Health & Medicine thread...

[waltky]

...`cause Granny says dey ain't no Health & Medicine forum.
:embarrassed:
AIDS complicates TB treatment...

Tough TB Responds to Drug Treatment
October 22, 2012 - An antibiotic used to treat severe infections shows promise against a very resistant and deadly form of tuberculosis. XDR-TB is resistant to at least four of the drugs used most often against the disease.


Extensively drug resistant tuberculosis – or XDR-TB – is still considered rare, although cases have been reported in nearly 80 countries. Health officials believe the number of XDR-TB cases is underreported because there’s no specific test for it. It can be cured, but the odds against that happening are often quite high. It can kill quickly, especially if a person is co-infected with HIV, the virus that causes AIDS.

Dr. Ray Chen, a staff clinician at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, says XDR-TB is the next step after MDR-TB, or multi-drug resistant tuberculosis, which is a lot more common. “That’s been a known problem for many years, primarily as a result of people who don’t take their drugs well. And then the tuberculosis bug slowly develops resistance to the drugs that are used,” he said.

MDR-TB is resistant to two of the top line drugs used for standard tuberculosis therapy. When the disease becomes resistant to two additional first-line drugs, it’s upgraded to XDR-TB. “It came to world attention in 2006 in a study in South Africa where a number of patients were found to have this extensive resistance to tuberculosis drugs, and they had a very high mortality rate. And so it became recognized as a major problem for tuberculosis,” he said.

More http://www.voanews.com/content/xdrtb-drg-22oct12/1530836.html

[waltky]

Granny says dis place gots a Religion & Philosophy forum - but no Health an' Medicine forum...
:shocked:
Panel: Pregnant women, get whooping cough shot
24 Oct.`12 — An expert panel is urging every expecting mother to get a shot preventing whooping cough, preferably in the last three months of her pregnancy to help protect her baby.


The advice follows a frightening resurgence of the dreaded childhood disease. More than 32,000 cases, including 16 deaths, have been reported so far this year, and 2012 is on track to be the nation's worst year for whooping cough since 1959. It's only the second time a vaccine has been advised for all women during pregnancy. Flu shots were first recommended for them in the 1990s.


The new advice was approved in a vote Wednesday by the government's vaccine advisory panel. Federal health officials usually adopt the group's guidance and promote it to doctors and the public. Whooping cough, or pertussis, is a highly contagious disease. Its name comes from the sound children make as they gasp for breath.


Despite long-standing childhood immunizations, cases have been climbing in the past decade. Most are infants two months and younger — too young to be vaccinated because their immune systems are too immature. Health officials increasingly have pushed to get older children and adults vaccinated, to reduce the number of carriers who might infect vulnerable infants. An estimated 30 to 40 percent of infected newborns got the disease from their mothers.


In recent years, a combination vaccine — that included protection against pertussis— was offered to women immediately after they gave birth. Then after a whooping cough epidemic in California, the panel last year recommended a one-time dose of a combination vaccine for expectant mothers, either before or during pregnancy.


More http://news.yahoo.com/panel-pregnant-women-whooping-cough-shot-152229676.html

[Adelaide]

I found the following seriously cool:


Scientists have found that cancer cells from leukaemia sufferers are killed when they are exposed to a type of matter known as cold plasma.

These streams of ionised gas, similar to the material found inside decorative plasma balls and plasma televisions, are thought to trigger the in built self destruct mechanism in the cancerous cells while healthy cells remain unscathed.

The researchers now believe it will be possible to develop a dialysis style treatment where the blood of leukaemia is patients is passed through plasma streams to destroy the cancer cells.




http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/science-news/9622767/Leukaemia-could-be-treated-with-blasts-of-plasma.html

[waltky]

Are pharmas gettin' rich off international malaria scheme?...
:huh:
Concern raised about finance scheme for malaria drugs
24 October 2012 - Combining drugs can reduce the risk of resistance


The charity Oxfam has cast doubt on an international scheme that aims to boost the provision of the most effective treatment for malaria. The UK government has contributed £70m to the Affordable Medicines Facility for malaria (AMFm). Oxfam says there is no evidence the programme has saved the lives of the most vulnerable people. The body behind the AMFm says an independent study shows it has improved access and reduced drug prices.

