Our cover story this month heralds the imminent launch of a new quarterly magazine, EHN International, which will be published out of the Chadwick House Group Ltd publishing stable. Its purpose will be to provide coverage of the growing role environmental health is playing in the field of development. At present there are environmental health twinning arrangements in Rwanda, Tanzania, Kenya, Uganda, Zambia, Malawi and Botswana. And that is just in Africa. The importance of these twinnings, often initiated by individual EHPs, cannot be overestimated when you see how far behind we are in achieving one of the key millennium targets, to provide a billion extra people with basic sanitation by 2015.

It is extraordinary to think that even if we achieve the millennium sanitation target, a quarter of humanity will still be left with no access to an improved latrine. But that is being optimistic. Given current performance, the World Health Organization anticipates that rather than halving the number of people who lack access to sanitation in sub-Saharan Africa, the figure will double over the next 10 years. That is why the actions of each local authority that tries to help are so important.

While twinning arrangements have increasingly been covered in the pages of EHJ and our sister publication EHN, it would be a mistake to think of the profession's relationship with the developing world as anything new. Anyone casting an eye over the pages of the Sanitary Inspectors Journal, a forerunner of EHJ, will notice that even a hundred years ago the profession was concerned about disease in Africa. Take the July 1902, issue of the journal, the year Sir James Crichton Browne made his inaugural speech. He was to become the longest ever serving president of the CIEH and is the subject of one of our features. In this 1902 issue, an article appears about the spread of bubonic plague in Cape Town and how plans are in place to set up the Sanitary Inspectors' Association in South Africa.

The old adage states that history repeats itself. If Sir James Crichton Browne were alive today he would agree. He was concerned in the 1900s about the possible spread of disease from balloon travel, the adulteration of sweets with chloroform, "brutish carelessness" caused by the ravages of alcohol, the spread of TB, sexually transmitted diseases, overcrowded housing and the importance of nutrition. Sound familiar?

No one wants a Norovirus outbreak on their patch, even worse, when one of the investigating team contracts it. Suffolk Coastal DC had just such a situation last year. As a result they offer sound advice on how to stem the spread of this highly contagious virus and how to protect investigating officers. Equally we may want to learn from Ireland's experience of testing shellfish. This month's issue shows us the importance of best practice, but also that looking at the history of the profession could teach us a thing or two.