IGIHE

Category: Health

  • Depression: ‘Second biggest cause of disability’ in world

    Depression: ‘Second biggest cause of disability’ in world

    Depression is the second most common cause of disability worldwide after back pain, according to a review of research.

    The disease must be treated as a global public health priority, experts report in the journal PLOS Medicine.

    The study compared clinical depression with more than 200 other diseases and injuries as a cause of disability.

    Globally, only a small proportion of patients have access to treatment, the World Health Organization says.

    Dr Alize Ferrari,University of Queensland’s School of Population Health led the study.

    “Depression is a big problem and we definitely need to pay more attention to it than we are now,” she told BBC News.

    Depression was ranked at number two as a global cause of disability, but its impact varied in different countries and regions. For example, rates of major depression were highest in Afghanistan and lowest in Japan. In the UK, depression was ranked at number three in terms of years lived with a disability.

    “There’s still more work to be done in terms of awareness of the disease and also in coming up with successful ways of treating it.

    “The burden is different between countries, so it tends to be higher in low and middle income countries and lower in high income countries.”

    Policy-makers had made an effort to bring depression to the forefront, but there was a lot more work to be done, she added.

    “There’s lots of stigma we know associated with mental health,” she explained.

    “What one person recognises as disabling might be different to another person and might be different across countries as well, there are lots of cultural implications and interpretations that come in place, which makes it all the more important to raise awareness of the size of the problem and also signs and how to detect it.”

    The data – for the year 2010 – follows similar studies in 1990 and 2000 looking at the global burden of depression.

    Commenting on the study, Dr Daniel Chisholm, a health economist at the department for mental health and substance abuse at the World Health Organization said depression was a very disabling condition.

    “It’s a big public health challenge and a big problem to be reckoned with but not enough is being done.

    “Around the world only a tiny proportion of people get any sort of treatment or diagnosis.”

    The WHO recently launched a global mental health action plan to raise awareness among policy-makers.

    Source: BBC

  • A Toddler Remains HIV-Free, Raising Hope For Babies Worldwide

    A Toddler Remains HIV-Free, Raising Hope For Babies Worldwide

    A 3-year-old girl born in Mississippi with HIV acquired from her mother during pregnancy remains free of detectable virus at least 18 months after she stopped taking antiviral pills.

    New results on this child, published online by the New England Journal of Medicine, appear to green-light a study in the advanced planning stages in which researchers around the world will try to replicate her successful treatment in other infected newborns.

    And it means that the Mississippi girl still can be considered possibly or even probably cured of HIV infection — only the second person in the world with that lucky distinction. The first is Timothy Ray Brown, a 47-year-old American man apparently cured by a bone marrow transplant he received in Berlin a half-dozen years ago.

    This new report addresses many of the questions raised earlier this year when disclosure of the Mississippi child’s case was called a possible game-changer in the long search for an HIV cure.

    “There was some very healthy skepticism,” Dr. Katherine Luzuriaga, a professor at the University of Massachusetts in Worcester, tells Shots. She’s part of the team that has been exhaustively testing the toddler’s blood and considering every possible explanation for her apparently HIV-free state.

    Luzuriaga is confident the latest tests prove that the child was truly infected with HIV at the time of her birth — not merely carrying remnants of free-floating virus or infected blood cells transferred before birth from her mother, as some skeptics wondered.

    The UMass researcher says there’s no way the child’s mother could have contributed enough of her own blood plasma to the newborn to account for the high levels of HIV detected in the child’s blood shortly after birth.

    Similarly, Luzuriaga says, new calculations show that the mother “would have had to transfer a huge number of [HIV-infected] white blood cells to the baby in order for us to get the [viral] signal that we got early on.”

    Clinching the question as far as the researchers are concerned is the infant’s response to anti-HIV drugs that she began receiving shortly after birth. The remarkable earliness of her treatment is a crucial feature that makes this child different from almost any other.

    “There’s a very characteristic clearance curve of viruses once we start babies on treatment,” Luzuriaga says. “The decay of viruses we see in this baby is exactly what we saw in early treatment trials from 20 years ago when we initiated anti-retroviral therapy and shut off viral replication. That’s a very different decay curve than you would expect if it were just free virus transferred to the baby.”

