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ReplyDeleteMy name is Uche Okafor. I am interested in registering for the educational materials. Thank you for an interesting innovation. I got ur link from Ebuka.
ReplyDeleteUtilize the links at the top of the newsletter. I warmly await your response!
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DeleteSeen. Thank you sir and keep up the good work.
DeleteThere is definitely a relationship, between climate change, the environment, and the spread of mosquito-borne infectious diseases!
ReplyDeleteOutbreaks of autochthonous dengue were recorded in parts of Texas during 2004-2005 and also in Florida in 2009-2011. Dengue fever is of course spread by the same _Aedes_(Stegomyia)_aegypti_ (L.) as chikungunya fever (and also yellow fever). The reappearance of dengue very much suggests that chikungunya fever, already recently well established in several Caribbean islands, will probably appear on the north American mainland very soon.
Even more worrying, the versatile _Aedes_ is considered as the most likely vector in the outbreaks of yellow fever as far north as Philadelphia, New York, and Boston between the 1690s and the 1820s.
It is very easy to imagine that climate warming may again provide an expansion of this vector's range not just into southern USA, but into northern states and southern Canada in a similar way to the expansion of the _Ixodes_ tick vector of Lyme borreliosis spirochetes into Scandinavia and southern Canada in recent decades.
The first cases of locally acquired chikungunya fever have occurred in Miami-Dade and Palm Beach counties, making it the first time the severely painful virus has been spread by a mosquito in the United States, Florida health officials said Thursday.
ReplyDeleteA 41-year-old Miami-Dade woman first started experiencing some of the symptoms of the mosquito-borne illness on June 10. She developed a fever and health officials confirmed her case. A 50-year-old Palm Beach County man was also confirmed. He first complained of symptoms July 1.
Officials said the two had not traveled out of the country before being infected.
The disease is rarely fatal, although its symptoms include fever, severe joint pain, or swelling or rashes. The arthritis-like symptoms can last for years.
Walter Tabachnick, director of the University of Florida's Florida Medical Entomology Laboratory in Vero Beach, said no one should be surprised by the confirmations.
Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/2014/07/17/4241651/chikungunya-fever-finally-makes.html#storylink=cpy
A review of the epidemiology of Chikungunya fever would be very helpful in the wake of its emergence in 'New' areas. http://cid.oxfordjournals.org/content/49/6/942.full
ReplyDeleteDengue fever escalates in southern Taiwan! This definitely confirms our apprehension about the spread of mosquito borne viruses and their relationship to climate change. Visit this link to learn more! http://focustaiwan.tw/news/asoc/201407160029.aspx
ReplyDeleteWith more than one-third of the world’s population living in areas at risk for infection, dengue virus is a leading cause of illness and death in the tropics and subtropics. As many as 400 million people are infected yearly. Dengue is caused by any one of four related viruses. http://www.cdc.gov/dengue/
ReplyDeleteYellow fever virus (YFV) is a single-stranded RNA virus that belongs to the genus Flavivirus.
ReplyDeleteTRANSMISSION
Vectorborne transmission occurs via the bite of an infected mosquito, primarily Aedes or Haemagogus spp. Nonhuman and human primates are the main reservoirs of the virus, with anthroponotic (human-to-vector-to-human) transmission occurring. There are 3 transmission cycles for yellow fever: sylvatic (jungle), intermediate (savannah), and urban. http://wwwnc.cdc.gov/travel/yellowbook/2014/chapter-3-infectious-diseases-related-to-travel/yellow-fever
Vaccination is the most important preventive measure against yellow fever. The vaccine is safe, affordable and highly effective, and a single dose of yellow fever vaccine is sufficient to confer sustained immunity and life-long protection against yellow fever disease and a booster dose of yellow fever vaccine is not needed. The vaccine provides effective immunity within 30 days for 99% of persons vaccinated. http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs100/en/
ReplyDeletePrimary amebic meningoencephalitis (PAM) is a fatal disease caused by the thermotolerant free-living ameba Naegleria fowleri. Found worldwide in moist soil and freshwater, these amebae proliferate during summer when ambient temperature increases. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3204751/
ReplyDeleteThe US Surgeon General has said, “Smoking cessation [stopping smoking] represents the single most important step that smokers can take to enhance the length and quality of their lives.”
