South Sudan Medical Journal. August 2025 18:3.

Dear Reader,

The full issue of our August 2025 issue is now available online here; the articles are listed below.

Also note that SSMJ is looking for a volunteer with time and interest in South Sudan, and experience in academic editing to join our Editorial team.

Editorial

• One Health: A collaborative approach to health security in South Sudan Edward Kenyi

Research Articles

• Prevalence and predictors of obstetric outcomes among women with multiple caesarean sections at Iringa Regional Referral Hospital, Tanzania Olimpia Bernard Tarimo, Deogratius Bintabara, Athanase Lilungulu, Maria Angelica Rweyemamu, Ipyana Mwampagatwa, Laisson Mwakalebela, John Lawi, Sr. Scholastica Malangalila and Francis Kwetukia
• Reasons and contributing factors for low health facility delivery in Bor, South Sudan Manas James Okony Otien
• Infant oral mutilation at Bor State Referral Hospital, Bor, South Sudan Ngang Nyak Daniel and Shalini Ninan
• Knowledge of diabetes mellitus among adults in Umualika Eberi community, Rivers State, Nigeria Chidinma C. Chukwuemeka, Ifekwe I. Kalu, Milyushina Ya. A.

Review Articles

• A review of recent publications on haematolymphoid neoplasms in the head and neck region Karthik Shunmugavelu and Arun Vijaianandh A.
• Scaling up human resources for health in South Sudan: A strategic imperative for achieving universal health coverage Gabriel Loi
• Eyes in the sky: Considerations for a tele-ophthalmology service in South Sudan Garang M. Dut

Case Reports

• Ectopic gestational-sac encapsulated in an ovarian cyst: A case report  Adam Moyosore Afodun, Alain Jabo, Mecthilde Mukangendo, Akeem Ayodeji Okesina, Olivier Mizero, Emmanuel Adeyemi Odumeru and Khadijah Kofoworola Quadri
• Death due to ruptured tubal pregnancy: A case report P. Vinod Kumar 
• ICU Squad: A possible solution for critical care service in low-resource areas Esraa Suliman Omer Abdelmageed and Ihab B Abdalrahman

Short Communications

• The role of government in advancing private hospitals to improve healthcare services in South Sudan Jok Thikuiy Gang
• 10th East African Health and Scientific Conference
• Letter to the Editor: Self-medication Thomas Akuith Ngong 
• Obituaries: Dr Baba Allan Ngachigoi Lanyanga and Dr Abdu Mohammed Abdudrbo Gilo
• Call for Abstracts: Association of Surgeons of South Sudan First Scientific Conference

We thank the copyeditors and reviewers who helped prepare these papers. 

Articles in SSMJ are indexed by Scopus,  African Journals Online (AJOL), and the  Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ), and as well as being on our website. SSMJ is included in the EBSCO scientific research collection.
 
Thanks to everyone who supports SSMJ. Invite your colleagues to join our mailing list here.
 
The SSMJ team
Email: southsudanmedicaljournal AT gmail.com 
Website: http://www.southsudanmedicaljournal.com
Follow us on X  @SSMedJournal and our Facebook Group,

SSMJ is published by the Health and Social Science Research Institute of South Sudan (HSSRI-SS)
All links provided at - https://www.southsudanmedicaljournal.com/archive/august-2025/

Virtual Evening Seminars on Topics in Artificial Intelligence - BCS-SGAI

BCS Specialist Group on Artificial Intelligence (BCS-SGAI)
Virtual Evening Seminars on Topics in Artificial Intelligence

The first three events in this year's programme of virtual evening seminars will be on March 26^th, April 9^th and May 14^th. All the virtual seminars are free of charge and open to all. No registration is necessary. 

Further details are given below.

 

(1) Wednesday March 26th 2025 from 6 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. (UK time): 

'Symbolic AI versus Neuro-Symbolic AI'

Dr George Baryannis (University of Huddersfield) on 'Knowledge-based Artificial Intelligence: Achieving Inherent Explainability in Intelligent Applications'.

Dr Mercedes Arguello Casteleiro (SGAI) on 'One Digital Health: Symbolic AI versus Neuro-Symbolic AI' and -

Dr Safaa Menad (University of Rouen, France) on 'Merging and Validating Health Ontologies'.

Website (including Zoom link): 

https://www.bcs-sgai.org/seminars/2025-03-26/

 

(2) Wednesday April 9th 2025 from 6 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. (UK time): 'Computer Vision Applications'.

There will be two talks: Dr James Haworth (University College London) on 'Progress in computer vision for scene understanding in urban analytics' and Dr Tianjin Huang (University of Exeter) on ' Benchmarking the Robustness of Remote Sensing Foundation Models'.

Website (including Zoom link): https://www.bcs-sgai.org/seminars/2025-04-09/

 

(3) Wednesday May 14th 2025 from 6 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. (UK time), as part of our Knowledge Discovery and Data Mining series. There will be two talks: Prof. Dr. Anna Fensel (Wageningen University, The Netherlands) on 'Knowledge graphs, FAIR principles and generative AI for scientific discoveries in agri-food' and Dr Anelia Kurteva (Assistant Professor of Computer Science, University of Birmingham, UK) on 'Responsible AI through responsible data management and governance enabled by knowledge graphs'

Website (including Zoom link): (link to follow)

 

To register for information about future SGAI events go to https://www.bcs-sgai.org/register/

Max Bramer, Chair BCS-SGAI

(- and my source BCS-SGAI list)

Simplifying universal health coverage to achieve political action

'The narrative on universal health coverage should be centred around four core elements: universality, equity, adequate financing, and preparedness in public health emergencies, write Katri Bertram and Justin Koonin'.