    It might be helpful to recap the unusual, if not unique, features of the Mississippi case.

    Her mother did not receive prenatal care, so she was not identified as HIV-infected before delivery. If she had been, she would have received drugs that are highly effective in preventing mother-to-child transmission of the virus.

    While the mother was in labor, she got HIV testing, as is routine for women without prenatal care. When that came up positive, Dr. Hannah Gay, a pediatrician at the University of Mississippi Medical Center in Jackson, was ready to test the newborn for infection and start anti-retroviral medicines within 30 hours of birth.

    The treatment quickly cleared the virus from the baby’s blood. Normally such children would stay on antiviral drugs for a lifetime. But in this case the mother – whose life circumstances were reportedly chaotic – stopped giving the child the medication between 15 and 18 months after birth.

    Gay and her colleagues caught up to the child when she was 23 months old and were astonished to discover she was apparently still virus-free despite being off treatment. Five rounds of state-of-the-art testing — at UMass, Johns Hopkins, federal research labs and the University of California San Diego — failed to reveal any trace of the virus in her blood.

    That led to last spring’s report and widely reported hope that the child had been cured of HIV.

    But Dr. Scott Hammer, an HIV researcher at Columbia University in New York, is not quite convinced. “Is the child cured of HIV infection? The best answer at this moment is a definitive ‘maybe,’ ” Hammer writes in a New England Journal editorial that accompanied the report.

    The reason is that a couple of tests done when the child was about 2 years old found indications that her system may contain pieces of RNA or DNA from HIV. This hints that some of the nucleic acid building blocks of the virus are hanging around within her blood cells.

    There’s no evidence these “proviral” remnants are capable of assembling themselves into whole viruses that can make copies of themselves. But researchers are concerned about that possibility and how it might be headed off.

    “The question is whether those viral nucleic acids have the ability at some point to replicate and allow a rebound of the virus,” Luzuriaga acknowledges. “That’s why it’s important to continue to test the baby over time.” She says that means years.

    But for now, the signs from the Mississippi child’s case are encouraging enough to have generated an ambitious global human experiment that Luzuriaga says is in final planning stages.

    Women who present in labor without having had prenatal care will be tested for HIV and, if positive, their infants will be intensively treated within a couple of days of birth, as the Mississippi child was. Then they’ll be followed with the most sensitive tests to determine if the virus has been eradicated.

    If certain criteria are met, researchers plan to decide whether it would be safe to discontinue HIV treatment deliberately and follow the children closely to see if the virus returns. (If it did, treatment would be restarted.)

    If the experiment succeeds, it would be a huge advance in the prevention of childhood HIV and AIDS in many parts of the world. More than 9 out of 10 of the world’s 3.4 million HIV-infected children live in sub-Saharan Africa, where many women deliver without having had prenatal care or HIV treatment. Around 900 children are newly infected every day.

    Meanwhile, researchers pursuing an HIV cure will convene next month in San Francisco to consider various strategies — for adults as well as children. One other recent glimmer of hope was provided this summer by Boston researchers who reported that two HIV-infected men with lymphoma remain virus-free without treatment for several months after stopping antiviral treatment.

    Source: NPR

  • Obama administration pushes back over canceled health plans

    Obama administration pushes back over canceled health plans

    The Obama administration, under pressure over the botched opening of its healthcare website, scrambled on Tuesday to try to appease hundreds of thousands of people whose coverage is being canceled as insurers prepare for reforms in 2014.

    President Barack Obama and his top officials are trying to contain the fallout from people angry they have lost their insurance and frustrated with being unable to shop easily for alternatives on the malfunctioning website, HealthCare.gov.

    Obama had repeatedly promised that under the new signature law, people with insurance would be able to keep their existing plans if they wanted to – a pledge that glossed over details of which policies would be protected from new minimum benefit requirements.

    “The president, as awesomely powerful as the office is, can’t go back in time,” White House spokesman Jay Carney told reporters when asked whether Obama would use the same words to describe the grandfathering provision.