ReplyDeleteIt’s hard to quit smoking, but you can do it. To have the best chance of quitting and staying a non-smoker, you need to know what you’re up against, what your options are, and where to go for help. You’ll find this information here.
http://www.cancer.org/healthy/stayawayfromtobacco/guidetoquittingsmoking/index?sitearea
Rising temperatures can make smog pollution worse and increase the number of "bad air days" when it's hard to breathe. This puts many of us at risk for irritated eyes, noses, and lungs -- but it is particularly dangerous for people with respiratory diseases like asthma. As the climate changes, unhealthy air pollution will get worse. Here's how: http://www.nrdc.org/health/climate/airpollution.asp
ReplyDeleteOzone smog forms when pollution from vehicles, factories, and other sources reacts with sunlight and heat. Increasing temperatures speed this process and result in more smog. Added to the mix are ragweed and other allergens in the air -- which are expected to worsen as rising carbon dioxide levels cause plants to produce more pollen. Also, as dry areas get dryer, wildfire risks go up and smoke from burning landscapes intensifies poor air quality.
ReplyDeletePanel’s Warning on Climate Risk: Worst Is Yet to Come; http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/01/science/earth/climate.html?_r=0
ReplyDeleteObesity has a far-ranging negative effect on health. http://stanfordhospital.org/clinicsmedServices/COE/surgicalServices/generalSurgery/bariatricsurgery/obesity/effects.html
ReplyDeleteheart disease - Atherosclerosis (hardening of the arteries) is present 10 times more often in obese people compared to those who are not obese. Coronary artery disease is also more prevalent because fatty deposits build up in arteries that supply the heart. Narrowed arteries and reduced blood flow to the heart can cause chest pain (angina) or a heart attack. Blood clots can also form in narrowed arteries and cause a stroke.
ReplyDeletejoint problems, including osteoarthritis - Obesity can affect the knees and hips because of the stress placed on the joints by extra weight. Joint replacement surgery, while commonly performed on damaged joints, may not be an advisable option for an obese person because the artificial joint has a higher risk of loosening and causing further damage.
metabolic syndrome - The National Cholesterol Education Program has identified metabolic syndrome as a complex risk factor for cardiovascular disease. Metabolic syndrome consists of six major components: abdominal obesity, elevated blood cholesterol, elevated blood pressure, insulin resistance with or without glucose intolerance, elevation of certain blood components that indicate inflammation, and elevation of certain clotting factors in the blood. In the US, approximately one-third of overweight or obese persons exhibit metabolic syndrome.
ReplyDeleteA man's blood may be free of Ebola, but the virus can persist in semen for two to three months after recovery. (That's because antibodies produced in the bloodstream don't reach the testicles.) Since Ebola can be transmitted through sexual contact, male survivors are sent home with condoms and instructed to use them for the next three months if they engage in intercourse.
ReplyDeleteThe virus can also linger in breast milk, so mothers are told to wean any child who had been breast-feeding.
Are you sure we dont have Ebola in Nigeria?
DeleteThe symptoms of ebola, include, fever headaches, muscle aches, sore throat diarrhea, and weakness; This means it can look like several other flu-like diseases. Our laboratory capacity is very weak in Nigeria, like several other parts of sub-Saharan Africa. With the current Nigerian medical association industrial action, we face dangerous times in Nigeria
DeleteI have registered. Will pay N1,500 soon. Thanks
ReplyDeleteYou can pay into any of the bank accounts, with links at the top of the news letter. The edu-portal links will be sent to your e-mail box as soon as we receive evidence of payment
DeleteI prefer the UBA account. Thank you.
DeleteSilica is a common, naturally-occurring crystal. It is found in most rock beds. Silica dust forms during mining, quarrying, tunneling, and working with certain metal ores. Silica is a main part of sand, so glass workers and sand-blasters are also exposed to silica.
ReplyDeleteThree types of silicosis occur:
Simple chronic silicosis, which results from long-term exposure (more than 20 years) to low amounts of silica dust. The silica dust causes swelling in the lungs and chest lymph nodes. This disease may cause people to have trouble breathing. This is the most common form of silicosis.
Accelerated silicosis, which occurs after exposure to larger amounts of silica over a shorter period of time (5 to 15 years). Swelling in the lungs and symptoms occur faster than in simple silicosis.
Acute silicosis, which results from short-term exposure to very large amounts of silica. The lungs become very inflamed and can fill with fluid, causing severe shortness of breath and low blood oxygen levels.