The scheme was introduced three years ago by the Global Fund to Fight Aids, TB and Malaria. It acts as a global subsidy to provide greater access to combination therapy for malaria, particularly through private-sector drug retailers in developing countries. The idea is to reduce the use of older treatments that carry a higher risk of resistance, and to untap the potential of the private sector in reaching remote communities.

More than 200 million people contract malaria every year and 655,000 die from the disease - most of them are young children. The scheme is being piloted in seven countries including Kenya, Ghana and Nigeria. Its future will be considered at a meeting of the Global Fund's board next month. Oxfam has criticised it as "risky and dangerous".

The charity's senior health policy advisor, Dr Mohga Kamal Yanni, said: "It is dangerous to put the lives of sick children in the hands of a shopkeeper with no medical training, and to pursue a scheme that doesn't help those people who need it the most. "There is no cheap option or short cut to combat malaria. "The AMFm is a dangerous distraction from genuine solutions like investing in community health workers, who have slashed the number of malarial deaths in countries such as Zambia and Ethiopia. "The Global Fund board must act on the evidence and put a stop to the AMFm now." The Global Fund said Oxfam's claims were "simply untrue".

More http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-20046199

See also:

Longevity Traced to Grandmothers
October 24, 2012 - In modern society, grandmothers are often called upon to babysit. But a few million years ago, when primate grandmothers first started doing that, they apparently had a major impact on human evolution. Scientists believe it’s a big reason why we live much longer than other primates. It’s called the “grandmother hypothesis.”


University of Utah Anthropology Professor Kristen Hawkes says humans are distinct among primates when it comes to longevity. “One of the things that’s really different about us humans, compared to our closest living relatives, the other great apes, is that we have these really long lifespans. We reach adulthood later and then we have much longer adult lives. And an especially important thing about that is that women usually live through the childbearing years and are healthy and productive well beyond,” she said.

Other primates are not as lucky. “In other great apes, females, if they make it to adulthood, they usually die in their childbearing years and they get to be old, frail and gray and less able to do all the things that we associate with getting old. Well, of course, it happens to all of us, but it happens slower and later to us compared to the other great apes,” she said.

Hawkes said climate change may have set things in motion by affecting food supplies. Savannahs started replacing forests in Africa. “One of the things it did was restrict the availability of the kinds of things that little kids, little apes, can feed themselves on. So that meant that ancestral moms had two choices. They could either follow the retreating forests, or if they stayed in those environments, then they just would have to feed their kids themselves. The kids couldn’t do it,” she said.

So, if mothers decided to feed their offspring themselves they would not be able to give birth as often. They’d just be too busy finding food. Here’s where granny primate steps in to help. She said, “It would also mean that older females, whose fertility was coming to an end, could now make a big difference in their fitness by helping their daughters feed those grandchildren. And that would mean that moms could wean earlier.” The act of early babysitting had long-range effects.

More http://www.voanews.com/content/grandmothers-longevity-24oct12/1532183.html

[waltky]

New outbreak of Ebola in Uganda...
:shocked:
Uganda Faces Fresh Outbreak of Hemorrhagic Fever
October 24, 2012 — Uganda is struggling to contain the spread of the deadly Marburg virus, just weeks after an outbreak of Ebola killed at least 16 people.


Last week, health officials declared an outbreak of the rare and deadly Marburg virus, a type of hemorrhagic fever similar to Ebola. Five people have died so far, six have been placed in isolation and over 150 more are being monitored for symptoms. One of the cases is being treated in the capital, Kampala. The outbreak comes just two weeks after Uganda was declared free of Ebola earlier this month. At least 16 people died of Ebola, a virus which in the past has killed hundreds.

The cases of Marburg have all come from the southwestern district of Kabale, a heavily forested area where the vectors for the disease, monkeys and bats, are most commonly found. Ministry of Health spokesperson Rukia Nakamatte says the medical team working to contain the outbreak has considerable experience handling such diseases, which have been recurring in Uganda for decades. “There is a team of experts that is in Kabale district. These are experts that have handled the previous outbreaks, like the Ebola we had in Gulu in 2000. Most of these people are trained in handling patients of Ebola and Marburg," she said.