    Obama’s Chief of Staff Denis McDonough urged a group of insurance executives on Tuesday to tell consumers in cancellation notices that they could qualify for premium tax credits through the new online marketplaces.

    Some cancellation victims hear only about costly replacement plans from their insurers and not about options available through the marketplaces, including the subsidies.

    “He’s saying that we all need to do the best we can in getting information that consumers need,” Carney said.

    OBAMA TO DALLAS, SEBELIUS ON THE HILL

    On Wednesday, Obama will visit volunteers in Dallas who are helping people sign up for health insurance – part of a push for senior officials to highlight the program in cities with the highest number of uninsured residents.

    In Dallas County, more than 670,000 people or 28 percent of the total population do not have insurance, the White House said. Texas has the nation’s highest percentage of uninsured people.

    Meanwhile, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius will face tough questions at a Senate Finance Committee hearing on Wednesday, both from Republicans who oppose Obamacare as an unwarranted expansion of the federal government, and from Democrats dismayed at how poorly the launch has gone.

    Marilyn Tavenner, the head of the federal agency responsible for the Obamacare rollout told lawmakers on Tuesday that her staff is working on a plan to get more information to people with canceled plans.

    “This is actually a conversation we’re having today … Is there a way we can actively engage to reach out to people who have been canceled?” Tavenner, administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, told the Senate Health Education Labor and Pensions Committee.

    In California, officials announced that a major insurer – Blue Shield of California Life and Health Insurance Co – has agreed to allow 115,000 state consumers who had been notified of cancellations to keep their lower-priced policies through the first quarter of next year.

    Reuters

  • Saving sight in South Sudan

    Saving sight in South Sudan

    he problem started in Alison Samuel Morris’ right eye. “Small dots” started blocking his field of vision. The size of the dots changed but they never really went away. He does not remember exactly how old he was when the dots appeared, although he knows he was in primary school and had to inch closer and closer to the blackboard to make out what the teacher had written.

    Eventually Morris’ family took him to see a doctor, where he received an uncertain diagnosis and a drug, the name of which he does not remember. His vision temporarily improved, but then the dots returned even worse than before.

    His father was in the army and the family moved around what was then still southern Sudan. Morris went to three different doctors in three different town. But, he says, “every time my vision was decreasing, decreasing”.

    In March last year, with his vision almost completely gone, he saw a doctor in the Sudanese capital of Khartoum, where he was living at the time. He finally got the correct diagnosis: onchocerciasis, or river blindness.

    He also received the devastating news that the disease had advanced so far that his vision could not be saved. He remembers the words the doctor told him: “This thing cannot be treated.”

    The parasitic disease is caused by the filarial worm, which is transmitted from person to person through the bites of infected blackflies. The adult worms can produce thousands of embryos, or microfilariae, which travel throughout the body, nesting in the skin, eyes and other organs.

    When left untreated, river blindness causes persistent, itchy rashes, skin disfigurement and, as in Morris’ case, permanent blindness.

    There is no vaccine, but the disease can be treated with an annual doses of ivermectin. The drug kills off the microfilariae and can save the sight of some. But, like thousands of people across South Sudan, Morris did not know this.

    “I knew before about OV,” he says, using the shorthand name for the disease widely used in government awareness campaigns here. “I know your body can get a rash. But I did not know this thing can affect your eyes.”

    Health officials say they have the resources to eliminate the disease. But first they must make sure people know about it.

    A neglected disease

    The World Health Organization (WHO) groups onchocerciasis among the world’s 17 neglected tropical diseases. The international health body estimates that nearly 18 million people worldwide are infected, although 99 percent of them are in Africa. It is the second-leading infectious cause of blindness in the world, behind trachoma.

    “One of the few countries where the oncho is still endemic is South Sudan,” says Dr Makur Matur Kariom, the undersecretary at the ministry of health. “I guess we have the heaviest load of all the cases across the world.” It is impossible to determine just how many river blindness cases there are in South Sudan. The country’s patchy healthcare system means that many patients fall through the cracks. But the ministry of health estimates that more than 4.1 million people – nearly half of the population – are at risk of contracting the disease. Communities clumped around fast-moving rivers, where the blackflies breed, are in particular danger.

