Iron, cadmium, and chromium in seagrass (Thalassia testudinum) from a coastal nature reserve in karstic Yucatán.

The management of protected areas in karstic regions is a challenge because flooded cave systems form there and provide underground hydrological conducts that may link different zones. As a consequence, affectations to the protected areas can possibly occur as a consequence of human activities in remote areas and may therefore pass undetected. Thus, the monitoring of possible contaminants in these regions is becoming imperative.

[The 2008 Nobel Prizes in medicine and physiology].

For the last century, the Nobel Prize in physiology and medicine has been awarded worldwide to significant discoveries. The prize allows the dissemination of information on the achievements of recipients, promotes understanding of scientific knowledge among the public and attracts young students to biomedical research. This paper briefly describes the prizes granted to the fields of physiology and medicine, emphasizing those that related to development of vaccines.

Using national health weeks to deliver deworming to children: lessons from Mexico.

Mexico established national health weeks (NHWs) in the early 1980s to promote childhood vaccinations. Because of the cumulative worldwide peer-reviewed scientific evidence, the recommendations of the World Health Organization and other international organisations, the political will of the Mexican government and the infrastructure provided by the NHWs, deworming was added to the NHWs in 1993. In addition to the Ministry of Health, several other government organisations participated in administering the deworming component.

[Improvement of child survival in Mexico: the diagonal approach].

Public health interventions aimed at children in Mexico have placed the country among the seven countries on track to achieve the goal of child mortality reduction by 2015. We analysed census data, mortality registries, the nominal registry of children, national nutrition surveys, and explored temporal association and biological plausibility to explain the reduction of child, infant, and neonatal mortality rates. During the past 25 years, child mortality rates declined from 64 to 23 per 1000 livebirths.

Improvement of child survival in Mexico: the diagonal approach.

Public health interventions aimed at children in Mexico have placed the country among the seven countries on track to achieve the goal of child mortality reduction by 2015. We analysed census data, mortality registries, the nominal registry of children, national nutrition surveys, and explored temporal association and biological plausibility to explain the reduction of child, infant, and neonatal mortality rates. During the past 25 years, child mortality rates declined from 64 to 23 per 1000 livebirths.