Progressive massive fibrosis can occur in either simple or accelerated silicosis, but is more common in the accelerated form. Progressive massive fibrosis causes severe lung scarring and destroys normal lung structures.
Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) Infections; http://www.npr.org/blogs/goatsandsoda/2014/07/14/319194689/pathogens-on-a-plane-how-to-stay-healthy-in-flight?ft=1&f=1001
ReplyDeleteVery nice update.
ReplyDeletePathogens On A Plane: How To Stay Healthy In Flight; From Ebola in West Africa to chikungunya in the Caribbean, the world has had plenty of strange — and scary — outbreaks this year.
DeleteSome pathogens have even landed in the U.S. Just a few months ago, two men boarded planes in Saudi Arabia and brought a from the Middle East to Florida and Indiana.
Nobody along the way caught Middle East respiratory syndrome. But all of these plane-hopping pathogens got us wondering: How easily do bacteria and viruses spread on commercial jets? And is there anything we can do to cut our risk?
ReplyDeleteMicrobiologist and his team at Auburn University have been trying a few simple experiments to figure out the first question.
The airlines gave the scientists parts on commercial jets where spread might take place — a steel toilet button, the rubber armrest, the plastic tray table and, of course, "the seat pocket in front of you."
Barbaree and his team sterilized the surfaces and then painted on two dangerous microbes: the antibiotic-resistant superbug and E. coli O157, which will give you an unforgettable case of diarrhea.
Several days later, the microbes were still happily thriving on the plane parts. E. coli survived about four days. MRSA lasted at least a week, the team at a scientific meeting in May.
Such hardiness is common for MRSA and E. coli, Barbaree says. "I'm not surprised at all the bacteria survived so long on the surfaces," he says. "MRSA has been tested on other surfaces. And in one case, it lasted over a year."
CNN) -- The U.S. Embassy in Libya evacuated its personnel on Saturday because of heavy militia violence raging in the capital, Tripoli, the State Department said.
ReplyDeleteAbout 150 personnel, including 80 U.S. Marines were evacuated from the embassy in the early hours of Saturday morning and were driven across the border into Tunisia, U.S. officials confirm to CNN.
U.S. officials stress that this is a relocation of embassy personnel and the operations have been "temporarily suspended" until "the security situation on the ground improves." The embassy will continue to operate from other locations.
A senior State Department official said some of the staff from Libya will be sent to other U.S. embassies in the region and others will come back to Washington.
CNN has learned the plan to evacuate the Americans was in the works for several days, but the decision to carry out the plan was made just in the last few days as the security situation around the embassy deteriorated.
CNN) -- A Liberian man who was hospitalized in Nigeria's biggest city, Lagos, with the Ebola virus has died, Nigerian Health Minister Onyebuchi Chukwu said.
ReplyDelete"The patient was subjected to thorough medical tests ... which confirmed he had the Ebola virus," Chukwu said Friday.
The case has raised fears that the virus could spread beyond the three countries at the center of what health officials say is the deadliest ever Ebola outbreak and into Africa's most populous nation, Nigeria. Lagos has more than 20 million residents.
As of July 20, some 1,093 people in Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia are thought to have been infected by Ebola since its symptoms were first observed four months ago, according to the World Health Organization. Testing confirmed the Ebola virus in 786 of those cases, of whom 442 died.
Of the 1,093 confirmed, probable and suspected cases, 660 people have died.
The man hospitalized in Lagos was a 40-year-old Liberian working for a West African organization in Monrovia, Liberia, according to the Lagos State Ministry of Health.
(CNN) -- An American doctor trying to quell the Ebola outbreak in Liberia is now infected with the virus, the organization for which he works said.
ReplyDeleteDr. Kent Brantly is now hospitalized and undergoing treatment at an isolation center, the Christian humanitarian group Samaritan's Purse said.
The 33-year-old doctor had been treating Ebola patients and started feeling ill, Samaritan's Purse spokeswoman Melissa Strickland said. Once he started noticing the symptoms last week, Brantly isolated himself.
His Ebola infection was confirmed Saturday.
ReplyDeleteBrantly, the medical director for Samaritan Purse's Ebola Consolidated Case Management Center in Monrovia, Liberia, has been in the country since last October, Strickland said.
"When the Ebola outbreak hit, he took on responsibilities with our Ebola direct clinical treatment response, but he was serving in a missionary hospital in Liberia prior to his work with Ebola patients," she said.