According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, or CDC, this is the first outbreak of Marburg in Uganda since 2008, when a Dutch tourist died after visiting a cave filled with bats. But in terms of the number of fatalities, the current outbreak is the most severe in Uganda since the first reported cases in the 1960s. The Marburg virus kills around 80 percent of those infected. It is highly contagious, and is spread through contact with bodily fluids. Symptoms of the virus include fever and headache, followed by a skin rash and, eventually, severe hemorrhaging.

MORE (http://www.voanews.com/content/uganda-faces-fresh-outbreak-of-hemorrhagic-fever/1532463.html)

[waltky]

Outdated drugs have no affect on DR-malaria...
:shocked:
Outdated Drugs Slow Nigerian Malaria Treatment
October 25, 2012 — A large percentage of people killed by malaria each year are in Nigeria, and the disease is the country’s number one killer of small children. Health officials say modern life-saving drugs are available but the widespread use of out-dated drugs on a resistant strain of malaria continues to cost lives.


In this hospital in Nigeria's Zamfara State, these small patients have malaria. Mothers travel for hours to get to treatment for their children because there is no medicine in their villages. "I brought the baby here because I noticed he had a high fever, and then he got diarrhea,” explains a mother. Aid workers say the current surge in malaria began over the summer, and patients continue to pour in. "At the end of July, my team called me and said, ‘Malaria exploded," says Chloe Wurr, a physician with Doctors Without Borders in the northern state of Sokoto. "We have so many children coming. Some of them arrived and we could barely keep them alive. They died before we could give them treatment."

Wurr says one out of every 10 children with severe malaria here dies, and that's with the best of care. "Heath personnel are often very committed and want to help their community but they often don’t have the resources to treat people," she said. "If I do find any treatment present, it’s usually that that health worker has gone to a local pharmacy and purchased a drug and the drug they are most likely to purchase is chloroquine.” The doctor says chloroquine can treat malaria in some countries. But in Nigeria, the disease has been resistant to the drug since the 1980s. There are drugs that have been effective against malaria in Nigeria for the past decade and they are known as ACTs.

However Doctors Without Borders says the vast majority of clinics they have visited in the country don't have them, and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control says they are not available to most Nigerians. The Nigerian government says it’s planning to increase ACT availability along with providing more bed-nets, which can keep the mosquitoes that transmit the disease from biting in the night. But with the U.N. Children's Fund (UNICEF) saying that 250,000 Nigerian children under the age of five die every year from malaria, aid workers claim the program has a long way to go.

Source (http://www.voanews.com/content/outdated-drugs-slow-nigerian-malaria-treatment/1533243.html)

[Adelaide]

I work in healthcare, so this caught my eye:


In a new study out today, researchers used mice to identify a combination six naturally occurring bacteria that eradicate a highly contagious form of Clostridium difficile, an infectious bacterium associated with many hospital deaths. Three of the six bacteria have not been described before. This work may have significant implications for future control and treatment approaches.

The researchers found that this strain of C. difficile, known as O27, establishes a persistent, prolonged contagious period, known as supershedding that is very difficult to treat with antibiotics. These contagious 'supershedders' release highly resistant spores for a prolonged period that are very difficult to eradicate from the environment. Similar scenarios are likely in hospitals.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/10/121025174629.htm

[waltky]

Adelaide...

... C.diff is also suspected in ulcerative colitis.

[waltky]

Defeating C. diff with competing bacteria...
:cool2:
'Faecal transplant' clue to treating gut bug
25 October 2012 - C. difficile bacteria live in many people's guts


The gut infection Clostridium difficile can be defeated by a cocktail of rival good bacteria, experiments in mice show. When C. difficile bacteria overwhelm the gut, it can be fatal and difficult to treat with antibiotics. A UK team showed a combination of six bacteria could clear the infection. The study, published in PLoS Pathogens, builds on faecal transplant procedures - which are used to introduce competing bacteria. C. difficile bacteria live in many people's guts alongside hundreds of other species - all fighting for space and food. However, a strong course of antibiotics can kill off C. difficile's competition. Numbers then explode, C. difficile dominates the gut and masses of toxins are produced. It results in diarrhoea and can be deadly.

The main treatment, antibiotics, is part of the problem. It means the condition can be difficult to get rid of and can affect patients again and again. Rarely, some patients have faecal transplants as a way of restoring the balance of bacteria in the gut. Material is taken from a donor, mixed with water, filtered and passed down a tube into the stomach. It is thought to be successful in about 90% of cases. However, even the only doctor in the UK to use the treatment, Dr Alisdair MacConnachie from the Gartnavel General Hospital in Glasgow, says its a last resort and quite frankly "disgusting".

