Summary: When polio vaccines were first developed, many experts thought the disease would be fully eradicated within decades. Tragically, as this film shows, it has survived in places like Afghanistan and northern Nigeria. These locations are now acting as disease reservoirs, with children the hardest-hit demographic and with travelers re-infecting other countries once thought invulnerable....
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2004
View online at AVOD
Summary: New and lethal strains of TB are emerging worldwide which cannot be treated by conventional drugs. One estimate puts the number of new MDR TB cases per year as high as 400,000. After 40 years without any research into new drugs, the race is on to find a cure for MDR TB. This program travels between Peru and South Korea as it examines both the current impact of TB super strains in the...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2005
View online at AVOD
Summary: A killer flu outbreak isn't just a developing-world nightmare. The influenza virus is so adaptable that the West is as vulnerable as anywhere else. This program outlines the history of influenza and explores current research into what steps, if any, might prevent a future flu pandemic. Viewers are shown how the virus mutates to resist vaccines and has an uncanny ability to jump species...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2005
View online at AVOD
Summary: In an increasingly global society, disease outbreaks are on the rise-and so is the need for epidemiology expertise. This program introduces students to vital information regarding the transmission, clinical features, diagnosis, treatment, vectors, prevention, and control of several communicable diseases. Students receive vital information on zoonotic diseases such as SARS, Rift Valley fever,...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2009
View online at AVOD
Summary: On World AIDS Day 2003, WHO and UNAIDS released a detailed and concrete plan to reach the 3 by 5 target of providing antiretroviral treatment to three million people living with AIDS in developing countries and those in transition by the end of 2005. It was a vital step toward the ultimate goal of providing universal access to AIDS treatment to all those who need it. This program travels to...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2005
View online at AVOD
Summary: The prescription of antibiotics is a medical tightrope-walk. The drugs save lives, but, because of overuse, may soon usher in a new era of super-germs. This program outlines the discoveries of bacteria and penicillin and sheds light on the frightening emergence of multi-resistant, often deadly microbes during the last six decades. Presenting interviews with researchers who are deeply involved...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2007
View online at AVOD
Summary: Around the world, hospitals have become known for something other than healing-in fact, quite the opposite. This program follows the challenges faced by various hospitals, many of them state-of-the-art facilities, that have become hosts to nearly invincible germs. Focusing on the bacteria known as MRSA, the video goes inside French, German, and Dutch hospitals battling the sinister and...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2008
View online at AVOD
Summary: This program discusses the nature of the HIV virus and shows how it propagates by utilizing living cells. Its organization is examined, along with its most prominent genes-gag, pol, and env. Reverse transcription-the process by which the virus enters the DNA-is examined. Prevention of the reverse transcription process, along with the development of protease inhibitors and genetically engineered...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2005
View online at AVOD
Summary: Why is a cure so elusive? Why has it been so difficult to find a cure or vaccine for AIDS? What makes AIDS so deadly? What is the HIV virus, and how does it devastate the immune system? This eye-opening video explores these questions, providing fascinating insights into the unique qualities of the HIV virus that make AIDS such a relentless killer.
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2005
View online at AVOD
Summary: In sub-Saharan Africa, AIDS is not only a vast humanitarian tragedy, but also a dire threat to regional stability. This Wide Angle documentary explores the role of Angola's military, the only functioning arm of the state, in a nationwide effort to combat the AIDS pandemic. The program identifies what may be the only benefit of Angola's long civil war-specifically, one of the lowest HIV...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006
View online at AVOD
Summary: Despite its amorous nickname, the vinchuca, or kissing bug, actually gives its sleeping victims a malevolent bite sucking blood and transmitting a microscopic parasite called Tripanisoma cruzi. The microbe, in turn, produces Chagas disease, which currently afflicts 16 million people in South America and will kill a quarter of them in middle age. This program travels into the mountain villages...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2011
View online at AVOD
Summary: This program provides a clinical overview of benign bacteria that commonly colonize the human body and, less commonly, pathogens of both infectious and transient asymptomatic strains. Two dramatized throat examinations demonstrate the diagnosis of Streptococcus pyogenes and infectious mononucleosis. Laboratory analysis of a throat culture and a blood sample is demonstrated. Slide images,...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2005
View online at AVOD
Summary: Scientists have identified over 200 viruses, and an estimated 1,000 more may lurk undiscovered throughout the world. This program examines current scientific research on emerging viruses. Live-action microscopy shows the impact of the HIV virus on the human immune system. Sophisticated animation depicting viral life cycles reinforces the concept that the best defense against dangerous viruses...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006
View online at AVOD
Summary: Quick to spread and develop resistance to medical intervention, new strains of microbes pose a growing threat to global health. How does overuse of antibiotics actually encourage more lethal strains of diseases believed to be conquered? How can the media successfully inform the public without causing panic? And should personal rights be curtailed during epidemics? This Fred Friendly Seminar,...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006
View online at AVOD
Summary: Among the research and funding experts of the global health community, the "Big Three" diseases are AIDS, tuberculosis, and malaria. As urgent as it is to fight these illnesses, many others also need attention and aren't getting it. These "forgotten diseases" include elephantiasis (or lymphatic filariasis), bilharzia (or schistosomiasis), and river blindness (or onchocerciasis), among others....
