Underestimating attacks: comparing two sources of publicly-available data about attacks on health care in 2017.

Background: Attacks on health care represent an area of growing international concern. Publicly available data are important in documenting attacks, and are often the only easily accessible data source. Data collection processes about attacks on health and their implications have received little attention, despite the fact that datasets and their collection processes may result in differing numbers.

Structure and management of tuberculosis control programs in fragile states--Afghanistan, DR Congo, Haiti, Somalia.

Objectives: Health care delivery is particularly problematic in fragile states often connected with increased incidence of communicable diseases, among them tuberculosis. This article draws upon experiences in tuberculosis control in four fragile states from which four lessons learned were derived.

Methods: A structured inventory to extract common themes specific for TB control in fragile states was conducted among twelve providers of technical assistance who have worked in fragile states.

Tuberculosis in complex emergencies.

This paper describes the key factors and remaining challenges for tuberculosis (TB) control programmes in complex emergencies. A complex emergency is "a humanitarian crisis in a country, region or society where there is total or considerable breakdown of authority resulting from internal or external conflict and which requires an international response that goes beyond the mandate or capacity of any single agency and/or the ongoing United Nations country programme." Some 200 million people are believed to live in countries affected by complex emergencies; almost all of these are developing countries that also bear the main burden of TB.

The mystery of the wooden leg: vitamin C deficiency in East African prisons.

Vitamin C deficiency (scurvy) is an uncommon disease in modern times, and therefore easily misdiagnosed when it appears. While visiting prisoners in East Africa, health delegates of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) encountered prisoners suffering from a hitherto undiagnosed 'mysterious' illness, consisting mainly of swollen and hard legs, that had not responded to various treatments given by the local health centre or hospital. The ICRC set out to investigate the nature of this disease and examined 133 prisoners with the suspected clinical symptoms described as 'wooden leg' syndrome in 10 different prisons.