'A tough bug'

In this latest study, researchers at the Sanger Institute, near Cambridge, tried to find exactly which bacteria in faecal transplants were needed to clear the infection. They grew bacteria from mouse faeces in the laboratory and tried different combinations of bacteria in infected mice. They found a combination of six, including three previously unidentified species, did the trick. The super-six cocktail cleared the infection in all 20 infected mice given the oral treatment. Crucially the bacteria can be grown in the lab without needing a fresh sample for each transplant.

More http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-20081895

[KC]

Adelaide...

... C.diff is also suspected in ulcerative colitis.

Do you also work in the medical field, waltky?

[waltky]

Adelaide, no but I did have ulcerative colitis when I was in my late 20's.

FDA: Pharmacy tied to outbreak knew of bacteria
27 Oct.`12 WASHINGTON (AP) — Staffers at a pharmacy linked to the deadly meningitis outbreak documented dozens of cases of mold and bacteria growing in rooms that were supposed to be sterile, according to federal health inspectors.



In a preliminary report on conditions at the pharmacy, the Food and Drug Administration said Friday that even when the contamination at New England Compounding Center exceeded the company's own safety levels, there is no evidence that staffers investigated or corrected the problem. The FDA uncovered some four dozen reports of potential contamination in company records, stretching back to January this year. The report comes from an FDA inspection of the Framingham, Mass.-based company earlier this month after steroid injections made by the company were tied to an outbreak of fungal meningitis. FDA officials confirmed last week that the black fungus found in the company's vials was the same fungus that has sickened 338 people across the U.S., causing 25 deaths.

The New England Compounding Center's lawyer said Friday the pharmacy "will review this report and will continue our cooperation with the FDA." Compounding pharmacies like NECC traditionally fill special orders placed by doctors for individual patients, turning out a small number of customized formulas each week. They have traditionally been overseen by state pharmacy boards, though the FDA occasionally steps in when major problems arise. Some pharmacies have grown into much larger businesses in the last 20 years, supplying bulk orders of medicines to hospitals that need a steady supply of drugs on hand.

The FDA report provides new details about NECC's conditions, which were first reported by state officials earlier this week. The drug at the center of the investigation is made without preservative, so it's very important that it be made under highly sterile conditions. Compounding pharmacies prepare their medications in clean rooms, which are supposed to be temperature-controlled and air-filtered to maintain sterility. But FDA inspectors noted that workers at the pharmacy turned off the clean room's air conditioning every night. FDA regulators said that could interfere with the conditions needed to prevent bacterial growth.
Inspectors also say they found a host of potential contaminants in or around the pharmacy's clean rooms, including green and yellow residues, water droplets and standing water from a leaking boiler.

Additionally, inspectors found "greenish yellow discoloration" inside an autoclave, a piece of equipment used to sterilize vials and stoppers. In another supposedly sterile room inspectors found a "dark, hair-like discoloration" along the wall. Elsewhere FDA staff said that dust from a nearby recycling facility appeared to be drifting into the pharmacy's rooftop air-conditioning system.

MORE (http://news.yahoo.com/fda-pharmacy-tied-outbreak-knew-bacteria-232353335--finance.html)

[waltky]

Such ignorance from so-called 'educated' people...
:angry:
Boy kicked out of school because he has gene for cystic fibrosis
A California boy has been ordered to transfer to another middle school because he carries the gene for cystic fibrosis, even though he doesn't actually have the incurable, life-threatening and non-infectious disease. His parents have gone to court to fight the move.



Their son, 11-year-old Colman Chadam, was told last week that he’d have to transfer from Jordan Middle School in Palo Alto, Calif., to a school three miles away because he posed a risk to another student at school who does have the disease, according to TODAY. “I was sad but at the same time I was mad because I understood that I hadn’t done anything wrong,” Colman told TODAY. He added: “It feels like I’m being bullied in a way that is not right.”


An inherited condition, cystic fibrosis causes the body to create a thick mucus that clogs the lungs and can lead to life-threatening lung infections. About 30,000 American adults and children have the disease and patients have an average life expectancy in the late 30s.
While it is not contagious, doctors say people with cystic fibrosis can pose a danger to each other through bacterial cross-contamination if they are in close contact. “In general, we would prefer that there not be more than one cystic fibrosis patient in a school,” Dr. Thomas Keens, the head of the cystic fibrosis center at Children’s Hospital Los Angeles, told TODAY.