    An assessment of neglected tropical diseases in South Sudan by the UK’s Department for International Development shows that onchocerciasis prevalence is high in five of the country’s 10 states – especially in the western half of the country.

    “But of late, there are cases reported in other places. Particularly in the southern part of the country, bordering Uganda,” Kariom explains.

    The government recently renewed its commitment to eliminate the disease by 2015, though Kariom admits meeting that goal is “unlikely”. In a country with some of the world’s worst health indicators, river blindness must compete with maternal health, malaria and other neglected tropical diseases for attention.

    “Almost everything for us is a priority,” Kariom says, while acknowledging that river blindness receives some special attention. “It takes a higher position in our priorities, because the morbidity they cause, it changes one’s life forever. Like blindness. We have to prevent blindness. One way of doing it is eradicating one cause.”

    Distributing ivermectin to everyone living in endemic areas once every six months for at least a decade could achieve this. Regular treatment reduces the amount of microfilariae in a community, which in turn reduces the reservoir of the disease to be transmitted by the blackflies.

    Earlier this year Colombia became the first country in the world to eliminate river blindness through a combination of regular treatment and widespread education about the disease.

    Through the support of the WHO’s African Programme for Onchocerciasis Control (APOC) and non-governmental organisations, Kariom says South Sudan is ready to take on the first part of that challenge. He insists the country has the capacity to deliver the drugs for free to all who need them.

    The challenge comes, he says, in explaining to people in endemic areas why they need to be taking the drugs and regularly reaching all of the people who need treatment.Lack of awareness

    Baranda March says the main problem is that people do not know they should be asking for the treatment.Colourful posters explaining how river blindness is transmitted and describing the disease’s telltale symptoms surround March’s desk at the Buluk Eye Clinic in Juba.

    March has been an ophthalmic clinical officer for 25 years. He sees between 40 and 50 patients a day at the clinic, which is one of only four government-funded centres specialising in eye care in the entire country. He estimates that a quarter of his patients have onchocerciasis. The majority seek treatment only after their vision has started to deteriorate.

    Even after health officials engage in outreach, explain the disease and start treatment, they have to figure out how to continue reaching people regularly with the drugs. Because many communities are highly mobile, they are difficult to track year after year.

    Changing attitudes

    Levi Sunday Clement still thinks elimination is possible in South Sudan. He says the key is convincing people living in endemic areas to take more responsibility for requesting and sticking to treatment regimens. Clement is the chairman of Equatoria States Union of the Visually Impaired (ESUVI). He started to lose his sight to river blindness in 1988.Being blind is a challenge anywhere, he says, but particularly in South Sudan where it is nearly impossible to continue in school or to find a job. Clement was able to learn braille at a Juba school that specialises in teaching the visually impaired and now has a job there teaching English and social studies.

    His main passion is trying to prevent other people from losing their sight. Several times a year volunteers from ESUVI travel to the communities where river blindness is endemic to talk to people about the disease. They encourage them to stick to the regular doses of ivermectin and to seek out health workers if they are not visiting regularly enough.

    He believes that once communities actually see people who have been affected by river blindness, it changes their attitudes.

    “Some of these people are not taking this as a serious disease,” Clement says. “If they are made more aware, they will realise how serious it is.”

    Aljazeera

  • Macadamia nuts: A Powerful Snack

    Macadamia nuts: A Powerful Snack

    History

    Macadamia nuts are packed with various health benefits and remedies. However, some are quick to write off this power “food” due to its high price tag and scarcity in some areas of the globe. This nut is indigenous to Australia. In fact, the German-Australian botanist Ferdinand von Mueller gave the genus the scientific name Macadamia in 1857; which, he named after his friend Dr. John Macadam, who was also a noted scientist in Australia.

