Category: Health

{Based on this new warning, Kenya’s Ministry of Health has reiterated that it has tightened its surveillance to avoid an outbreak.}

The World Health Organisation has warned that the yellow fever outbreak in Angola poses a “threat to entire world”.

Nearly 2,000 people are thought to be suffering from yellow fever in the southern African nation, as health experts investigate the outbreak that began in December.

According to WHO, thousands of people are suspected to have been infected with the disease while 238 people have died from the mosquito-borne illness.

The outbreak has spread to nearly every province in the country.

Yellow fever is carried by the same variety of mosquito — Aedes aegypti — that also spreads dengue fever and the Zika virus, and the WHO now reports that the yellow fever outbreak in Angola could pose “a threat for the entire world.”

“The evolution of the situation in Angola is concerning and needs to be closely monitored,” it stated in a report.

People travelling from Angola have already exported the virus to China, Kenya and the Democratic Republic of Congo, where at least 21 people are reported to have died.

However, the international health agency now says that Uganda, DRC and Angola have active yellow fever outbreaks.

The trend has sparked concerns by WHO, fearing the virus may spread further because of the large international communities living in Angola who regularly travel to neighbouring countries.

AVOID AN OUTBREAK

Based on this new warning, Kenya’s Ministry of Health has reiterated that it has tightened its surveillance to avoid an outbreak.

Last month, two patients tested positive for yellow fever, with one dying at Kenyatta National Hospital while being treated for the disease. Both patients had travelled to Angola.

The health ministry asked Kenyans to be on the lookout for any unusual symptoms of diseases and report cases to the nearest health facility.

It also issued a range of measures to curb the possible spread of the deadly virus.

“Travellers from Angola to Kenya must have valid yellow fever vaccination certificate and must have been vaccinated 10 days before travel,” Acting Director of Medical Services Jackson Kioko said.

On Monday, a Kenyan woman took to social media to document her 25-hour agony waiting for results of a yellow fever test upon her return from the neighbouring Uganda without the now all-important document.

Corrie Mwende, a Nairobi-based public relations practitioner, started tweeting two hours after she had arrived at the Jomo Kenyatta International Airport on Sunday at 10:30am aboard a RwandAir flight.

“I only wish that info would be disseminated clearly even when booking flights regarding yellow fever. Oh well. It is what it is,” she wrote.

To her reply, the ministry, through its Twitter handle said: “Kenya takes yellow fever concerns very seriously. Any Kenyan coming into the country from countries such as Uganda, DRC or Angola and has no valid yellow fever cert will be quarantined.”

{According to researchers from Duke University, women need more sleep than men.}

Michael Breus, a clinical psychologist and sleep expert estimated men and women’s respective needs for sleep by assessing their ability to deal with insufficient rest, reports Medical Daily.

According to Breus, women had more depression, more anger and more hostility than men early in the morning if they have insufficient rest.

So why do women suffer more consequences from insufficient rest when compared to men?

According to experts, women need more sleep than men because they use their brain more than men do (the men won’t like this).

According to Jim Horne, director of Sleep Research Center at Loughborough Unique in England, women tend to multitask (do lots at once) and so they use more of their actual brain than men do. The more of the brain you use during the day, the more time it needs to recover and consequently, the more sleep you need.

So what about men who do complex jobs that require lots of decision-making and thinking?

“A man who has a complex job that involves a lot of decision-making and lateral thinking may also need more sleep than the average male – though probably still not as much as a woman,” Horne told The Australian.

So husbands, help your wives out with the chores sometimes while she sleeps.

{Having a set of bright teeth are an attractive asset as they provide us with self-confidence. To preserve your teeth and keep it healthy, it’s important you know the foods that can ruin your teeth.}

Here are 6 foods that can ruin your teeth.

{{1. CITRUS FRUITS AND JUICES}}

Citrus fruits provide us with important vitamins our body needs but they also ruin our teeth due to their acidity which erodes the enamel and makes the teeth more susceptible to decay over time. Make sure you drink plenty of water after taking citrus fruits.

{{2. WHITE WINE}}

White wine isn’t good for your dental health because it contains acid that erodes the enamel. This leaves the teeth vulnerable to stains from other foods or drinks. Always gargle with water after taking white wine to flush away some of the acidity.
{{
3. COFFEE}}

Even though coffee is a healthy beverage, drinking coffee frequently may stain your teeth. Make sure you drink plenty of water after taking coffee.

{{4. DRIED FRUITS}}

Dried fruits are healthy snacks but they can ruin your teeth. Dried fruits are packed with non-cellulose fibre which traps sugar around the teeth. Make sure you brush and floss your teeth immediately after eating dried fruit.

{{5. POTATO CHIPS
}}

While you enjoy your crunchy potato chips, you should also remember they ruin the teeth. Potato chips are filled with starch which tends to get trapped in your teeth. Always floss after eating your crunchy potato chips to remove all the food particles that can lead to plaque build-up.

