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My name is... [in several languages]
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>>Okebe: In The Gambia we’ve observed significant reductions actually in
child mortality, even hospital admissions from malaria, simply because, you know,
the government is actually following onto guidelines, which
have solid evidence based on systematic reviews.
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>>Pérez Koehlmoos: The work itself is incredible and it does, it's something that shows that systematic reviews
can save lives in developing countries. We believe in Bangladesh if we were able
to reach 100% of the children that we could save about 50,000 child lives per year.
>>Lumbiganon: We have more than 100 Cochrane Review titles conducted by authors from Thailand
and it keep continue increasing.
And we strongly believe that we have capacity to contribute to the world
in terms of doing systematic reviews to share with other people.
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>>Volmink: We established the South African Cochrane Centre;
we made it a very clear goal that we would prioritise the conditions that are important to Africa.
We did that not necessarily on our own; we worked very closely with the collaborative Review Groups.
We have together been able to substantially increase the number of
reviews that are relevant to Africa in areas such as ***, tuberculosis, malaria.
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>>Narrator: In South America the work of the Brazilian Cochrane Centre has reached the highest levels of public policy.
>>Atallah: About seven years ago, we started working with the Minister of Health.
We started preparing systematic reviews.
It’s an essential step to do health assessment,
to incorporate new technologies to do the review at the beginning before any economic evaluation.
>>Narrator: In Costa Rica
the Central America and Caribbean Branch of the Iberoamerican Cochrane Centre
is a valuable resource for public policy decision-makers.
>>Tristán: [Spanish] There is a debate in my country on whether to use the pneumococcal vaccine.
It’s a very expensive vaccine.
Nine million or $10 million for a country of four million inhabitants is a lot of money.
In this case, the health minister asked us for the best information to make an informed decision.
So that's a change, when the health minister requests information to make a better decision.
>>Narrator: However being independent source of scientific medical evidence has consequences.
>>Tristán: [Spanish] So there is enormous pressure from the pharmaceutical industry on the Minister.
When she revealed that we in the foundation,
and the Central American Cochrane Collaboration,
were helping to research this issue,
then we are pressured as well.
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>>Narrator: The Collaboration seeks to expand the use of independent scientific evidence around the globe,
and has entered into official relations with the World Health Organization,
including a seat on the World Health Assembly.
>>Cuervo: [Spanish] We are working collaboratively.
The Cochrane Collaboration has a great capacity for synthesizing knowledge
and training people to be better users and producers of scientific knowledge.
And this is a well-defined component
of the Pan American Health Organization’s Policy on Research for Health
and of the Research Strategy of the World Health Organization.
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>>Narrator: Since 1997 Metin Gülmezoglu and his team at the World Health Organization
have developed and maintained the WHO Reproductive Health Library which is based on Cochrane Reviews.
Several thousand of these are downloaded every year.
>>Bishop Velarde: [Spanish] I was invited to participate as a woman from Latin America
and provide comments to the Reproductive Health Library at the WHO in Geneva.
We could review the library and determine
what we need as consumers of the Library.
>>Narrator: While Cochrane contributors have made significant advances in low- and middle-income countries,
many challenges remain.
>>Tharyan: One of the problems is that there isn't much research
happening in my country, which is good enough to get including in Cochrane Reviews.
So what it's taught me to do is that we have to be responsible for doing more research
and we also have to be responsible for getting it out there so people know it exists;
and for that, what we do is we've got this South Asian database of clinical trials,
essentially all trials done in our region.
Ethics committees need to be strengthened and only then will this have any real clinical impact.
Because people just generally don’t trust research because so much of it is tainted.
And it’s taught me that we need to ask questions which are of relevance to people,
and we’ve been doing trials when we find there are no reliable systematic reviews on certain topics.
And these are pragmatic trials, which the outcomes are chosen by our clinicians and our patients and not by drug companies.
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>>Okebe: I know that the Library is freely available to low- and middle-income countries
but access in the sense that it’s there, but how many people know that it’s there?
Which is something that we kind of need to clearly define or make it even more accessible.
>>Soares-Weiser: I think the issue of language barriers is an issue that it's very much on the table
and that people know, because there is a lot of people in countries like
Brazil, South America, Spain, or China,
in fact, 50% of the potential authors might not speak
good English, but still, they can collaborate and do work.
>>Tristán: [Spanish] Because it widens the knowledge base of The Cochrane Collaboration.
If you want to have global knowledge and a global perspective
then you have to include the entire world.
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>>Narrator: In the most populous non-English speaking country, Youping Li and her team
have been working hard to expand the Chinese Cochrane Centre.
>>Li: We should change, reform our medical education system to produce qualified enough health workers
to serve the people and work in the new system in order to fit the 2020, the global goal.
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>>Nabhan: We are the biggest country in the region in terms of the number of physicians,
the number of medical students going to medical schools.
And then we serve outside Egypt. Most of the doctors in the Gulf region are Egyptians,
so our impact is enormous in the region. If we are good then the health service in the region will be great.
If we are bad or below average, then the health service in the country and in the neighboring country will be so.
Saving lives and resources, this is a very good equation and it can be implemented using guidelines based on Cochrane Reviews.
People are very enthusiastic. They want to do something. They want to share.
They want to contribute to evidence.
I know that because I talk to hundreds of students and residents and practitioners in Egypt, they want to do that.
They want to feel like they are sharing something.
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