    Today macadamia nuts are cultivated in other tropical regions where soils are rich in minerals like phosphorus and potassium. Macadamia trees produce macadamia nuts generally after 4 or more years. However, in countries like Rwanda this time frame can be significantly reduced. With Rwanda’s ideal tropical weather and soil rich land macadamia trees can begin to produce nuts within a period of 3 years and 2 months with the use of organic fertilizers. However, when alternate fertilizers are used the harvest period is still 4 or more years. In addition, according to the Australian center for plant biodiversity research, a macadamia tree can produce nuts for over 100 years.

    Health benefits

    One of the primary benefits of Macadamia nut is that it’s an inclusive food item, by that I mean even vegetarians and other individuals who are on a restricted regiment can enjoy and reap the benefits of this highly nutritious snack. Moreover, various studies have indicated that macadamia nuts are loaded with significant nutrients and minerals. In particular, macadamia nuts contain high protein, dietary fiber and good fats. In addition, this nut also contains a peculiar type of oil similar to mink oil, which promotes good skin. Besides, macadamia nuts taste great!

    In order to maximize the health benefits of macadamia nuts, it is recommended to consume 10-15 organic (natural) nuts on a daily basis (raw or dry roasted), if one over indulges it can lead to weight gain due to its fat content even though it’s good fat. In fact, the mono-saturated fats content in macadamia nuts are actually “fat burners”. Nonetheless, anything good taken in excess can have a reverse effect. On another note, 5 different major studies have proven that habitually consuming macadamia nuts in the daily portion noted above reduces heart disease by 50 %. This is primarily linked to this nut’s content of mono- unsaturated fats, omega- 3, 0 % Cholesterol and proteins that contains an amino acid known as L-arginine, which opens up blood cells and reduces the risk of various chronic diseases.

    How can this help you: Recap

    Ultimately, macadamia nuts have significant health benefits that positively affect one’s quality of life. In all fairness, one can admit it’s predominant expensive price tag, however, not engaging in such health choices can be more expensive when it comes to paying future health bills. And this is not to say that if you don’t habitually eat macadamia nuts you’re going to end up at the hospital waiting to die of a chronic disease, while racking up expensive medical bills. While the latter may end up being your story, the moral of this story is that we all need to take steps to eating healthier in order to improve our quality of life, and the daily consumption of macadamia nuts in its recommended portion is a major step in achieving that goal.

  • Report Says HIV Prevalence in Uganda Drops

    Report Says HIV Prevalence in Uganda Drops

    HIV prevalence has significantly reduced from 4% to 2.8% in target communities across the country over the last one year, a new report reveals.

    The 2012-2013 Annual Report of the AIDS Information Centre (AIC) released on Friday, shows that using multiple interventions results in a marked reduction in HIV cases.

    The report shows that of the 229,119 people tested for HIV by AIC countrywide between June 2012 and June 2013, a total of 6,251 tested positive.

    This represents an average prevalence rate of 2.8%, considerably lower than the national average of 7.3%.

    The report which covers eight districts in Uganda shows that Lira has a higher prevalence rate of 5.5%, compared to Soroti which has 1.3%.

    Among couples, 2.4% (491) of the 10,172 tested for HIV were discordant, compare to 9% recorded last year, while 2% (328) of the couples tested positive.

    HIV prevalence among people in the armed forces (Police, army, prisons and private security guards) reduced to 6.3%, up from 9% recorded last year.

    Among 7,525 commercial sex workers and their partners, 5% (132) of them tested positive and immediately enrolled on treatment.

    The AIC executive director, Dr Raymond Byaruhanga, said the decline in HIV prevalence in key areas was a due to new interventions including safe male circumcision and prevention drives.

    NV

  • South Africa winning malaria fight: Report

    South Africa winning malaria fight: Report

    South Africa has turned the tide on malaria, cutting mortality rates by 85 per cent over the last 12 years, and hopes to soon eliminate the disease, a report stated Wednesday.

    Last year, only 70 people died from the mosquito-borne disease, compared to 460 deaths recorded in the year 2000, said the report delivered at a Pan African Malaria conference in Durban.

    The number of people who caught malaria has come down to about a 10th of the cases recorded that same year.

    “South Africa is well on its way to being a malaria-free country,” Health minister Aaron Motsoaledi said.

