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Diarrhoeal
Diseases Reference
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updated: 24 April, 2014
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Diarrhoeal
Diseases Reference
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Launch Date
The First Edition has gone through beta testing and will begin distribution in late 2002.
Content Participants
Includes documents from the following:
Audience
The main audience is primary health care personnel working on
child health around the world; with a focus in India. This will
include nurses, medical assistants, paediatricians, doctors,
hospitals, health educators, education institutions, trainers,
pharmacists, paramedics and community development workers.
The audience in India will be selected from the results of advertising,
promotions on partner web sites, campaigns, articles and press
releases to targeted mailing lists in major cities in India -
Mumbai, Delhi, Calcutta, Chennai, Ahmedabad, Bangalore, Bihar
and a few more. A good sampling of towns and villages around
major cities would also be included.
Previous computer experience is not necessary and the navigation
and text have been carefully created and edited so that it is
easily understood by students with English as their second
language.
First Edition Distribution
4,000 discs. About 1000 of those would be given free to
institutions involved in the control, management and teaching of
diarrhoeal diseases around the world. 4000 will be
distributed free to a targeted audience in India. The project
will include careful selection of the recipients and, at a later
stage, impact assessment.
The total number of cds distributed worldwide, spread over the
next 4 to 5 years would be 40,000. Future editions will be
revised as per the input received from evaluation and assessment
programs that follow.
The First Edition will be distributed worldwide in
collaboration with
We will continue to explore the possibility of further development of the Diarrhoeal Diseases Reference CD-ROM to include other resources through partnerships with donors and information providers.
Why CD-ROM?
The number of health workers in developing countries who have access
to all of the following in order to use Online
Reference databases is very insignificant.
a) electricity
b) a computer powerful
enough to use the Internet
c) a telephone line
and
d) affordable internet
access.
There are many health workers around the world who have access
to a computer but lack a telephone line or have limited or no
internet access. There are also those who have this access but
the connect costs are so prohibitive that serious research,
viewing, searching and downloading of documents from the web
sites is not realistic.
We believe, that by removing the telephone line and internet
access requirement and making this reference database available
on a CD-ROM, we will be greatly expanding the audience of the
information on the control and management of diarrhoeal diseases
contained on this CD.
The Potential of CD-ROM
Budget cut-backs and rising costs are making it increasingly
difficult for medical libraries in developing countries to
purchase up-to-date textbooks and journals. Meanwhile CD-ROM is
becoming more available and is already having a substantial
impact in many parts of the world. A single CD is 12 cm across,
weighs only a few grams, and can contain more information than a
whole shelf of textbooks. They can be expensive to develop, but
post-production costs of manufacture and distribution are
relatively low (as compared with print media), making them ideal
for worldwide distribution. Furthermore, the master copy can be
modified and updated with ease.
Access to CD-ROM hardware is clearly a key issue. Although
increasing worldwide, access continues to be limited in some
parts of the developing world; some libraries have no
information technology facilities at all, others have only a
single CD-ROM station that might already be heavily used for
database searching. The emergence of innovative educational products such as the Diarrhoeal Diseases Reference emphasizes
the potential of CD-ROM as a reference and training tool.
Users can work alone at their own pace, in small groups, or as a
whole classroom (images and reference materials can be projected
on a large screen). The information in the references can be
used to produce printed materials for private study and outreach
use at primary care level.
Evaluations
A careful selection will be made to determine the recipients
of this CD-ROM. A follow-up assessment of the impact of this CD
will be conducted several months after release of the first
edition.
Funding
The CDs are intended to be accessible to as many health
workers as possible worldwide, and will therefore be available
at no cost for developing countries.
Funding for the First Edition has already been arranged.
Rehydration Project and Healthlink Worldwide will also be
working with funding agencies and government departments to
provide more areas of the developing world with free copies of
the CD-ROM. Continued international funding and support for
development, replication and distribution of future editions
will help to bring such products to an ever-wider audience and
is to be encouraged.
Companion CD-ROM
'Topics in International Health' is an exciting and unique
series of educational materials for medical and life sciences
students, their teachers and other healthcare professionals.
Aspects of international and tropical health are presented on a
range of CD-ROMs, each focusing on a disease (or group of
diseases) of global significance. This exciting new series
of CD-ROMs has been developed by the Wellcome
Trust, the world's largest medical research charity, for use
as an educational resource in tropical and international health.
The Diarrhoeal
Diseases Interactive Tutorials, Image Collection and Glossary
CD-ROM provides an illustrated introduction to this important
group of diseases, their causes, diagnosis, treatment,
prevention and control.
All the information on the CD-ROMs has been reviewed by experts
to ensure that it is comprehensive, accurate, and up to date.
The topics are presented in a clear and simple format to help
explain complex concepts. Three complementary resources are
contained on each of these unique CD-ROMs: a selection of interactive
tutorials, an image collection, and a glossary.
We look at the Diarrhoeal Diseases Interactive Tutorials,
Image Collection and Glossary and the Diarrhoeal Diseases
Reference cds as a companion set and a 'must have' for those
involved with diarrhoeal diseases control, prevention, treatment
and management around
the world.
A More Complete Solution
Librarians will no doubt be playing a role in the use of CD-ROM
learning and reference materials for medical education - they
are the managers of information resources. More and more such
products are being issued in this format which can pose problems
for the teaching faculties: they do not necessarily have
computers with CD-ROM drives in their departments and often the
library is the only place where they are available. However the
computers and CD-ROM drives in medical libraries are probably in
constant use for the searching of bibliographical databases such
as MEDLINE and POPLINE. If each student takes about an hour to
work through the reference material on one CD-ROM drive in a
library, hardware resources can be severely immobilised. Can a
medical department or a library afford to make a machine
available just for these resources? Should the provision of the
necessary hardware be part of "the package"?
The management of these important information resources needs to
be discussed between medical faculty staff and the librarians
especially in developing countries where funds for hardware are
scarce.
System Requirements
Hardware: IBM PC & Compatibles: 86 DX2 or better
processor (Pentium recommended), SVGA Display ( capable of
displaying 16 bit colour (thousands of colours) at a
resolution of 800 x 600 pixels), Mouse, CD-ROM drive, 16 Mb
RAM, 10 MB hard disk space
Software: Windows 95/98, Video for Windows (can be
installed from the CD-ROM)
Sorry, a Mac version of the Diarrhoeal Diseases Reference CD-ROM
is not available.
updated: 24 April, 2014