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2011
View online at AVOD
Summary: More and more drug-resistant strains of Haemophilus influenzae type b bacteria (Hib) have emerged in recent years, and the consequences of late or no treatment are devastating. The microbe is estimated to cause at least 3 million cases of serious disease-often meningitis-and up to 700,000 deaths each year among young children. This program examines the tragic problem in Bangladesh, where the...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2011
View online at AVOD
Summary: Estimated to infect about one-fifth of the world's population, worm parasites are especially destructive in poor, rural areas of the developing world. This program focuses on the hookworm, the stealthiest and most resilient of the helminth, or worm, varieties. Examining the insidious methods by which hookworm parasites enter the human body, the video shows how they endanger their hosts and what...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006
View online at AVOD
Summary: Illustrating connections between globalization and the spread of disease, this program uses data-mapping to assess the potential impact of deadly viruses-including the much-feared and adaptable avian influenza. Outbreaks of bird flu in the Netherlands and West Nile virus in New York City illustrate the increasing mobility of exotic pathogens in an era of frequent international travel and...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006
View online at AVOD
Summary: This award-winning program takes an unflinching look at the lives of Kenya's chokoras, children orphaned by AIDS. It features emotionally charged visits to a disease-ravaged Nairobi slum, starkly illustrating the link between poverty, prostitution, and the tragically high level of sexual activity and ignorance among Kenya's street kids. Eschewing any pretense of offering solutions, the program...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2005
View online at AVOD
Summary: Lymphatic filariasis, a mosquito-borne parasitic disease commonly known as elephantiasis, results in massive swelling of the limbs and genitals, leading to severe disability. Over 40 million people are seriously incapacitated and disfigured by it, with millions more at risk. Now an ambitious campaign is underway to eliminate the disease globally by interrupting its transmission. Two...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2011
View online at AVOD
Summary: In 1971, President Nixon declared war on cancer, envisioning a cure within five years. What mechanisms-financial, political, and medical-did his announcement set in motion? Are we any closer to winning the war? This program takes on those questions, examining milestones in cancer research and studying forces outside the scientific world that have driven or hindered anti-cancer efforts....
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006
View online at AVOD
Summary: A veritable army of cells is constantly on the alert in our bodies. Its mission is to destroy any foreign cells, viruses, or bacteria that attack the fortress they are protecting, the human body. This program uses stunning imagery to describe the battles our immune system wages inside our bodies, showing how it sets up defenses against viral invasion. It explains how, by means of vaccination,...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006
View online at AVOD
Summary: Lethal parasites kill one human every ten seconds. Others prefer to keep people alive, for food and shelter. In this program, patients discuss their encounters with botfly maggots, leeches, candiru fish, elephantiasis, tapeworms and cerebral tapeworm cysts, and a tiny water parasite that eats away at the interior of the eye. Experiments include one in which lice are scattered on a volunteer to...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006
View online at AVOD
Summary: Both promising and controversial, the drug Nevirapine is a strategic weapon in the battle against pediatric AIDS. This program explores the positive effects of medicines such as Nevirapine and AZT-and of obstetric procedures developed in recent years-that have helped prevent in utero HIV. It also assesses progress that doctors and counselors have made in helping youths who are already infected...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006