Category: Health

{{Research conducted by a Tanzanian Doctor Dr. Henry Mwakyoma reveals that in every ten Tanzanian men, only 2 can successfully impregnate a woman.}}

This means over 80% of Tanzanian men are incapable of impregnating a woman.

Dr. Henry Mwakyoma a lecturer at Muhimbili University of Health and Allied Sciences said it was true Tanzania is facing an increase in fertilisation problem.

He said the fertilisation treatment in a woman is only carried out if it is only the woman who has problems; if her partner’s sperms are too weak to fertilise the ova, the procedure won’t be of any use.

This has been also proved by the number of Tanzanian women travelling to nearby Kenya seeking fertility treatment services which are very costly in Tanzania.

The Tanzania Citizen has reported that in every 10 people who seek the service at the Aga Khan and Nairobi In Vitro Fertilisation (IVF) centres in Nairobi, at least four are from Tanzania.

It is believed that Tanzanians travel to Kenya because of the reputedly better services and “reasonable cost”.

The infertility treatment involves channeling male sperms to woman’s fallopian tubes.

The process takes at least one month, starting on the second day after the end of the woman’s menstruation circle.

Sometimes, women buy sperms at our centre and the process continues as planned.

Fertilised ova are kept for two days in a special container so as to support the growth of an embryo before they are transferred to the uterus for insemination.

Kenya has more than five IVF centres. This is why Kenya has become the destination for couples seeking children solutions.

Other countries whose people are known to visit Kenya for fertility services include South Sudan, US and Ethiopia.

Specialists say infertility is a global problem estimated at the average of 10%, thus in every 10 couples, one is troubled with failure to conceive.

The specialists say causes of infertility include “too much schooling” and career pursuits of today’s woman who keeps on putting off marriage.

{{Ebola virus in the Democratic Republic of Congo risks spreading to major towns if not brought under control soon after the death toll doubled within a week, the World Health Organisation has warned.}}

The number of people killed by the contagious virus for which there is no known treatment has now risen to 31, including five health workers.

Ebola causes massive bleeding and kills up to 90% of its victims.

“The epidemic is not under control. On the contrary the situation is very, very serious,” Eugene Kabambi, a WHO spokesman in Congo’s capital Kinshasa said.

“If nothing is done now, the disease will reach other places, and even major towns will be threatened,” he said, adding that an estimated $2 million had to be urgently found to pay for measures to tackle the disease.

The outbreak, which is believed to have been caused by tainted bushmeat hunted by local villagers, has so far struck in the towns of Isiro and Viadana in the northeastern province of Orientale.

Some 16 people in neighboring Uganda died of the disease last month, though the WHO said the two epidemics were not connected.

The latest WHO figures show there are now 65 probable or suspected cases of Ebola in Congo, with 108 people under surveillance.

Kabambi said one suspected case in Kinshasa had come back negative. Congo’s ramshackle capital is home to at least 9 million people and its health sector is crumbling.

Congo’s infrastructure has been devastated by decades of corruption, conflict and misrule. The country last year came bottom of a United Nations development index.

{Reuters}

{{Young men who smoke Marijuana (locally known as urumoji) are twice more likely to be diagnosed with testicular cancer than men who have never consumed the narcotic—says a U.S. study.}}

Researchers whose findings published in journal Cancer said the link appeared to be specific to a type of tumor known as nonseminoma.

“This is the third study consistently demonstrating a greater than doubling of risk of this particularly undesirable subtype of testicular cancer among young men with marijuana use,” said Victoria Cortessis of the University of Southern California, Los Angeles, who led the study.

According to the American Cancer Society, a man’s lifetime risk of getting testicular cancer is about one in 270 – and because effective treatment is available, the risk of dying from the disease is just one in 5,000.

Little is known about what causes it. In cases where testes remain in the abdomen beyond the age of a year, are a risk factor. Both pesticide and hormone exposure have also been associated with the tumors.

163 young men who had been diagnosed with testicular cancer and nearly 300 men in a comparison group without the disease.
Both groups had been interviewed about their health and drug use between 1987 and 1994.

Among the men with cancer, 81% had used marijuana at some point, whereas that was the case for 70 percent of the comparison group.

{{Just as the world inched closer towards an HIV vaccine, researchers have identified a new disease with Aids-like symptoms.}}

The discovery is unlike anything the medical field has seen before, says Dr Sarah Browne of the US National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, and who led a team of scientists in identifying the new condition.

