Taste of Laos in Richmond school garden

Taste of Laos in Richmond school garden

Click on the link to get more news and video from original source: http://www.sfgate.com/homeandgarden/thedirt/article/Taste-of-Laos-in-Richmond-school-garden-4298443.php#photo-4220806

Joe Eaton and Ron Sullivan

Updated 1:13 pm, Friday, February 22, 2013

Kert and Saeng Doungdara tend to their garden at the Verde Partnership Garden in Richmond. Photo: Paul Chinn, The Chronicle

This is the third in an occasional series on urban farmers working to preserve their cultural foodways by growing heritage crops in the Bay Area. For previous installments, go to http://bit.ly/QCQKM9.

The Verde Elementary School Partnership Garden is a reclaimed treasure in urban North Richmond, a flourishing melange of row crops and ornamentals, fruit trees and butterfly plants. On our first visit 14 years ago, we saw Southeast Asians and Central Americans swapping chili peppers and beans. A Mien woman used the school kitchen to make sweet corn pancakes to share.

Since then, changes in demographics and funding have reshaped the garden; it’s still producing and teaching under the care of Bienvenida Mesa, who works for the Richmond nonprofit, Urban Tilth. Alongside her projects there’s a plot or two to spare, and Saeng and Kert Dohngdara, a Lao couple in their 70s keep up the tradition of raising Southeast Asian crops in the exotic soil of West Contra Costa County.

Laos is a complicated little country, and not all Laotians are ethnic Lao. The Lao are or were a majority of the population, mostly settled farmers along the Mekong; before the Pathet Lao took over, the ruling class was Lao. But they’re relative newcomers, having displaced the Khmu, who have ties to the Khmer of Cambodia. Farther into the highlands lived groups like the Hmong and the Mien, swidden farmers and hunters. Subgroups exist within these, based on language and customs: for example Green Hmong and White Hmong. Several groups, including Lao, Khmu and Mien, have settled in Richmond since the conflict in the former Indochina ended in 1975.

Food bridges some of the ethnic gaps. Every cook has a recipe for laab (or larb), the minced-meat salad also popular in northern Thailand. Sticky rice is a staple. The corn pancake the Mien woman made is included in the first English-language Hmong cookbook, “Cooking From the Heart: The Hmong Kitchen in America” (University of Minnesota Press). The Lao use herbs like dill, uncommon in Southeast Asian cuisine. Unexpected ingredients like rattan (only the shoots), water buffalo hide (yes, hide) and giant water bug (reputedly tastes like gorgonzola) turn up. Bottled essence of giant water bug is an acceptable substitute for the last. You can buy that locally nowadays, and the Dohngdaras can buy their seeds and plant starts, though like their predecessors here they still save some of their own.

They visit the school twice a week to tend their section of the garden. The harvest goes to their extended family and others in the local Lao community. Their plot includes two dry-land taro patches (“One variety for the leaves, another for the root,” Kert Dohngdara explained), dill, three kinds of basil, small incendiary bird chiles and bitter green eggplants, the aromatic knotweed that he calls pachpal and the Vietnamese call rau ram. There’s Malabar spinach, whose arrowhead-shaped leaves are cooked with meat. Some familiar plants play unfamiliar roles in Lao cuisine: “You cook the roots of lemongrass like onion, with shrimp.”

We also saw an unfamiliar herb with a perfoliate, scalloped little leaf. “I don’t know what it’s called,” Kert told us. “I didn’t plant it. The root is used for fever.” We looked it up; apparently it’s a pennywort. The Hmong call it lauj vag and treat coughs with it. Other hillfolk in Thailand apply it to cuts and wounds as a poultice. We couldn’t find its Lao name. The plant may be a holdover from the time of the Mien or some other ethnic group.

Maybe Saeng Dohngdara could have told us more about it if we could have worked through the language barrier and her shyness – she did communicate that she’d steep the root, like tea. Herbal medicine among at least some Laotian peoples is women’s province. A few years back Jan Corlett, Ellen Dean and Louis Grivetti of UC Davis interviewed Hmong women involved in a community garden in Sacramento. They reported that the older participants grew more medicinal plants than the younger ones – another case of traditional knowledge fading away as the first immigrant generation passes.

The Dohngdaras have been involved with the school garden for 17 years. Kert’s family grew rice in the Mekong Delta. He left Laos in 1980 and lived in Atlanta and Boston before relocating to the Bay Area, where he had relatives, and worked as a machinist before back problems forced him to retire. Dohngdara sometimes recruits his children and grandchildren (his oldest son is 55) to help weed and harvest, but he and Saeng keep their hands in: “It’s better than sitting at home watching TV.”