The district’s assistant superintendent, Charles Young, told NBC News that officials relied on medical authorities who said “a literal physical distance must be maintained” between patients and that the "zero risk option" was to transfer Colman. But Colman’s parents, who are home-schooling him while they await a court hearing next week, say the school is overreacting. “Why take a child who’s new to the district, who’s just making friends, who’s just building a support network, who’s just getting to know his teachers, who’s been well his whole life ... why stigmatize him?” his father, Jaimy Chadam, said on TODAY.


Jennifer Chadam said her son has attended two other schools with students who have cystic fibrosis. “It has never been an issue. Ever,” she said. Colman’s parents told the school about his condition on a form at the start of the school year, the San Francisco Chronicle reported (http://www.sfgate.com/health/article/Boy-in-school-flap-over-cystic-fibrosis-3944802.php). Colman has not suffered from lung problems, never needed treatment and had a negative result on a sweat test, the most accurate test for the disease, his parents told the Chronicle last week. They told the paper their son has never had a clinical diagnosis of cystic fibrosis.

MORE (http://todayhealth.today.com/_news/2012/10/17/14509787-boy-kicked-out-of-school-because-he-has-gene-for-cystic-fibrosis)

[waltky]

New MS drug effective but expensive...
:huh:
Multiple sclerosis: New drug 'most effective'
1 November 2012 - MS attacks nerves in the brain and spinal cord


A new drug is the "most effective" treatment for relapsing-remitting multiple sclerosis, say UK researchers. During MS the body's immune system turns on its own nerves causing debilitating muscle problems. Researchers at the University of Cambridge say a cancer drug, which wipes out and resets the immune system, has better results than other options.

However, there is concern that a drugs company is about to increase the cost of the drug as a result. Around 100,000 people in the UK have multiple sclerosis. When the condition is diagnosed most will have a form of the disease know as relapsing-remitting MS, in which the symptoms can almost disappear for a time, before suddenly returning.

Built from scratch

The researchers tested a leukaemia drug, alemtuzumab, which had shown benefits for MS in small studies. In leukaemia, a blood cancer, it controls the excess production of white blood cells. In MS patients, the dose eliminates the immune cells entirely, forcing a new immune system to be built from scratch which should not attack the nerves. Two trials, published in the Lancet medical journal, compared the effectiveness of alemtuzumab with a first-choice drug, interferon beta-1a. One compared the effectiveness in patients given the drug after being diagnosed, the other looked at patients given the drug after other treatments had failed. Both showed the drug was around 50% more effective at preventing relapses and patients had less disability at the end of the study than when they started.

Dr Alasdair Coles, from the University of Cambridge, said: "Although other MS drugs have emerged over the last year, which is certainly good news for patients, none has shown superior effects on disability when compared to interferon except alemtuzumab." He told the BBC: "It is certainly the most effective MS drug, based on these clinical trials, but this is definitely not a cure." However, he warned there were side-effects. These include developing other immune disorders. He said he thought the drug would be most useful for patients for whom standard treatment had failed and in a "minority" of patients as a first-choice drug. Eventually relapsing-remitting MS can become progressive MS as the good spells become shorter and less frequent. The drug will have no effect on this form of the disease.

Expense fears (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-20151891)

[waltky]

Pharmas usin' poor people as drug test subjects...
:shocked:
Have India’s poor become human guinea pigs?
31 October 2012 - Drug companies are facing mounting pressure to investigate reports that new medicines are being tested on some of the poorest people in India without their knowledge.


"We were surprised," Nitu Sodey recalls about taking her mother-in-law Chandrakala Bai to Maharaja Yeshwantrao Hospital in Indore in May 2009. "We are low-caste people and normally when we go to the hospital we are given a five-rupee voucher, but the doctor said he would give us a foreign drug costing 125,000 rupees (£1,400)." The pair had gone to the hospital, located in the biggest city in Madhya Pradesh, an impoverished province in central India, because Mrs Bai was experiencing chest pains.