{{6. CARBONATED SOFT DRINKS}}

When you take carbonated soft drinks, plaque bacteria use the sugar from the drink to produce acids that destroy your enamel. Make sure you drink water after taking carbonated soft drinks.

{A study by researchers from Inserm, the Paris Public Hospitals (Bichat Hospital, AP-HP), Aix-Marseille University, and the National Reference Centre for Arboviruses confirms that the ZIKA virus can be transmitted sexually. Their analyses have shown 100% genetic correlation between the form of the virus present in a man who contracted the virus in Brazil and that of a woman who had never travelled in the epidemic area, but who had sexual relations with him. These results are published in The New England Journal of medicine.}

The ZIKA virus, a member of the Flavivirus family, is almost exclusively transmitted to humans by Aedes mosquitoes. Although Zika infection usually causes mild symptoms, it can be responsible for severe neurological complications, particularly in the infant of a woman infected while pregnant. Some indications of possible sexual transmission of the virus have been reported before now.

For the first time, and to take things further, French researchers have been able to culture the infecting virus from two people seeking a consultation for suspected ZIKA infection. Specimens of urine, saliva and blood were taken from a man who returned from Brazil, and had contracted the virus there. The same specimens were taken from a sick woman who had sexual relations with this man, but who had never travelled to an epidemic area.

While the virus was detected in the urine and saliva of the woman, analysis of the specimens showed that it was absent from the blood and saliva of the man, making it unlikely that transmission occurred by these routes. The researchers then tested his semen for the virus, and detected high viral loads at 15 days and at 3 weeks after the patient’s return from Brazil (approximately 300 million copies/ml).

The virus from both persons was individually sequenced (using a saliva sample from the woman and a semen sample from the man) for genetic analysis. Examination showed 100% correlation between the two genetic sequences. Apart from 4 mutations, all of them “synonymous,” the nucleotide sequences both encoded an identical form of the virus.

“Our work confirms, using molecular analyses, that sexual transmission of the ZIKA virus exists, and should be taken into consideration when making recommendations, due to its persistence in the semen several weeks after infection. The period for which men should systematically have protected sexual relations (even oral) needs to be defined,” explains Yazdan Yazdanpanah.

{Resistance to a key anti-malarial drug cannot be passed on by mosquitoes in a breakthrough scientists believe could drastically improve the way we battle the disease.}

The discovery could potentially shut down the avenue for mass drug resistance to spread, making malaria treatment significantly more effective for the 3.2 billion people at risk.

The international research project was led by the University of Melbourne and focused on the drug atovaquone.

Atovaquone was introduced in 2000 and is safe for pregnant women and children, so it is one of the few anti-malarials that can be used in mass administration approaches.

It was largely phased out of use because resistance was initially observed.

But as published in the journal Science today, the new study reveals that although some malaria parasites had developed a genetic mutation that protected them against the drug in early life, the mutation eventually killed the parasites by stopping production of an essential type of energy as they grew.

Lead authors Professor Geoff McFadden and Dr Dean Goodman are calling it a ‘genetic trap’ that could prove to be a significant step forward in the anti-malaria fight.

The pair, along with long-term collaborator Vanessa Mollard, led a team investigating the evolution and life cycle of the malaria parasite for the past six years.

“These results are very exciting because the spread of drug resistance is currently destroying our ability to control malaria,” said Prof McFadden from the School of Biosciences at the University of Melbourne.

“We now understand the particular genetic mutation that gave rise to drug resistance in some malaria parasite populations and how it eventually kills them in the mosquito, providing new targets for the development of drugs.”

“So the development of drug resistance may not be a major problem if the resistance cannot spread, meaning the drug atovaquone could be more widely used in malaria control.”

The team also included colleagues from Indonesia’s Eijkman Institute and Hasanuddin University, Japan’s Jichi University, Nagasaki University and Tokyo University, and in the US Johns Hopkins University, who have been growing and studying billions of malaria parasites used to infect thousands of mosquitoes.

The researchers studied a model strain of rodent malaria and a deadly strain of human malaria to confirm the resistant parasites could not be spread by mosquitoes, thereby preventing the re-infection of humans.

“It is very rewarding that our fascination with basic biology has produced such significant results.”

“We are the first group to follow the drug resistant malaria parasite through its entire life cycle to understand what happens after drug resistance initially develops and whether they pass on resistance.”

“Our next challenge will be to look for any spread of this drug resistance in field settings such as Kenya and Zambia. We are hopeful that with the development of cheaper generic forms of the drug atovaquone, that there is a new hope in the treatment of malaria.”

{According to a new study acetaminophen could be impeding error-detection in the brain.}

It’s been known for more than a century that acetaminophen is an effective painkiller, but according to a new U of T study it could also be impeding error-detection in the brain.

The research, authored by a team including postdoctoral fellow Dan Randles and researchers from the University of British Columbia, is the first neurological study to look at how acetaminophen could be inhibiting the brain response associated with making errors.

