AFRO-NETS> Supercourse Newsletter, January 4, 2002

[Ron Laporte <super1+@pitt.edu>]

Supercourse Newsletter, January 4, 2002
---------------------------------------

http://www.pitt.edu/~super1/

Dear Friends,

We all wish that you have a wonderful 2002. One of us is from Buf-
falo, NY, USA, and they are just digging out of 2.8 meters of Snow 
that fell within a 2 day period of time. It most certainly was a 
white New Years Eve.

2002: Rats Live On Ron nor no Evil Star

2001 was a very bi-polar year, with ups in the beginning of the year 
to downs at the end. The numbers 2001 most certainly do not flow.

However, 2002 is a year in Harmony, as will be the Supercourse. From 
New York City, at 12:00 people had glasses on that were symmetric, as 
they would look out the two 00s, with the 2's hanging on the side. 
The number 2002 is rather neat as it is palindrome, which are numbers 
(or words) that read the same in both directions. The last Palindrome 
year was 1991, and the next will not be until most of us (or all of 
us) are dead and gone, 2112. So we need to live 2002 in harmony and 
peace. Palindrome words in English are fascinating also, such as ro-
tator, or reviver, or fancier with phrases such as "Madam, I'm Adam" 
or "Rats live on ron, nor no evil star". Most palindrome phrases are 
not poetry, but just a fascinating curiosity. If you can think of any 
supercourse palindromes we would love to post them.

Calendar and CDs: 
We are very pleased with the interest in the CDs this year. We dis-
tributed over 4000, most of you have already received them. We would 
like to ask a favor of you. If you do not think you will use the CD, 
or cannot distribute copies, please return the CDs to us. We have a 
very limited budget, and not everyone received the CDs, so if you are 
not interested in the CDs, please either send it to someone who is, 
or send it back to us so we can re-distribute these to those who want 
them.

We developed a Supercourse Calendar for 2002. Eleven faculty members 
are chosen for their enormous contributions to the development of the 
Supercourse. Each of them was asked to choose one of their favorite 
slides and to express their opinions about Supercourse both in Eng-
lish and their own languages. The calendar is not only a gift from 
us, but also a gift from all Supercourse members. If you haven't got 
the calendar through email, please send us a note, or you can 
download the calendar from our web site http://www.pitt.edu/~super1/ 
Please give us your comments and suggestions on the calendar to 
<super3@pitt.edu>

A good friend of ours in Scandinavia was watching her CD, while with 
her calendar on the wall, with a nice cup of hot chocolate. Now there 
is Epidemiologic Heaven!! Could there be anything better?

MOH and the Supercourse: 
Pedro Urra and his colleagues at the MOH in Cuba have started the Cu-
ban National Supercourse, and already have 20 lectures. We have been 
discussing the supercourse with the Minister of Health in Egypt, and 
there is the exciting possibility of expanding the supercourse 
throughout that country. We are having similar discussions in the 
Ukraine. The concept is to mirror the supercourse, and to collect the 
best lectures within a country and make these available to those in 
public health and prevention throughout the countries.

Comic Books: 
Rania Saad from the MOH of Egypt came up with a brilliant idea to 
reach the last mile in Egypt and other countries. She and Abed Hus-
seini have suggested that we bring a group of supercourse lectures 
together, such as on surveillance, or diabetes epidemiology. We then 
convert these into Supercourse Comic books, as these are very cheap 
to print in most countries, these "Global Health " comic books can 
then be distributed with CDs across the digital divide. This is a 
most interesting idea as to how to be the information out concerning 
the supercourse. Please let us know if you are interested. We had 
published a few years ago the concept of Hypertext comic book in Na-
ture Medicine, this fits right in with the idea.

Training: 
We are beginning to see considerable interest by people to come to be 
trained with us in the technologies of the supercourse. We were 
thinking that before major meetings such as the International Epide-
miology Society meeting in Montreal we could give a short-course on 
the care, feeding and development of county specific supercourses. In 
addition, our group in Pittsburgh, as well with Eugene Shubnikov in 
Russia would be pleased to train people on our technologies. We would 
also help by writing letters to help people obtain funding. We apolo-
gize, but we do not have training monies ourselves. We can see that 
in the next 5 years we could have individuals trained in 50 different 
countries, and these people will be supporting the supercourse in 
their areas.

One of the strongest Supercourse supporters, Dr. Shabina Roza from 
Khyber Teaching Hospital in Pakistan would like to develop a teaching 
module for treatment of severely malnourished children. Khyber Hospi-
tal is treating many malnourished children, including Afghan refu-
gees. Case fatality rates for these children have dropped dramati-
cally from the previous 20% to less than 5%. There is the need for 
lectures on prevention and treatment in the Afghan children, as with 
all children across the world... If anybody is interested in helping, 
please contact the Supercourse team <super3@pitt.edu>

Accomplishments 2001:

 -250 new lectures roughly from 330 to 580
 -1822 new faculty from 3100 to 4922
 -3 new mirrored servers from 29 to 32
 -9 new publications
 -1 NIH grant submitted on a Supercourse for Terrorism
 -3 new programs begun on Molecular epidemiology, Islamic Super
  course, and Prevention Center
 -15 visitors form outside US to Pittsburgh
 -5600 CDs distributed (1000 June, 600 August, 200 October-November,
  3800 December)
 -4300 calendars distributed in December
 -International Epidemiology Society program for 2002
 -Rapid development of islamic global health network
 -Continued development of FSU Supercourse and distribution of mate-
  rials in Russia, Ukraine, Kazakhstan and Arab/Islamic countries
 -Benjamin Acosta went back to Mexico and took a position of Head of
  the Evaluation of Public Health Programs Department in the Direc-
  torate of Epidemiology of the Health Ministry
 -Rapid Supercourse development in Japan: Supercourse presentation
  was a key note talk in Japan, 2001 Supercourse presentations were
  made in the Japanese Association of Computer Science and at The
  University of Tokyo

--
Ron, Akira, Eun Ryoung, Fan, Mita, Faina, Eugene, Grace, Beatriz and 
Abed
mailto:super1+@pitt.edu

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