Their status as Dalits - the bottom of the Hindu caste system, once known as untouchables - meant that they were both accustomed to going to the back of the queue when they arrived and waiting many hours before seeing a doctor. But this time it was different and they were seen immediately. "The doctor took the five-rupee voucher given to BLPs [Below the Poverty Line] like us and said the rest would be paid for by a special government fund for poor people," Mrs Sodey explains. "This was really expensive treatment for the likes of us."


What Mrs Sodey says she did not know was that her mother-in-law was being enrolled in a drugs trial for the drug Tonapofylline, which was being tested by Biogen Idec. Neither could read and Mrs Sodey says she does not remember signing a consent form.
Mrs Bai suffered heart abnormalities after being given the trial drug. She was taken off it and discharged after a few days. Less than a month later, she suffered a cardiac arrest and died at the age of 45. The trial, which was registered in the UK by Biogen Idec, was later halted due, say the company, to the number of seizures recorded. The company also says Mrs Bai's death was not reported to them. Her case is not an isolated incident.


In a different trial with a different company, Narayan Survaiya says neither he nor his late mother Tizuja Bai were asked if she wanted to participate, or even told that she was taking part in one, when she sought treatment for problems with her legs. And, like Mrs Sodey, he claims the family were told that a charity was footing the bill for the care. A few weeks after taking the drug, Mr Survaiya says his mother's health deteriorated and she was left unable to walk. "I told the doctor, but he said don't stop the doses. It is a temporary paralysis and the drug will make it better." His mother died a few weeks later.

More http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-20136654

[Captain Obvious]

Pharmas usin' poor people as drug test subjects...
:shocked:
Have India’s poor become human guinea pigs?
31 October 2012 - Drug companies are facing mounting pressure to investigate reports that new medicines are being tested on some of the poorest people in India without their knowledge.

India is clearly still a second-world country, which is a scary thought considering they're a nuclear power.

[waltky]

Malaria rates still high in Asia...
:shocked:
Asia needs new response to malaria threat: experts
Sat, Nov 03, 2012 - DEADLY SCOURGE:Tougher political leadership and regionally coordinated action are needed against the parasite, which is becoming increasingly drug-resistant


Asia is hit with 30 million cases of malaria a year resulting in 42,000 deaths, a report said yesterday as experts called for an urgent response to the disease that stalks billions in the region. Most international efforts to defeat malaria have so far been concentrated on Africa, where the majority of the 650,000 worldwide deaths occur. However, out of the 3.3 billion people at risk from the mosquito-borne disease, 2.5 billion live outside the African region — mostly in Asia, where growing resistance to the frontline drug treatment is also causing concern. Leading scientists and health experts meeting in Sydney this week at the “Malaria 2012: Saving Lives in the Asia-Pacific” conference flagged the need for tougher political leadership and regional coordination.

Fatoumata Nafo-Traore, director of the Roll Back Malaria Partnership, the global framework for coordinated action against the disease, called for a renewed focus in Asia, which has the second-highest malaria burden after Africa. “In the face of persistent economic uncertainty and profound changes in the landscape of global development aid, the region needs strong political leadership,” she said. “It also needs to develop financing strategies that include substantive and sustained domestic investment, traditional multilateral and bilateral aid, and truly innovative sources of funding,” Nafo-Traore added.

She was speaking at the launch of a new report, Defeating Malaria in Asia, the Pacific, Americas, Middle East and Europe, a joint initiative with the WHO. It showed that the parasite threatens more than 2 billion people each year in the Asia-Pacific region, while smaller numbers are at risk in the Americas (160 million) and Middle East (250 million). There were about 34 million cases of malaria outside Africa in 2010, claiming the lives of an estimated 46,000 people.

The Asia-Pacific, which includes 20 malaria-endemic countries, accounted for 88 percent, or 30 million, of these cases and 91 percent, or 42,000, of the deaths. India, Indonesia, Pakistan, Myanmar and Papua New Guinea were hardest hit. Australian Foreign Minister Bob Carr, who attended the three-day Sydney conference, yesterday pledged US$100 million over the next four years to fight the scourge in the Asia-Pacific. “Malaria does not respect borders,” he said. “Our focus must be on cross-regional action alongside traditional single-country strategies.”

MORE (http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/world/archives/2012/11/03/2003546792)

[waltky]

Epidural abscesses developing in meningitis patients...
:shocked:
Meningitis patients struck by 2nd illness
Nov. 3,`12 (UPI) -- People recovering from a meningitis outbreak caused by a contaminated steroid drug have been struck by a second illness, officials say.


