I have now been compiling my weekly
newsletter of positive news articles about Israel for over two-and-a half
years. When I started, I was often met
with the comment “Is there any good news?”
These days, only Ha’aretz readers react that way. In far more cases, people excitedly pass me
their own sources of good news stories concerning the Jewish State. This infectious state of affairs means that
some weeks I have to omit stories because there is just too much good news for
people to absorb.
I chose this week’s title because of four
medical news items highlighting Israel’s work to eradicate the danger to life
from bacterial and viral infections. In
the first, Israel marked International
Week for Encouraging Vaccinations by announcing that the Prevnar
vaccination program introduced in 2009 had reduced annual cases of pneumonia in
Israel by 70%. The rotavirus vaccine,
added in 2010, has reduced gastrointestinal illness in children by 60%. Meanwhile, a group of researchers from the
Hadassah Medical Organization has
located a gene that explains the reason for recurrent life threatening
infections and bone marrow failure in children.
In Tel Aviv, Reuth Medical Center announced
that a six-month trial of Cupron’s anti-bacterial
copper-embedded linens, resulted in a huge reduction in patient
bacterial infections. Reuth will now be the world’s first hospital to fully
deploy copper-embedded textiles in all its patient-related hospital textiles.
And to prevent the spread of the super-bug MRSA, Israeli hospitals have imposed
a strict set of procedures including isolation wards, dedicated staff,
mandatory hand-washing and daily reports, which have cut the incidence of the
deadly antibiotic resistant bacteria by over 70 per cent.
Diagnosing infectious diseases and any
other ailments will become easier at Tel Hashomer’s Sheba Medical Center now
that doctors
are using the new smart-phone app from Israel’s Elad Systems. They can retrieve the medical files of
patients in real time to view medical tests, prescriptions and sensitivities as
well as data on hospitalization, operations and clinic visits. Israeli medical innovations such as these
are responsible for reducing mortality rates and extending life expectancy both
in the Jewish State and in the rest of the world. So it is appropriate that Ben-Gurion University of the Negev
recently hosted the eighth European Congress of Biogerontology - the study of longevity
and the aging process - a relatively new science, invented by three Israelis
some 40 years ago.
A positive attitude can also be infectious,
as highlighted by Bedouin
IDF officer Lieutenant colonel Magdi Mazarib, the highest ranked member
of the elite Bedouin trackers who help protect the borders of the Jewish
State. Comparing life in the Jewish
State to every other state in the Middle East, he stated proudly in Al Arabiya,
“The state of Bedouin in Israel is better, as far as the respect we get, our
progress, education. It’s a different league.”
Perhaps Qatar’s
Prince Khalifa Al-Thani has caught his enthusiasm. He announced his intention this November to
make the first official visit to Israel of a member of the Qatari royal family
in order to promote high-tech cooperation between Qatar and Israel. Finally, with
this item featuring Turkish TV commentator Ceylan Ozbudak and
Muslim scholar Adnan Oktar, there’s almost an “epidemic” of support for Israel.
Not only an infection can be caught. The perpetrators of the Boston marathon
bombings were apprehended thanks
to Israeli technology. BriefCam
enabled investigators to summarize an hour of surveillance video footage into
only one minute and also zoomed in on people and objects that moved during the
filming. The system then tracked the suspects from the beginning of the video.
The interest generated by Israeli
technology is truly infectious and the innovative companies themselves often
receive industry awards for catching the attention and imagination of their
peers. Israeli “smart-water” network
and software management firm Whitewater was named a 2013 Bloomberg New Energy
Pioneer at a ceremony in New York.
Whitewater was described as one of the
“game-changing companies in the field of clean energy technology and
innovation.” Israeli agro-tech Sol-Chip
has just won the Technical
Development Award in the 2013 IDTechEx Energy Harvesting & Storage
Europe Conference in Berlin. Sol-Chip’s
solar-powered sensors monitor the quality of the soil, irrigate
automatically and even keep track of grazing cattle.
I’ll finish by transmitting two further
examples of infectious enthusiasm. It
was certainly heartwarming to hear the many positive
reasons for making Aliya from dozens of Americans immigrating to Israel
with Nefesh b’Nefesh. But I only hope
that Ido Aharoni, Israel’s Consul-General in New York, can spread his
message and make it go viral.
“A nation is not defined by its problems. We need to begin a
conversation about what we bring to the table as a country.” He continued, “In
today’s tech environment it is not about winning debates, but building
relationships with people with influence and relevance, people who matter.”
So there you have it. I hope you’ve now caught the bug!
Michael Ordman writes a free weekly
newsletter containing Good News stories about Israel.
For a free subscription, email a request to
michael.goodnewsisrael@gmail.com