“What we know is that this is not HIV, is not transmitted from one person to the other, but weakens the body’s capacity to fight infections just like HIV does,” Dr Browne told DN2 from the US in an e-mail conversation last week.

Researchers are puzzled by one large study in Thailand and Taiwan, where adults at the age of around 50 were found to have little immunity against infections.

These people did not have HIV and their CD4 (a group of white blood cells that gives the body immunity against infections) counts were normal.

The team has named the disease Adult-Onset Immunodeficiency, which has also been found in Americans of Asian descent.

It has not yet been confirmed whether the new disease has spread to Africa, but researchers do not rule out that possibility.

“We know there are many others out there, including many cases mistaken for tuberculosis in some countries,” Dr Browne had told CBS in an earlier interview, pointing to a likelihood of a misdiagnosis that could help the disease spread undetected.

{{Signal-blocking Chemical}}

The condition was found in people aged about 50, Dr Browne explains, indicates that the condition is not acquired at birth but later in life.

The team also explained that the Aids-like symptoms were not confined within family groups, suggesting that this was not a hereditary problem.

Because it is not inherited, doctors have ruled out the idea that a single gene could be responsible for the condition.

A normal body produces chemical signals that tell it when to start fighting germs or other infections.

However, in people with this new condition, the body produces another substance that switches off this disease-fighting capacity.

This is exactly what happens in HIV, even though there is an absence of such a virus in the new discovery, which also does not affect the body’s white cells (CD4).

{{The national campaign to spray against mosquitoes aimed at controlling the spread of malaria in the country has been impromptly suspended just two days after it had started in Nyagatare and Gisagara districts.}}

This sudden halting of the spray exercise aroused a string of unsubstantiated rumours. The exercise had been launched at the beginning of August.

Information from Rwanda Biomedical center (RBC) indicated that the exercise was suddenly suspended owing to the death of one of the staff that was involving in the spraying exercise.

The exercise will not resume until results of a Postmortem conducted on the deceased are released to determine the exact cause of his death.

Over 240 homes were scheduled to be sprayed in districts of Nyagatare, Bugesera and Gisagara.

ORINFOR

Scientists have published the most detailed analysis to date of the human genome.

They’ve discovered a far larger chunk of our genetic code is biologically active than previously thought.

The researchers hope the findings will lead to a deeper understanding of numerous diseases, which could lead to better treatments.

More than 400 scientists in 32 laboratories in the UK, US, Spain, Singapore and Japan were involved.

Their findings are published in 30 connected open-access papers appearing in three journals, Nature, Genome Biology and Genome Research.

The Encyclopedia of DNA Elements (Encode) was launched in 2003 with
the goal of identifying all the functional elements within the human genome.

A pilot project looking at 1% of the genome was published in 2007.
Now the Encode project has analysed all three billion pairs of genetic code that make up our DNA.

They have found 80% of our genome is performing a specific function.

Up to now, most attention has been focused on protein-coding genes, which make up just 2% of the genome.

{{Junk DNA}}

Genes are small sections of DNA that contain instructions for which chemicals – proteins – they should produce.

The Encode team analysed the vast area of the genome sometimes called “junk DNA” because it seemed to have little function and was poorly understood.

Dr Ewan Birney, of the European Bioinformatics Institute in Cambridge, who led the analysis, told me: “The term junk DNA must now be junked.

“It’s clear from this research that a far bigger part of the genome is biologically active than was previously thought.”

{{Switches}}

The scientists also identified four million gene “switches”. These are sections of DNA that control when genes are switched on or off in cells.
They said the switches were often a long way along the genome from the gene they controlled.

Dr Birney said: “This will help in our understanding of human biology. Many of the switches we have identified are linked to changes in risk for conditions from heart disease to diabetes or mental illness.

This will give researchers a whole new world to explore and ultimately, it’s hoped, will lead to new treatments.”

Scientists acknowledge that it is likely to be many years before patients see tangible benefits from the project.

But another of the Encode team, Dr Ian Dunham said the data could ultimately be of help in every area of disease research.

“Encode gives us a set of very valuable leads to follow to discover key mechanisms at play in health and disease. Those can be exploited to create entirely new medicines, or to repurpose existing treatments.”

Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute director Prof Mike Stratton said the results were “remarkable” and would “stand as a foundation stone for human biology for many years”.