The new problem, called an epidural abscess, was caused by the same steroid, methylprednisolone acetate, which was injected into patients to treat back or neck pain, The New York Times reported Friday.

Epidural abscesses are a localized infection affect the membranes covering the brain and spinal cord. They formed in patients who were taking powerful anti-fungal medicines to fight meningitis, putting them back in the hospital for more treatment, often with surgery. "We're hearing about it in Michigan and other locations as well," said Dr. Tom M. Chiller, deputy chief of the mycotic diseases branch of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. "We don't have a good handle on how many people are coming back."

More than 400 cases have been reported nationwide. Doctors are trying to figure out how to best treat patients with epidural abscesses. "We are just learning about this and trying to assess how best to manage these patients. They're very complicated," Chiller said. The meningitis outbreak, first discovered in late September, was caused by steroids made by the New England Compounding Center in Framingham, Mass. Three contaminated lots of the drug -- more than 17,000 vials -- were shipped around the country, and about 14,000 people were injected with the drug.

Twenty-nine people have died, often from strokes caused by the infection. An inspection of the compounding facility, which has since been shut down, uncovered extensive black mold contamination. The company, along with another Massachusetts company, Ameridose, which was also shut down, has recalled its products.

Read more: http://www.upi.com/Health_News/2012/11/03/Meningitis-patients-struck-by-2nd-illness/UPI-19331351959723/#ixzz2BFOgNtXk

[waltky]

Scientists discover inherited MS gene...
http://www.politicalforum.com/images/smilies/fingerscrossed.gif
Scientists discover an inherited gene for MS
Wed, 01 Jun 2016 - Scientists say they have found a gene that causes a rare but inherited form of multiple sclerosis.


It affects about one in every thousand MS patients and, according to the Canadian researchers, is proof that the disease is passed down generations. Experts have long suspected there's a genetic element to MS, but had thought there would be lots of genes involved, as well as environmental factors. The finding offers hope of targeted screening and therapy, Neuron reports. The University of British Columbia studied the DNA of hundreds of families affected by MS to hunt for a culprit gene. They found it in two sets of families containing several members with a rapidly progressive type of MS. In these families, 70% of the people with the mutation developed the disease.

Although other factors may still be important and necessary to trigger the disease process, the gene itself is a substantial causative risk factor that is passed down from parents to their children, say the researchers. The mutation is in a gene called NR1H3, which makes a protein that acts as a switch controlling inflammation. In MS the body's immune system mistakenly attacks the protective layer of myelin that surrounds nerve fibres in the brain and spinal cord, leading to muscle weakness and other symptoms. Studies in mice show that knocking out the function of the same gene leads to neurological problems and decreased myelin production.


http://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/320/cpsprodpb/3038/production/_89844321_g2100377-human_genome_research_computer_dna_sequencing-spl.jpg
Computer sequence of DNA

The researchers believe stopping the inflammation early might prevent or delay the disease. They already have drugs in mind that might do this by targeting the NR1H3 gene pathway. These drugs are in development for other diseases, including cardiovascular disease and diabetes. Researcher Dr Carles Vilarino-Guell said: "These are still early days and there is a lot to test, but if we are able to repurpose some of these experimental drugs, it could shorten the time it takes to develop targeted MS treatments." He said the same treatments might help other patients with progressive MS - even if they don't have exactly the same gene mutation.

Dr Sorrel Bickley from the MS Society said understanding how genes influence a person's risk of developing MS is a really important area of research. "Whilst the gene variant identified was associated with rapidly progressing forms of MS in the two families studied, the variant itself is rare and most people with MS won't have it. This research does however give us an insight into how progressive forms of MS develop, which could help to inform the development of new treatments in the future."

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-36416531

[waltky]

There's a fungus among us...
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Deadly fungal infection that doctors have been fearing now reported in U.S.
10 Mar.`17 - Nearly three dozen people in the United States have been diagnosed with a deadly and highly drug-resistant fungal infection since federal health officials first warned U.S. clinicians last June to be on the lookout for the emerging pathogen that has been spreading around the world.