    Worldwide, the disease kills an estimated 660,000 people each year, 90 per cent of them in Africa with the majority being children.

    Countries severely affected by malaria in the continent include Nigeria, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Tanzania and Mozambique.

    Authorities in South Africa believe the continent’s wealthiest and most developed country is closer to eradicating malaria, but admit that there was no quick fix.

    They aim to rid the country of the disease by the year 2018.

    However, the fight to control infections has not been without controversies as the country relies on the highly contentious insecticide dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane, otherwise known by its acronym as DDT, to kill the malaria transmitting vectors.

    The chemical, which is sprayed inside houses, is linked to genital defects, infertility and cancer and is banned in many parts of the world.

    Hormonal risks

    After being halted in 1996, South Africa reintroduced it in 2000 as part of a plan to curb a major malaria outbreak.

    According to the report, the insecticide has been used cautiously in recent years, “with targeted spraying only in high risk areas”.

    Its safety has always been questioned, with local authorities maintaining that it is less expensive but more effective amid a spike in insecticide resistant vectors in recent years.

    Those at the receiving end of DDT are normally impoverished households in the northeastern Limpopo region, which borders Mozambique and the part of the southeastern province of Kwa-Zulu Natal, where malaria is endemic.

    Prevention has seen cases drop to less than one per 1,000 people in affected districts, according to the report.

    “Strategies need to be well thought out, practical, systematically and robustly implemented,” said Mr Motsoaledi.

    University of Pretoria’s Professor Tiaan de Jager acknowledged the adverse genetic and hormonal risks linked with DDT, adding however that its efficacy cannot be discounted.

    “We are not saying that people should rather die than using DDT,” he said.

    A combination of factors like improved housing and sanitation and education around the disease should form part of the control strategies.

    “We can’t rely on DDT, we should also look at safer methods that can lead to elimination,” said Prof De Jager.

    This week, researchers at the Durban conference revealed that a groundbreaking vaccine could be available by 2015.

    GlaxoSmithKline is seeking approval for the prototype vaccine that reduces the risk of malaria by almost half among children aged between five and 17 months.

    If it gets the green light, the vaccine is likely to be distributed through agencies such as Unicef and the GAVI Alliance, a public-private health partnership.

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    agencies

  • Kampala: African Women MPs Discuss Family Planning

    Kampala: African Women MPs Discuss Family Planning

    African women MPs and leaders want parents to allow their teenage daughters to access family planning and reproductive health services with a view of bringing down the increasing cases of early and unwanted pregnancies, risky abortions and maternal deaths.

    The women leaders on a two-day capacity building meeting that opened on Sunday at Speke Resort Munyonyo discussed ways on how they can reposition family planning and reproductive health on the development agenda of their respective government budgets.

    The meeting was organized by Partners in Population and Development Africa Regional Office (PPDARO) in collaboration with the Health Policy Project and drew participants from Ethiopia, Malawi, Ghana and Uganda the host.

    Former Kalangala district Woman MP, Ruth Nvumetta Kavuma, who is a member of the African Women Leaders’ Network said that one of the major objectives of the meeting is to ensure leaders push issues of family planning and reproductive health in their countries to get increased funding.

    Increased funding, she pointed out, would be key in lowering the infant and maternal mortality rates and make family planning services accessible to all women.

    Amid such efforts, most parents, especially mothers still carry a negative attitude of family planning and reproductive health to their teenage daughters, said Kavuma.

    And the mindset is that some mothers think that by letting their teenage daughters to access family planning services, it would lead them into promiscuity.

    “But parents ought to explain all issues around family planning and reproductive health to their teenage girls so that they are aware of the outcomes of any activity they might desire to involve themselves in, including early sex,” she said.

    The former lawmaker underscored the need for parents to let their teenage daughters access family planning contraceptives because of the potential of early exposure to sexual activity.

    “We want parents to allow the teenage girls to attend family planning meetings at various health facilities so that they can access information and services that can help them to avoid early sex and pregnancies and how to deal with all issues around reproductive health.”

    Dr. Jotham Musinguzi, the PPDARO director said there is need for African governments to increase funding towards family planning services.