He added: “The Encode project will change the way many researchers conduct their science and give those who seek to understand disease a much better grasp of where genetic variation can affect our genome for ill.”

{BBC}

{{Although Government of Uganda had earlier mentioned that the deadly Ebola disease had been contained, two new cases have emerged in Kibale district- the same place where several people succumbed to the deadly viral epidemic.}}

Medical officials in Kibaale district have registered two new suspected Ebola cases.

Uganda’s Monitor reported that Gertrude Keneema (25) and her four-year child, Tidiya Birungi, were admitted to Kagadi Hospital isolation ward on Sunday afternoon with clinical symptoms similar to those of Ebola.

“They are admitted in an isolation ward at the hospital. They have received medication and they are stable,” the District health officer Dr Dan Kyamanywa said Tuesday.

He says medical experts then carried out investigations to establish whether they had come into contact with an Ebola patient.

“They do not have that history,” Dr Kyamanywa said adding that the two had fever, and were vomiting as well as passing blood.

“We extracted a blood sample from them and sent it to the Uganda virus research institute for testing” Kyamanywa added.

{{Over 17 million women in East Africa are reportedly using birth control contraceptives a study has revealed.

The study was conducted by African Population and Health Research on the population and use of contraceptives in Africa.}}

It indicates that among the married couples, the number of women who use modern methods of family planning has also risen from 20 million to 27 million.

In 2008 only 12 million women in East Africa were using contraceptives but a continent-wide study has shown a increase to 17 million in 2012.

According to United Nations Populations Fund report 2010, the population of East Africa is estimated at 131 million people.

The study results were released in Kampala-Uganda during a meeting by Africa women parliamentarians to discuss issues of leadership, family planning and reproductive health.

“Compared to other regions, East Africa is doing somehow well but more funding is needed to help more women, especially in rural areas, access the contraceptives,” said Dr. Estelle Sidze one of the facilitators.

She noted that lack of contraceptives has led to increased school dropouts, death as a result of complicated pregnancies and increased cases of unsafe abortions.

{{The Deadly Ebola disease has brokenout in DRC where seven people have been reported dead and others admited to clinics. }}

DRC Minister of Public Health, Felix Kabange Numbi said August 17, confirmed twelve cases, including seven deaths were recorded in Province Orientale.

Kabange has urged all Congolese to avoid touching any animal found dead in the forest or eating meat.

“We must also avoid touching unprotected blood, vomit or urine of a patient having viral haemorrhagic fever,” he adds.

The minister assured that “the faster these preventive measures are applied, the faster the spread of disease will be stopped.”

The last cases of Ebola were reported in the DRC in 2007 in the region of Mweka and Luebo (Kasai Occidental), killing one hundred and sixty-eight people on four hundred patients registered in four months.

Radiookapi

{{Ebola vaccine may never be developed to prevent the onset of infection of the lethal viral disease–scientists have said.}}

This follows the cutting of funding for research on Ebola.Two companies with leading vaccine candidates have had their funding from the Pentagon suspended in recent weeks.

Research into development of a vaccine have been mainly funded by the US Department of Defense and the National Institutes of Health pouring millions of dollars into scientific research because of concerns that the virus could be turned into a biological weapon.

Ebola is often described as the most frightening disease on Earth.The virus causes a severe haemorrhagic fever, where victims bleed both internally and externally.

An expert said it was now “unlikely” a prophylactic vaccine would ever be used to prevent outbreaks of the disease.

Since the Pentagon began funding this research, several vaccine candidates have been developed and have shown themselves effective in animal trials.

Two companies, Sarepta and Tekmira have begun human safety trials of their vaccines.

However, in recent days, both companies have been told by the Defense Department to temporarily stop work on their vaccines due to funding constraints.

It is expected that a decision to either resume testing or completely terminate the contracts will be made by early September.

Scientists say their understanding of the nature of the virus has markedly improved over the past decade.

But the chances of turning that knowledge into a vaccine are very dependent on money.

{{Ebola in Uganda}}

Experts from the WHO and the U.S. Center for Disease Control and Prevention are in Uganda to advise health officials responding to the outbreak.

Uganda has experienced three outbreaks of Ebola since 2000 when 224 people were killed.

At least 42 people were killed in another outbreak in 2007, and there was a single confirmed case in 2011.

Close to 17 people have died as a result of the latest outbreak that had Kibaale District, in the west of the country, as its epicentre.