Bertram K, Koonin J. Simplifying the universal health coverage narrative can help to achieve political action BMJ 2024; 387 :q2441 doi:10.1136/bmj.q2441

A RESPONSE^* 

Can this be true? Why, this is absolutely marvellous! I?

Yes! Me. 

I do count! I'm seen, heard and included in the health care system and can have a voice in the service's development (1.). 

Not only that, but everyone in my - our community - has access - too (2.) ...

client - person - individual - self - patient - citizen

|

INTERPERSONAL : SCIENCES              

humanistic ------------------------------- mechanistic

SOCIOLOGY : POLITICAL   

|

couple - family - group - community - village/town - city

1. UNIVERSALITY	4. PREPAREDNESS
2. EQUITY	3. ADEQUATE FINANCING

... Now that health and social care are properly funded, they've finally done it! They've taken the key step to include education. This is crucial, critical to preventing poor health. Whenever possible we want people to self-care. The mother of all us has always whispered of the safety net. Now she shouts and rages. We all must listen to the stories of old.  Children should be brought up to be health and media... literate and recognise for them as an individual, the merit, the joy of health and well-being.

At last - the power's-that-be are addressing policy. Not just policy on paper, but implementing it, to assure the quality and cost of food, baby-formula, the air and water (3.).

What does this mean?^ It means health budgets can be better managed. Being prepared does not mean we reach immediately for the technical solution, write the prescription (for antibiotics). No. Being prepared means wising-up too. Together, we are ready to face each other, and right across the world: S-N and E-W. Now we can look to the future, climate change and Gaia: as ONE (4-5).

^O’Connell T, Rasanathan K, Chopra M. What does universal health coverage mean? Lancet 2014;383:277-9. doi:10.1016/S0140-6736(13)60955-1 pmid:23953765

(Cited by Bertram & Koonin)

5. Spiritual.

^*A response, that is both too simple and too complex. Discuss.

Register for Free! AI for One Health and Planetary Health: Where Are We?

Friday 8 November, 9:30am GMT – onwards

BCS, The Chartered Institute for IT, Ground Floor, 25 Copthall Avenue, London EC2R 7BP

Join BCS SGAI in London for an engaging full-day event featuring a line up of exciting talks. Attendees will have the opportunity to participate in a hands-on tutorial on low-code/no-code AI and Certificates of Attendance will be provided.

* Speakers & Agenda
https://www.bcs.org/events-calendar/2024/november/ai-for-one-health-and-planetary-health-where-are-we-artificial-intelligence-sg/

* Invitation for Free Registration
https://ArtificialIntelligence081124.eventbrite.co.uk

100% Discount Code: AIHealth24Committee

--------------------------------

Hope to see you there - in London 6th-9th November.

British Computer Society: Real AI 2024 -::- AI for One Health and Planetary Health

In July I posted news of this month's Real AI event 27th September. Plans are in place to attend.

In November, London beckons again:

AI for One Health and Planetary Health: Where Are We?

Friday November 8th 2024

Even as I look forward to September's trip; I'm pinching myself. 

Following a BCS event last year, Hodges' model has been recognised. A video chat and many email exchanges has revealed there is a model possessed with the necessary holistic bandwidth. Hodges' model has the conceptual scope to encompass intelligence(s), One Health and planetary health. 

This also fits with current reading - interrupted by Hardy's A Mathematician's Apology (£2.00) - with posts to follow that will also inform November's co-presentation.

More to follow and clearly I have learned a great deal from engaging with the BCS. While my affiliate  membership has lapsed now, since the early 1990s the Society's publications, specialist groups: medical informatics, nursing, methods, security, expert systems, and now AI have proved well worth getting involved!

I am also hoping for some part-time tutoring at Bolton University in the new academic year.

BCS SGAI: One day event on 'The Rise of AI in the Healthcare Ecosystem'

 BCS SPECIALIST GROUP ON ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE (BCS SGAI)

The Rise of AI in the Healthcare Ecosystem

November 10th 2023 - British Computer Society London Office (near Moorgate Underground) 

Second Invitation to Register

A full-day event with invited talks on the following topics:

 

·       What are the things that AI can help with in the healthcare ecosystem?

·       Semantic Deep Learning for One Health: combining Knowledge Graphs and Large Language Models

·       Biomarkers and Personalised Medicine: how can AI be used for Omics Data Integration, Interpretation, and Its Application?

·       AI in Next Generation Stroke Rehabilitation

·       Machine Readable Healthcare Data Formats using FHIR

·       What SNOMED wants to be, how clinicians actually use it and what lurks in large coded clinical datalakes?

·       Bringing clinical guidelines closer to the bedside with AI techniques

 

Full details are available at http://www.bcs-sgai.org/health2023/

 

The delegate fee is £90 plus VAT for BCS and SGAI members and £110 plus VAT for others. This includes attendance at the event, lunch and refreshments. A special rate of £50 plus VAT is available for students. A Group Discount Rate is available for group bookings of three or more.

 

There is an online registration form at

http://www.bcs-sgai.org/health2023/?section=registration

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To register for future mailings about SGAI events go to http://www.bcs-sgai.org/register/.

 

Max Bramer
Chair BCS Specialist Group on Artificial Intelligence (bcs-sgai.org)

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[ I am looking to attend - travel - trains and industrial action - permitting. ]