Resources

Urban Tilth’s Verde Partnership Garden page: www.urbantilth.org/gardens/verde-partnership-garden

Joe Eaton and Ron Sullivan are naturalists and freelance writers in Berkeley. E-mail: home@sfchronicle.com

Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/homeandgarden/thedirt/article/Taste-of-Laos-in-Richmond-school-garden-4298443.php#ixzz2NEfK14yo

Press Release: Walgreens Donates More Than $9 Million Worth of Flu Vaccine to Laos

375,000 people in Laos will benefit from donation to Lao Ministry of Health

Click on the link to get more news and video from original source:  http://news.walgreens.com/article_display.cfm?article_id=5577

18 April 2012

DEERFIELD, Ill., April 18, 2012 – As flu season approaches in Southeast Asia, Walgreens (NYSE, NASDAQ: WAG) today announced a donation of 375,000 doses of seasonal flu vaccine to Lao People’s Democratic Republic (referred to as Lao PDR or Laos). The Lao PDR Ministry of Health (Lao MOH) was selected to receive the vaccine based on longstanding collaborations between the Lao MOH, World Health Organization (WHO) and the Department of Health and Human Services’ Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), as well as Walgreens objective to provide vaccine to a population in need.

“This is an example of the potential value of collaboration between public health and private organizations,” said Dr. Joe Bresee, chief of the Epidemiology and Prevention Branch in CDC’s Influenza Division. “Influenza vaccination is an important tool to reduce respiratory disease in Laos, particularly among people who are at risk for serious flu complications including pregnant women, the elderly and people with chronic health conditions. We’re excited to help make this happen.”

Walgreens, which provides more flu vaccine in the United States each year than any other retailer, drugstore chain or U.S. corporation, has worked with the CDC and the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to help increase the number of people vaccinated against influenza in underserved communities across America. Kathleen Sebelius, Secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, visited a Chicago area Walgreens this season to get her seasonal flu shot from one of its pharmacists. HHS also assisted Walgreens in the distribution of seasonal flu vaccine vouchers in select markets throughout the country the last two years, which provided free flu vaccinations for the uninsured and underinsured.

Lao PDR health officials have designated the 375,000 doses of donated flu vaccine for people at high risk of flu complications in that country, including pregnant women, seniors and people with chronic health conditions such as heart and lung disease. The Walgreens donation was the result of a unique CDC-facilitated collaboration between Walgreens and the Lao MOH.

“In recent years, going back to the 2009 H1N1 pandemic, we’ve demonstrated the positive impact we can have by helping to increase flu vaccination coverage while working together with government and health officials at every level,” said Kermit Crawford, Walgreens president of pharmacy, health and wellness. “As flu season winds down here in the United States, we’re pleased to provide vaccine to the people of Laos and to work with the Ministry of Health to help launch its seasonal flu vaccination effort.”

Laos has a population of more than 6.7 million people, and during the 2009-2010 flu pandemic more than 1 million people were vaccinated against 2009 H1N1; however, the country currently does not have an ongoing seasonal flu vaccination program.

“The Ministry of Health in Laos has worked collaboratively with CDC and WHO to establish the infrastructure to implement this seasonal flu vaccination campaign. They are ready, and on April 24 the country will launch the vaccination campaign across Laos with the donated vaccine from Walgreens,” said Bresee.

The donated seasonal flu vaccine was shipped to Laos via UPS (NYSE:UPS), which provided the PharmaPort™360 air freight containers needed to keep the vaccine at the precise temperature and monitor the shipment throughout its five-day, 9,000-mile transport from UPS’s healthcare facility in the United States.

About Walgreens

As the nation’s largest drugstore chain with fiscal 2011 sales of $72 billion, Walgreens (www.walgreens.com) vision is to become America’s first choice for health and daily living. Each day, Walgreens provides nearly 6 million customers the most convenient, multichannel access to consumer goods and services and trusted, cost-effective pharmacy, health and wellness services and advice in communities across America. Walgreens scope of pharmacy services includes retail, specialty, infusion, medical facility and mail service, along with respiratory services. These services improve health outcomes and lower costs for payers including employers, managed care organizations, health systems, pharmacy benefit managers and the public sector. The company operates 7,847 drugstores in all 50 states, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico. Take Care Health Systems is a Walgreens subsidiary that is the largest and most comprehensive manager of worksite health and wellness centers and in-store convenient care clinics, with more than 700 locations throughout the country.

