World Hepatitis Day

World Hepatitis Day promotes awareness and understanding of the viral disease as a global public health problem.

World Viral Hepatitis Day has been celebrated by the World Health Organization (WHO) every July 28 since 2008.

The purpose of this celebration is to promote awareness and understanding of viral hepatitis as a global public health problem and to strengthen action to prevent and control the disease worldwide. By celebrating this day, WHO aims to achieve several objectives on a global scale:

  • To reduce the likelihood of new hepatitis A, B, C, or E infections by 90%.
  • To prevent 65% of the deaths caused by this disease each year.

What is viral hepatitis?

Viral hepatitis is an infection that causes acute inflammation of the liver. In most cases, the inflammation of the liver starts suddenly and lasts only a few weeks.

There are 4 different types of hepatitis viruses: A, B, C, and E.

Hepatitis A is contracted from food or water contaminated with the virus. The main route of transmission is fecal-oral, especially in countries with poor hygiene and contaminated water.

Hepatitis B, through contact with blood and/or body fluids, unprotected sexual intercourse, sharing of syringes and personal hygiene items (toothbrushes, razors), acupuncture, tattooing and/or body piercing in poor sanitary conditions, and from mother to child during childbirth and breastfeeding.

Hepatitis C is also spread by contact with the blood of a person infected with the virus.

Together, hepatitis B and C are the leading cause of death, with 1.4 million deaths annually.

In the absence of vaccination, hepatitis B is the most commonly diagnosed form of hepatitis, which in most cases is an acute infection that resolves completely, although it can sometimes become chronic. Hepatitis C is the most chronic and most commonly progresses to cirrhosis.

Most cases of hepatitis E are zoonotic and mainly associated with pigs. The infection is transmitted to humans by eating undercooked contaminated meat and can cause acute hepatitis.

In Spain, hepatitis is a Notifiable Disease (NDD), which means that it must be reported to the System of Notifiable Diseases, the basic system of the Epidemiological Surveillance Network.

In Spain, almost one and a half million people are carriers of the hepatitis B or C virus, although only 10% know it.

by Global

How to begin a critical reading of a scientific article

Evidence-based medicine (EBM) is a systematic process of searching for, evaluating, and using the results of biomedical research as an essential basis for decision making in clinical practice through a methodology of information analysis, primarily from clinical trials, but not just any clinical trial, but those conducted in a prospective, controlled, and randomized manner.

Critical reading of a scientific article is included as one of the basic pillars of EBM, which consists of evaluating and interpreting the evidence provided by the scientific literature, systematically considering the results presented, their validity and their relevance to the work itself. Critical reading is a tool that will help us to eliminate in the shortest possible time the scientific articles of poor quality and to accept only those with sufficient scientific quality to help us in our decision making for patient care.

Reading articles that do not have sufficient potential and validity is time-consuming and distorts knowledge. These are the questions that every scientific article should answer for a preliminary evaluation of its quality and that you should ask yourself before starting to read the article in depth.

by Global

Branding: How to successfully manage your brand image

Branding is the process of defining and building a brand. It includes the planned management of the graphic image, communication character and positioning. It works on both tangible and intangible elements of the company to provide the target audience with a homogeneous vision of the brand with a value proposition. Thanks to branding, companies develop a corporate identity and a general communication model, adding value to the brand and differentiating the company from its competitors in space and time.

The goal is to position the brand in the consumer's mind and become the top of mind in the industry. To achieve the right differentiation and competitive advantage, the need to create credibility and trust must be addressed, and the brand's values must be emphasized at all times in order to strengthen and differentiate the identity of the products or services.

Corporate branding consists of five basic elements: naming, identity, positioning, loyalty and brand architecture. But before you start thinking about what color palette to choose for your logo or what tone to use to engage your audience on Twitter, you need to stop and look at the big picture.

In this article, we will explain what a brand strategy is, why you should develop one for your company, and what the keys to success are. Such strategies are always long-term and aimed at achieving specific goals. A strong and coherent identity must be developed to highlight the brand's attributes.

Here are twelve keys that every brand must have to be successful:

  1. Create a value proposition based on the values of the company.
  2. Define a clear purpose and communicate it, both externally and internally.
  3. Define the attributes of the brand and its added value.
  4. Work consistently on brand positioning in all channels.
  5. Create a homogeneous corporate identity and an identity manual.
  6. Develop a solid and consistent corporate image.
  7. Create an effective, simple and easy to memorize slogan.
  8. Define what the company's voice will be and what tone it will use.
  9. Connect with your audience by creating lasting emotions and positive reinforcement.
  10. Work with business flexibility and reap a good working environment.
  11. Create a style guide that reflects how the brand should look in any scenario.
  12. Reward customers for their loyalty and work on value creation for them.

For a company to become a market leader, it must create and maintain a good brand strategy. It will not be an easy process, but it is the only way to achieve the right differentiation and success. The power of brand image is what makes a company unbeatable and should never be neglected.

by Global

12 Tips to optimize your video calls and not die trying

For over a year now, the COVID-19 healthcare crisis has imposed new ways of working. At first, we all had to adapt in a hurry but now, some of these measures, such as teleworking and video calls, seem to have taken hold in many companies.

This article lists the best tips for getting the most out of video calls and thus optimizing everyone's energy and productivity.

    1. Whenever possible, set up the meeting in advance. People will be able to better organize their agenda and prioritize your meeting over other events that may come later.
    2. In the meeting invitation, leave in writing:
      • The overall objective of the meeting.
      • The issues to be addressed.
      • The attendees and their positions, in case not all attendees know each other.
    3. If you are working on a document or presentation, send it in advance, facilitating pre-reading. This will help the attendees to be more familiar with the subject matter and will allow for faster progress.
    4. Address the most important issues at the beginning of the meeting so that you can devote as much time as needed to them. If there are less important topics, cover them at the end of the meeting.
    5. Respect the start and end times of the meeting and leave a few minutes of courtesy at the end to give a break to people who may have to go into another videoconference.
    6. Familiarize yourself with the platform you will be using and pre-test before the meeting to minimize problems in the call.
    7. Keep your camera on. Several studies have found an increase in concentration when you keep your camera on in these types of meetings.
    8. However, when it comes to routine meetings, turn off the camera. In this way we reduce the environmental impact generated by using these technologies by 96%.
    9. Maintain eye contact with the camera as this will make it appear as if you are looking at your interlocutors. It may help placing a post-it to point to the camera.
    10. Use a neutral or blurred background; do not use histrionic default backgrounds provided by some platforms (paradisiacal beaches, space landscapes, etc).
    11. At the end of the meeting, send the attendees a brief summary of the main points discussed and the possible assignments of the participants.
    12. Most importantly, practice empathy and understanding with others and with yourself. Don't be embarrassed by possible interruptions (children, pets, delivery people...).

by Global