery, Computer-Assisted/*methods ; Tomography, X-Ray Computed ; Young Adult

1) A total of 73 incidents and accidents related to guidance provided to residents obtained from data published by the Japan Council for Quality Health Care were investigated.2) These events can be divided into the following three categories: (1) Events that occurred during direct guidance to a resident by a supervising physician, (2) Events that occurred when a resident performed a procedure by himself or herself without the guidance of a supervising physician, although the supervising physician was near the resident, (3) Events that occurred when a resident performed a procedure by himself or herself while a supervising physician was absent.3) Regarding measures to prevent recurrence, the present results suggests that, in addition to the individual efforts of supervising physicians and residents, there is a need for system development through increased cooperation between the postgraduate clinical training center, each section/department and the department of medical safety management.

Background/Aims: There are few published registry studies from Asia on pediatric inflammatory bowel disease (IBD). Registry network data enable comparisons among ethnic groups. This study examined the characteristics of IBD in Japanese children and compared them with those in European children. Methods: This was a cross-sectional multicenter registry study of newly diagnosed Japanese pediatric IBD patients. The Paris classification was used to categorize IBD features, and results were compared with published EUROKIDS data. Results: A total of 265 pediatric IBD patients were initially registered, with 22 later excluded for having incomplete demographic data. For the analysis, 91 Crohn’s disease (CD), 146 ulcerative colitis (UC), and 6 IBD-unclassified cases were eligible. For age at diagnosis, 20.9% of CD, 21.9% of UC, and 83.3% of IBD-unclassified cases were diagnosed before age 10 years. For CD location, 18.7%, 13.2%, 64.8%, 47.3%, and 20.9% were classified as involving L1 (ileocecum), L2 (colon), L3 (ileocolon), L4a (esophagus/stomach/duodenum), and L4b (jejunum/proximal ileum), respectively. For UC extent, 76% were classified as E4 (pancolitis). For CD behavior, B1 (non-stricturingon-penetrating), B2 (stricturing), B3 (penetrating), and B2B3 were seen in 83.5%, 11.0%, 3.3%, and 2.2%, respectively. A comparison between Japanese and European children showed less L2 involvement (13.2% vs. 27.3%, P< 0.01) but more L4a (47.3% vs. 29.6%, P< 0.01) and L3 (64.8% vs. 52.7%, P< 0.05) involvement in Japanese CD children. Pediatric perianal CD was more prevalent in Japanese children (34.1% vs. 9.7%, P< 0.01). Conclusions Upper gastrointestinal and perianal CD lesions are more common in Japanese children than in European children.

In response to the outbreak of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) in Japan, a national COVID-19 cluster taskforce (comprising governmental and nongovernmental experts) was established to support the country’s Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare in conducting daily risk assessment. The assessment was carried out using established infectious disease surveillance systems; however, in the initial stages of the pandemic these were not sufficient for real-time risk assessment owing to limited accessibility, delay in data entry and inadequate case information. Also, local governments were publishing anonymized data on confirmed COVID-19 cases on their official websites as daily press releases. We developed a unique database for nationwide real-time risk assessment that included these case lists from local government websites and integrated all case data into a standardized format. The database was updated daily and checked systematically to ensure comprehensiveness and quality. Between 15 January 2020 and 15 June 2021, 776 459 cases were logged in the database, allowing for analysis of real-time risk from the pandemic. This semi-automated database was used in daily risk assessments, and to evaluate and update control measures to prevent community transmission of COVID-19 in Japan. The data were reported almost every week to the Japanese Government Advisory Panel on COVID-19 for public health responses.