International Health

A task force of 40 Maryland nurses and doctors is waiting to travel to Kuwait to treat war-injured Kuwaiti citizens."They have been told to go with their black bags -- they could go from putting a band aid on to doing open-heart surgery," said Tricia Slawinski, project manager for the Maryland International Health Task Force.Dr. James D'Orta, chairman of the task force and assistant director of the Department of Emergency Medicine at Franklin Square Hospital, said the group was formed at the request of Gov. William Donald Schaefer.

PROMOTIONS Dr. Richard G. Bennett has been promoted to executive vice president and chief operating officer of the Johns Hopkins Bayview Medical Center. A faculty member at the School of Medicine since 1987, Bennett is the Raymond and Anna Lublin professor in geriatric medicine. Formerly medical director of the Hopkins Geriatric Center, where he oversaw one of the nation's largest geriatric medicine training programs, Bennett joined Bayview in 2003 as vice president of medical affairs.

The Maryland International Health Task Force headed for war-ravaged Kuwait yesterday on a weeklong mission to perform chores ranging from mending broken limbs and performing delicate surgery to advising officials on ways to rebuild hospitals.The task force -- including 40 high-level health care professionals, with specialists in emergency medicine, anesthesiologists, pediatricians, and plastic and orthopedic surgeons -- left Franklin Square Hospital about 1 p.m. amid festive bon voyage wishes from relatives, co-workers and Gov. William Donald Schaefer.

Who: Nancy and Larry FittonAges: 38 and 44 respectivelyFrom: Long GreenAssignment: Honduras, 1976-79Larry taught photography at Pan American Agricultural School, known as Zamorano. Nancy taught nutrition to village women, produced audio-visual materials and conducted workshops for auxiliary nurses in the capital, Tegucigalpa.Update: She earned master's in international health at Johns Hopkins and later worked for Pan American Health Organization and World Vision in Costa Rica before becoming full-time mother to their three children.

Johns Hopkins University faculty will offer 32 presentations covering issues in prevention, treatment and diagnosis of diseases affecting women from 9 a.m. to 4:15 p.m. today at the Baltimore Marriott Waterfront Hotel. Topics of the 13th annual health conference, titled "A Woman's Journey," include aging, heart disease, breast cancer, global warming, stress, weight loss and depression. The keynote speaker is Leslie Mancuso, president and chief executive officer of JHPIEGO, a Johns Hopkins affiliate and international health organization that works to improve health care conditions in 50 countries.

The largest food-borne cholera outbreak to appear in the United States since the beginning of a massive epidemic in South America was confirmed by New Jersey state health officials yesterday.Eight people, from Jersey City and West New York, became ill earlier this month after consuming illegally imported crab meat from Ecuador. Four were later diagnosed as suffering from cholera, a potentiallyfatal disease whose symptoms include severe diarrhea and vomiting leading to dehydration.All the victims recovered.

Banking and finance * Bay National Bank announced the appointments of Charles J. Fleury IV; Curt H.G. Heinfelden, cash management; Gilbert F. Kennedy III, commercial banking; and Daniel T. Murtaugh, residential mortgage lending, as senior vice presidents of the Lutherville-based bank. * Signal Hill appointed Daniel O'Neil director of the investment banking team and named Michael Schemel managing director, institutional sales, and Todd Greenwald as senior research analyst in the capital markets team of the Baltimore-headquartered specialty investment banking firm.

The NAACP will be able to fly its civil rights banner on a worldwide stage if a United Nations committee approves its application to become a "non-governmental organization." The NGO application for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People is in the final stages of approval and should be completed no later than July, a U.N. spokesman said yesterday. The NAACP is seeking consultative status with the U.N. Economic and Social Council; 2,234 NGOs work with the council in areas such as human rights and international health, economic and social problems.

Despite the death toll exacted by civil war, poverty and drought, developing nations have generally improved the health of their children through increased immunization, improved primary care and simple techniques like adding iodine to salt.The annual "State of the World's Children" report, released yesterday by UNICEF, said that by next year, 2.5 million fewer children would be dying annually from malnutrition and preventable diseases than died in 1990. Also, 750,000 fewer youngsters will be disabled, blinded, crippled or mentally retarded.