    He said, in Uganda for example, at least 34% of couples desire to have family planning services to space their births but cannot access them.

    He went on to stress that efforts should be made to ensure this portion can have voluntary family planning services.

    “If women can access voluntary family planning services, they will avoid risky and unwanted pregnancies and deaths, leading to spaced births that will be reflected in other sectors like gainful employment,” he said.

    He explained that although Uganda has seen increased funding towards family planning in the last four years, there is still need to improve on policies that can benefit the grassroots women to access better health services.

    Ellen Thokon Solomon from the Malawian parliament said many teenage girls in her country who became mothers disclosed that they had never received any information regarding family planning and therefore lacked knowledge on how to avoid early pregnancies.

    Other young mothers in Malawi say, according to Solomon, that they would want to use family planning methods but cannot access the services or are not aware of facilities where they are available.

    She therefore appealed for increased funding so that these services could be available to all women at the various lower health faculties.

    NV

  • National anti-Malnutrition Campaign Launched

    National anti-Malnutrition Campaign Launched

    Prime Minister Dr. Pierre Damien Habumuremyi has launched a nationalwide campaign against malnutrition.

    The campaign expected to last 1000 days was launched on Saturday in Gakenke District aimed improving maternal and child health in the country.

    Dr. Habumuremyi noted, “Families must understand the importance of proper nutrition, appropriate care and feeding practices for children as well as pregnant and breast-feeding mothers.”

    During the campaign, families will be encouraged to have ‘kitchen gardens’ on which an assorted food varieties can be grown.

    Officials said the figures of malnutrition for children under five remain “high” and a survey conducted in 2010 put the figure at 44%.

    Parents have been advised to give their children foritfied food, especially vegetables, fruits and milk, to cushion against diseases that are associated with poor feeding.

    Dr Anita Asiimwe, the State minister for primary and public healthcare, said the campaign aims at changing behaviour in families, especially among husbands who seem to leave all duties related to children’s health to their wives.

    The United Nations Children’s Fund (Unicef) country representative, Naola Skinner, stressed that the role of husbands and fathers is extremely important in insuring that their pregnant and breast-fedding mothers and children get the right nutrition during this critical period.

    source: Newtimes

  • Kenyan Scientists Say Maggots Could Heal Chronic Wounds

    Kenyan Scientists Say Maggots Could Heal Chronic Wounds

    Researchers in Kenya on Thursday said that they are currently conducting studies on how to use insect larvae to treat chronic wounds.

    Kenya Agricultural Research Institute (KARI) Researcher Phoebe Mukiria told journalists in Nairobi that they have identified the larvae of the green bottle fly as the best vehicle.

    “We will complete the proof of principle study that will establish the efficacy of using maggots to clean wounds in three months,” Mukiria said during the Kenya Science Congress.

    The three-day event brought over 200 participants to discuss ways of integrating into daily lives. “Live maggots are introduced into the raw wound to feed on the dead tissue and so as to enable surgeons to conduct further medical procedures,” she said.

    She noted that the maggots take on average 10 days to clean the wounds. “On the other hand, the period for conventional methods vary but could take over four weeks to do the same,” she said.

    Successfully applied

    “The maggots could therefore emerge as one of the most effective method of removing dead tissue from the wounds. We have so far used the larvae on five patients who have shown positive results,” she said.

    The research is joint collaboration of the University of Nairobi, KARI, Slovakia based Comenius University and Tenwek Mission Hospital in Kenya.

    The Research team attained government approval to conduct the investigations for one year. The insects could be used on patients with chronic disease such as diabetes and cancer. She added that wound care is expensive.

    “By using the biological method, the only investment is the production of maggot, ” she said. “However, the eggs which take a short time to hatch, have to be maintained in cool temperature for optimum results,” she said.

    According to Mukiria, the method cannot be used on wounds that are close to major blood vessels. She said that the procedure has already being successfully applied in other parts of the world. “In Europe, it is commonly used to treating animal pets,” she said.

    “Once the method is approved in Kenya, we will also extend the technology to animals,” the KARI official said.

    NMG