Membership of the working party

Dave Booker has joined the working party. Elizabeth Pienaar has replaced Nandi Siegfried.


Organisation of the working party

There was a teleconference of as many members as possible of the full working party on 24 February 2005. The next teleconference of the small group (Frank Archer, Mike Clarke, Paul Garner, Sally Green, Pisake Lumbiganon and Prathap Thayan) will take place on 22 March.


Examples of working together

Elizabeth Pienaar and the South African Cochrane Centre have been helping reviewers in Cape Town with updating their review of pharmacotherapy for post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). They identified two potentially relevant articles from Anxiety (a Wiley journal) but were unable to obtain copies locally. They emailed Deborah Pentesco-Gilbert for her help and she was able to send the articles to Elizabeth.


Communication

Over the last several weeks many individuals and several Cochrane entities have been involved in the preparation of summaries of Cochrane reviews relevant to the aftermath of the tsunami. This process is ongoing but the special section on The Cochrane Collaboration's website is now available (www.cochrane.org/docs/tsunamiresponse/index.htm). The section has been designed to try to help people making decisions about health care in the aftermath of the tsunami. It should also be relevant in other disasters and health care emergencies and can be thought of as 'Evidence Aid'. The topics were identified as priorities by people in the region and relate to treatments that might be used or available. Where possible, a structured summary ('Evidence Update') or other type of summary has been prepared, based on one or more Cochrane reviews. If such a summary is being prepared but is not yet ready, a link is given to the relevant Cochrane review in The Cochrane Library (which is freely available to people in the affected countries). If a suitable Cochrane review is not available, links will be included to other sources of evidence if these have been identified. In particular, there will be links to topics in the BMJ's Clinical Evidence. A message was sent to CCInfo describing the website on 17 March 2005. The BMJ are considering running a news story about the website.

The spreadsheet showing the reviews and topics that have been identified as priorities is available in the Information Management System (IMS). This means that it can be shared more easily between the people who are working on it and the summaries of Cochrane reviews. The spreadsheet can be edited and, through the IMS, the most recent version is always available.


Suggestions of reviews to prioritise

Prathap Tharyan and Pisake Lumbiganon have given their opinions on the five most important up-to-date Cochrane reviews to summarise and on the five most important from those that are not yet ready for summary. Other people in the affected region have been asked to do the same. This will help to prioritise the work, and the lists are also available through the IMS.


Preparation of summaries

The Australasian Cochrane Centre and the Infectious Diseases Group are continuing to work together and with the relevant CRG to prepare Evidence Updates for suitable Cochrane reviews.


Funding

Two donations have been made specifically for the work of The Cochrane Collaboration in response to the tsunami. These total £350. Some of this money has been allocated to facilitate a meeting of the authors of a Cochrane review of wound care. When the short list of prioritised reviews is available, this will be discussed with potential funders.


Contact with people in the affected region

A message was posted in CCInfo on behalf of Arin Basu from India who is working on a systematic review of the health consequences of natural disasters.


Contact with other agencies

Discussions are ongoing with David Nabarro (who is coordinating the WHO effort) and others at WHO about how The Cochrane Collaboration and WHO might cooperate.