Responsible exit of humanitarian aid agencies at the end of programmes: a scoping review protocol

INTRODUCTION

In humanitarian settings, aid agencies are constantly challenged by difficult decisions such as when and how to terminate aid without harming the aid recipients, local institutions, staff members and the organisation. Despite important efforts devoted to responsibly leaving a setting, hurtful exits are still common in contemporary relief aid. Moreover, debates on how humanitarian aid agencies exit are limited, with no previous comprehensive evidence synthesis on the concept of 'responsible exit'. The objective of this scoping review is to map evidence and knowledge gaps, to identify and describe concepts, theories and existing frameworks related to 'responsible exit' of humanitarian aid agencies.

METHODS AND ANALYSIS

Our search uses searches of several bibliographic databases (CAB Direct (including Global Health), Web of Science, PubMed and Google Scholar) as well as manual searches of specific journals and retrieval of grey literature through searches of organisational websites and direct contact with experts and organisations. Reference tracking will be used to identify additional sources. Searches will cover papers available up to the dates of the searches (December 2022 to January 2023), with no date restrictions applied to the literature search. To be included, published or unpublished papers must explicitly discuss the exit of humanitarian aid agencies from humanitarian settings and be accessible. We will exclude all exits related to military, local and governmental humanitarian operations, education, development, employment, and business sectors. Only papers written in English and French will be considered. Three reviewers will conduct the selection process against the predefined criteria. Data will be extracted in an iterative process following pre-established items and the results will be presented in a Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews Extension for Scoping Reviews flow chart, tables and/or graphs, and descriptive formats.

ETHICS AND DISSEMINATION

Being a review, conducted on publicly available information, no ethical approval is required. The results will be disseminated through publication in an open access journal, scientific conferences, workshops, and via humanitarian aid agencies to facilitate further research and possible practical translations of generated knowledge.

Assessing biological safety of metals associated with medical devices

As human exposure to heavy metals increases, the impact these metals are having on morbidity is a growing concern. Methods of evaluating potential toxicity in medical device materials are discussed.

Inhibitory actions of tachykinins and neurokinins on release of somatostatin-like immunoreactivity from the isolated perfused rat stomach

The present experiments were designed to test the effect of tachykinins and neurokinins on release of somatostatin-like immunoreactivity (SLI) from the isolated perfused stomach. Physalaemin, substance P, kassinin, eledoisin, neurokinin A and neurokinin B inhibited basal SLI release in a dose-dependent manner (1 X 10(-9) to 1 X 10(-7) M). Among all the peptides, physalaemin and substance P were the least potent, whereas kassinin, eledoisin, neurokinin A and B were the more potent compounds in suppressing SLI release. It is proposed that this inhibitory action of tachykinins and neurokinins was mediated by the substance P-K or neurokinin-2 receptor subtype in which kassinin, neurokinin A and eledoisin have been shown to be the more potent agonists. The present study also showed that the effect of neurokinin A, neurokinin B and kassinin was not due to an action involving release of acetylcholine as cholinergic antagonists did not block the SLI inhibitory effect. This suggests that these peptides acted directly on somatostatin containing D-cells.

[Mycetoma of the fingers. Apropos of 5 case reports]

The authors report 5 cases of mycetomas of the fingers observed over a period of 5 years in a series of 18 mycetomas of the hand. In 3 cases, the lesion only involved the soft tissues, which were excised with 2 apparent cures after 2 and 5 years and one recurrence. In the other 2 cases, the bone was invaded and 2 digital amputations were performed without recurrence after 2 and 6 years. The authors review the epidemiology and histopathology of this disease as well as the absence of any truly effective medical treatment. In the presence of bone invasion, only excision can ensure cure.