Southeast Asia floods: How you can help

Click on the link to get more news and video from original source: http://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/1599021/Southeast-Asia-floods:-How-you-can-help

24 October 2011 | 12:16:45 PM | Source: SBS

It's the worst flooding the region has seen in 50 years. (AAP)

A number of organisations have set up appeals to help more than 8 million people across Thailand, Cambodia, Laos, the Philippines and Vietnam, who have been affected by the worst monsoonal flooding the region has seen in 50 years.

• Bangkok governor says prepare for floods
• Thai government overwhelmed by floods

Hundreds of highways in Thailand have been inundated while north-bound train routes are suspended due to the heavy floods and tropical storms.

Huge tracts of rice farmland have been damaged, increasing prices of food.

World Vision Australia is accepting secure donations online to support victims and  provide emergency kits that contain food, sanitary products and first aid medicine.

CARE Australia’s Global Emergency Fund accepts online donations for their work in the region.

The Thai branch of the Red Cross is asking for support to help three water purification teams in Thailand. Click here to donate.

Give2Asia is calling on donations to help families affected by the floods. You can make a donation by clicking here.

Flood waters have resulted in rising mosquitoes breeding leading to an increase in cases of malaria.

Buzz Off,  ‘A world without Malaria’ buys mosquito nets to reduce the risk of the disease spreading.

Save the Children Australia is asking for support to help 800,000 children that have been affected by the floods. Call 1800 760 011 or go online.

For the people: the Laos collaboration

 

View Original Source:  http://www.wellcome.ac.uk/News/2011/Features/WTVM052302.htm

02 August 2011. By Katherine Nightingale

Ten years ago, information on infectious disease in Laos was scarce. The Wellcome Trust-Mahosot Hospital Oxford University Tropical Medicine Research Collaboration has gone some way to changing that. Katherine Nightingale visits the research unit run for the people, by the people, which has made giant leaps in a country’s medical knowledge.

Dr Paul Newton wasn’t expecting to get into goat husbandry when he came to Laos. But the three goats that live in the yard of the Mahosot Hospital in Vientiane earn their keep as a ready supply of blood for bacterial culture and are firmly part of the family.

That there have been no commercial suppliers of blood agar in Laos is no surprise. A small country of just six million people, Laos is one of the poorest in South-east Asia, sandwiched between the economically more vibrant Thailand and Vietnam. Its largely rural population suffers from range of infectious diseases, from the familiar (such as malaria and dengue fever) to others largely unheard of, or forgotten about, outside the region. The common Lao diseases murine and scrub typhus – forms of the bacterial disease typhus transmitted by fleas and mites, respectively – and melioidosis, a bacterial infection contracted through contaminated soil or water, have only been described in Laos in the last decade. But now, through what has grown to become the Wellcome Trust-Mahosot Hospital Oxford University Tropical Medicine Research Collaboration (LOMWRU), these diseases are finally getting the attention they deserve.

Starting from scratch

The Trust’s work in Laos began in 2000 in response to the almost complete lack of information about infectious disease in Laos, as well as the hospital’s lack of facilities for diagnosing infectious disease apart from malaria.

“Ten years ago, I sat with [Trust director] Mark Walport and handed him a stack of all the literature I could find about Lao health. The pile was this thick,” says Newton, now director of LOMWRU, indicating with his thumb and forefinger a pile around a centimetre tall.

The Ministry of Health was extrapolating from Thai, Vietnamese and even French studies to determine how to treat patients, even though the pathogens were likely to be different. There was no information on the best way to treat malaria, for example, or the main causes of fever, even though fever was – and remains – the most common symptom in people seeking medical attention in rural areas.

Early projects carried out by Lao doctors with Newton and the Trust’s Thailand programme included a study of drug resistance in Salmonella typhi, which causes typhoid fever. They found that most Salmonella typhi in Laos could be treated with short course of antibiotics, unlike in many other nearby countries. “That really brought home the fact that Laos needed Lao information about diseases,” says Newton.

The LOMWRU unit. Image credit: LOMWRU/Joss Dimock.

Gradually research in Laos became more formalised, and by 2005 funding was coming from the core grant of the Wellcome Trust-Mahidol University-Oxford Tropical Medicine Research Programme in Thailand. The Laos collaboration is now one of the Programme’s three main research hubs. In 2008 the new Infectious Diseases Centre, with a 30-bed infectious disease ward and biosafety category 3 labs, was opened. There are now 42 staff working at LOMWRU – up from five when the work first began. Most of the researchers are Lao, and some also work at the University of Health Sciences, providing an important link between the two institutions.