“Past research tells us physical pain and social rejection share a neural process that we experience as distress, and both have been traced to same part of the brain,” says Randles.

Recent research has begun to show how exactly acetaminophen inhibits pain, while behavioural studies suggest it may also inhibit evaluative responses more generally. Randles own past research has found that people are less reactive to uncertain situations when under the effect of acetaminophen.

“The core idea of our study is that we don’t fully understand how acetaminophen affects the brain,” says Randles. “While there’s been recent behavioural research on the effects of acetaminophen, we wanted to have a sense of what’s happening neurologically.”

To test the idea two groups of 30 were given a target-detection task called the Go or No Go. Participants were asked to hit a Go button every time the letter F flashed on a screen but refrain from hitting the button if an E flashed on the screen. “The trick is you’re supposed to move very quickly capturing all the GOs, but hold back when you see a No Go,” says Randles.

Each participant was hooked up to an electroencephalogram (EEG), which measures electrical activity in the brain. The researchers were looking for a particular wave called Error Related Negativity (ERN) and Error Related Positivity (Pe). Essentially what happens is that when people are hooked up to an EEG and make an error in the task there is a robust increase in ERN and Pe.

One group, which was given 1,000 mg of acetaminophen — the equivalent of a normal maximum dose — showed a smaller Pe when making mistakes than those who didn’t receive a dose, suggesting that acetaminophen inhibits our conscious awareness of the error.

“It looks like acetaminophen makes it harder to recognize an error, which may have implications for cognitive control in daily life,” says Randles.

Cognitive control is an important neurological function because people are constantly doing cognitive tasks that flow automatically like reading, walking or talking. These tasks require very little cognitive control because they are well mapped out neurological processes, notes Randles.

“Sometimes you need to interrupt your normal processes or they’ll lead to a mistake, like when you’re talking to a friend while crossing the street, you should still be ready to react to an erratic driver,” explains Randles.

“The task we designed is meant to capture that since most of the stimuli were Go, so you end up getting into a routine of automatically hitting the Go button. When you see a No Go, that requires cognitive control because you need to interrupt the process.”

The study was double blind, so neither the researcher running the study nor the participant knew whether they had been given a placebo or acetaminophen.

An unexpected and surprise finding that Randles plans to explore more closely is that those who received an acetaminophen dose appeared to miss more of the Go stimuli than they should have. He plans on expanding on the error detection aspect of the research to see whether acetaminophen is possibly causing people to “mind wander” and become distracted.

“An obvious question is if people aren’t detecting these errors, are they also making errors more often when taking acetaminophen? This is the first study to address this question, so we need more work and ideally with tasks more closely related to normal daily behaviour.”

The research is published in the current edition of the journal Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience.

{Scientists at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) have concluded, after careful review of existing evidence, that Zika virus is a cause of microcephaly and other severe fetal brain defects. In a new report, the CDC authors describe a rigorous weighing of evidence using established scientific criteria.}

“This study marks a turning point in the Zika outbreak. It is now clear that the virus causes microcephaly. We are also launching further studies to determine whether children who have microcephaly born to mothers infected by the Zika virus is the tip of the iceberg of what we could see in damaging effects on the brain and other developmental problems,” said Tom Frieden, M.D., M.P.H., director of the CDC. “We’ve now confirmed what mounting evidence has suggested, affirming our early guidance to pregnant women and their partners to take steps to avoid Zika infection and to health care professionals who are talking to patients every day. We are working to do everything possible to protect the American public.”

{{Background
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The report notes that no single piece of evidence provides conclusive proof that Zika virus infection is a cause of microcephaly and other fetal brain defects. Rather, increasing evidence from a number of recently published studies and a careful evaluation using established scientific criteria supports the authors’ conclusions.

The finding that Zika virus infection can cause microcephaly and other severe fetal brain defects means that a woman who is infected with Zika during pregnancy has an increased risk of having a baby with these health problems. It does not mean, however, that all women who have Zika virus infection during pregnancy will have babies with problems. As has been seen during the current Zika outbreak, some infected women have delivered babies that appear to be healthy.

Establishing this causal relationship between Zika and fetal brain defects is an important step in driving additional prevention efforts, focusing research activities, and reinforcing the need for direct communication about the risks of Zika. While one important question about causality has been answered, many questions remain. Answering these will be the focus of ongoing research to help improve prevention efforts, which ultimately may help reduce the effects of Zika virus infection during pregnancy.

At this time, CDC is not changing its current guidance as a result of this finding. Pregnant women should continue to avoid travel to areas where Zika is actively spreading. If a pregnant woman travels to or lives in an area with active Zika virus transmission, she should talk with her healthcare provider and strictly follow steps to prevent mosquito bites and to prevent sexual transmission of Zika virus. We also continue to encourage women and their partners in areas with active Zika transmission to engage in pregnancy planning and counseling with their health care providers so that they know the risks and the ways to mitigate them.