The fungus, a strain of a kind of yeast known as Candida auris, has been reported in a dozen countries on five continents starting in 2009, where it was first found in an ear infection in a patient in Japan. Since then, the fungus has been reported in Colombia, India, Israel, Kenya, Kuwait, Pakistan, South Korea, Venezuela and the United Kingdom. Unlike garden variety yeast infections, this one causes serious bloodstream infections, spreads easily from person to person in health-care settings, and survives for months on skin and for weeks on bed rails, chairs and other hospital equipment. Some strains are resistant to all three major classes of antifungal drugs. Based on information from a limited number of patients, up to 60 percent of people with these infections have died. Many of them also had other serious underlying illnesses.


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Those at greatest risk are individuals who have been in intensive care for a long time or who are on ventilators or have central line catheters inserted into a large vein. In the United States, the largest number of infections has been reported in New York, with at least 28 cases, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Infections have also been reported in Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts and New Jersey. Last June, the CDC sent an urgent alert to clinicians to start looking for the infections, which are difficult to identify with standard laboratory methods. “As soon as we put out that alert, we started to get information about cases and now we know more about how it spreads and how it’s acting,” Tom Chiller, the CDC’s top fungal expert, said in an interview on Thursday. The CDC now tracks the number of infections, updating the case count every few weeks.

In addition to the 35 infected patients, an additional 18 were carrying the organism but weren't sickened by it. The microbe is among a group of newly emerging drug-resistant threats, health officials said. “These pathogens are increasing, they’re new, they’re scary and they’re very difficult to combat,” Anne Schuchat, CDC’s acting director, said during a briefing in Washington this week about growing antimicrobial resistance. Of the first seven cases that were reported to the CDC last fall, four patients had bloodstream infections and died during the weeks to months after the pathogen was identified. Officials said they couldn't be sure whether the deaths were caused by the infection because all the individuals had other serious medical conditions. Five patients had the fungus initially isolated from blood, one from urine, and one from the ear.


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A strain of Candida auris cultured in a petri dish at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The infection is still relatively rare. “It's really hitting the sickest of the sick,” Chiller said. So far, the fungus doesn't seem to be evolving into new strains within the United States. Because the country doesn't yet have any “homegrown” strains of the deadly fungus, “it gives us a better opportunity to contain it and stop it from spreading,” Chiller said. In other countries, infections have been resistant to all three major types of antifungal drugs, but so far the U.S. cases have been treatable with existing drugs.

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[waltky]

Common Baker's Yeast Can Be Used to Detect Fungal Pathogens...
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Common Baker's Yeast Used to Detect Fungal Pathogens
July 06, 2017 | WASHINGTON — Yeast can be used to make beer and bread, and now - medical diagnoses. Using only baker’s yeast, filter paper and a 3-D printed holder, researchers at Columbia University designed an inexpensive, on-the-spot test to detect major fungal pathogens.


Diagnosing fungal infections, which kill 2 million people each year and cost global agriculture more than $60 billion annually, is a complex, expensive procedure; but, synthetic biology researchers found a way to replace the specialized equipment with a simple, one-component biosensor that could cost less than a penny.

Writing in the journal Science Advances, Nili Ostrov and her colleagues at Columbia University's Cornish Lab described how they genetically altered yeast so it could detect disease-causing pathogens and turn red. First, they swapped out one of the yeast’s receptors for one that recognized the pathogen Candida albicans, which can cause life-threatening infections. Then, "we engineered into it the tomato pigment for red color called lycopene, and when the yeast detects the pheromone of other organisms in its surroundings, it will turn red." The change happens in fewer than three hours.

Versatile test kit

By replacing the baker's yeast gene with similar genes from other fungal species, the researchers showed the biosensor could detect nine additional human, agricultural and food spoilage pathogens. And the dipstick test detected pathogens in soil, urine, serum and blood. It was still effective after being stored at room temperature for 38 weeks. Simplicity, however, was not the researchers’ only goal.

Co-author Miguel Jimenez said, "The idea we had was really, could we build a diagnostic device that was very, very cheap, basically the cost of just the sugar that feeds the yeast and that would be the only expensive reagent required? And we thought if it was so cheap, people outside the lab could use it all the time for continuous surveillance of pathogens." Another advantage is the yeast-based tester could be easily manufactured in developing countries, because, as Jimenez noted, "Every country can make beer!" The researchers have developed a prototype and are working to get it to places that need it.

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