From just three research areas – malaria, septicaemia and infantile beriberi (thiamin deficiency) – LOMWRU now runs more than 50 research projects, and the corridors of their brand-spanking new labs are lined with some of the 115 research papers about Lao disease that the programme has published in the past decade. LOMWRU was also key in launching the country’s first medical journal, the ‘Lao Medical Journal’, in 2010, providing a new way to distribute health information in the Lao language.

For the people

 

In a country where a person can easily die with fever without ever seeking medical attention, studying the diagnosis, epidemiology and treatment of the diverse causes of fever are central to the programme’s work.

“It all started with the question of fever…and to a certain extent that what’s we’re still trying to find out. It’s a real Pandora’s box, we keep uncovering more questions than we’re answering,” says Newton.

Dr Mayfong Mayxay, head of field research at LOMWRU and head of the University of Health Sciences’ new research centre, says the collaboration’s work has vastly improved diagnosis and treatment.

“In the past the doctors in our hospital found it difficult to request the blood cultures for the patients with prolonged fever because most could not afford to pay and hence there were very few data on the causes of fever. But now blood cultures have become routine tests that the doctors can request easily.”

But Newton and Mayxay agree that perhaps the collaboration’s most significant achievement has been in malaria treatment research. LOMWRU researchers showed that the use of an antimalarial called artemether-lumefantrine was much more effective than the national policy of treating uncomplicated Plasmodium falciparum malaria with the older drugs chloroquine and sulphadoxine-pyrimethamine, prompting the government to change treatment guidelines.

Another important step has been the finding that murine and scrub typhus are an important cause of non-malarial fever in Laos. Newton says there is little evidence on the best way to treat scrub typhus and none on murine, so they are now carrying out clinical trials to find out. “The Ministry of Health is very receptive to hearing results and considering changes in health policy,” he says. Finding better treatment saves lives, but also drugs and hospital resources. The latter two are crucial factors in Laos’ out-of-pocket health system. But as well as helping the system, it also saves patients money, both for the treatment they receive and by reducing the time they need to spend in hospital.

The researchers are on the trail of drug counterfeiters too. LOMWRU-coordinated researchers were the first in the world to use chemical and pollen analysis of fakes of the antimalarial artesunate, common in SE Asia, to trace where they were coming from, leading to the 2008 arrest and later imprisonment of six traders of fake antimalarials.

A researcher at LOMWRU. Image credit: LOMWRU/Joss Dimock.

But challenges remain. “Clinical research is still a new thing for Lao health workers and the Lao authorities…we have a limited number of ‘true’ clinical researchers in the country who are able to conduct studies and write up papers for publication in international peer-reviewed journals,” says Mayxay.

On-the-job research training, as well as Masters and PhD supervision, is therefore a fundamental part of the collaboration’s activities, and Mayxay is optimistic. “We will have an increasing number of Lao clinical researchers who will become independent clinical researchers in Laos in the near future,” he says.

As Laos’ fledgling health research expands, Newton is keen to make sure that the programme maintains its broad research base. “We don’t want to be duplicating research that others are doing, but we don’t want any of these ‘forgotten’ diseases to get left behind,” he says.

Outside in the humid afternoon, Godwin the goat is installed in a contraption resembling an elaborate bike stand, placidly munching on some leaves, patiently waiting to give blood. Everyone is doing their bit.

Top image: Godwin the goat outside LOMWRU. Credit: LOMWRU/Joss Dimock.

German officials: Sprouts not cause of E.coli outbreak – Just Update

View Original Source:  http://yourlife.usatoday.com/fitness-food/safety/story/2011/06/German-officials-Sprouts-not-cause-of-Ecoli-outbreak/48098098/1

BERLIN (AP) – German officials say initial tests show that sprouts from an organic farm in the country’s north are not the cause of the E. coli outbreak.

Lower-Saxony state’s agriculture ministry said Monday that 23 of 40 samples from the sprout farm suspected of being behind the outbreak have tested negative for the relevant bacteria.

It said further tests are pending.

The E. coli outbreak in Germany has killed at least 22 people and sickened more than 2,300 across Europe, leaving customers uneasy about eating raw vegetables.

THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information. AP’s earlier story is below.

BERLIN (AP) — German officials say initial tests show that sprouts from an organic farm in the country’s north are not the cause of the E. coli outbreak.

Lower-Saxony state’s agriculture ministry said Monday that 23 of 40 samples from the sprout farm suspected of being behind the outbreak have tested negative for the relevant bacteria.

It said further tests are pending.

The E. coli outbreak in Germany has killed at least 22 people and sickened more than 2,300 across Europe, leaving customers uneasy about eating raw vegetables.

Copyright 2011 The Associated Press.