Deadliest Ebola outbreak
Health officials say the current Ebola outbreak, centered in West Africa, is the deadliest ever.
As of July 20, some 1,093 people in Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia are thought to have been infected by Ebola since its symptoms were first observed four months ago, according to the World Health Organization.
Testing confirmed the Ebola virus in 786 of those cases; 442 of those people died.
Of the 1,093 confirmed, probable and suspected cases, 660 people have died.
And there are fears the virus could spread to the Africa's most populous country, Nigeria.
(CNN) -- The Ebola epidemic now raging across three countries in West Africa is three-fold larger than any other outbreak ever recorded for this terrible disease; the only one to have occurred in urban areas and to cross national borders; and officially urgent and serious. At least 1,090 people have contracted the awful disease this year, though the epidemic's true scope is unknown because of widespread opposition to health authorities in afflicted Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone.
ReplyDeleteUpwardly mobile
ReplyDeleteYou cannot talk about Africa without talking about mobile. Most innovation involves mobile devices and wireless technology in some way or another.
It's not hard to understand why.
Installing a traditional fixed-line telecoms infrastructure made no economic sense across huge, sparsely populated, and sometimes difficult to cross terrains.
The mobile phone - particularly cheap "feature phones" such as the Nokia 1100 and the Samsung E250 - offered sufficient functionality combined with long battery life.
In a continent where access to electricity is still patchy, particularly in non-urban areas, battery life and energy-frugal applications are key. This is why so many essential mobile services in Africa are based around the SMS texting platform.
Information is power, and before mobiles came along, access to data was limited for millions of Africans.
ReplyDeleteBut by the end of 2014 more than 600 million people - about 56% of the population - are likely to own a mobile phone, with some researchers estimating penetration could reach 80%.
When you consider that just 1% owned a mobile in 2000, the rate of growth seems all the more astonishing. There are now more than 35 mobile network operators in Africa busily extending their base station networks to improve coverage.
Foreign companies are waking up to the commercial opportunities this presents.
"Large, multinational consumer goods companies are now looking for ways to reach their customers and employees in Africa through mobile channels, and are viewing South Africa as a gateway to the rest of the continent," says Tielman Botha, South Africa country lead for Accenture Mobility.
Pocket bank
ReplyDeleteEven though nearly two-thirds of these phones will be accessing 2G and SMS networks rather than the faster 3G and 4G, the range of services they can access is impressive.
Whether it is farmers accessing local market prices for their produce to arm themselves against profiteering middlemen, or nurses, doctors and patients accessing medical monitoring and data services, mobiles and wireless devices are transforming lives.
But it is as a payments platform that the mobile has really blossomed in Africa.
Vodafone and Safaricom's M-Pesa mobile payments system, launched in 2007, now handles about 1.15 trillion Kenyan Shillings (£7.72bn) a year - that's 35% of Kenya's gross domestic product.
Internet for all?
ReplyDeleteIn Nigeria, Africa's most populous country, about 42% have some form of internet access, according to the country's Federal Ministry of Communication Technology (FMCT).
But with broadband costing about 30% of a household's income, and half the country's 167 million people living in unconnected rural areas, take-up of high-speed services is understandably slow.
Mrs Omobola Johnson, FMCT minister, believes information and communication technology (ICT) is "the fourth pillar of the Nigerian economy, contributing about 7.8% to the country's GDP".
Her department is working on a broadband strategy that aims to achieve 30% penetration by 2017 through public-private partnerships, in the belief that a 10% increase in broadband connectivity could lead to a 1.3% increase in national GDP.
Hello sir. My name is Francis Ugochukwu. I made payment of N1,500 for the eduportal to your account at FCMB on 24/07/2014. My slip number is 15758389. I dont know if you have posted the links to my email. Thank you.
ReplyDeleteDear Francis; I sent the edu-portal links to your e-mail box a few minutes ago. I sincerely apologize for the delay which resulted from my bank's tele-network glitch.
DeleteThank you sir.
DeleteHappy celebrations to all our muslim friends throughout the world. Thank you for staying with us.
ReplyDeleteThank you sir.
ReplyDeleteI warmly invite you to register and pay for the edu-portal;
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The links at the top of the news letter provides details for registration.
DeleteEbuka, Francis, Uche and Ife, have utilized the links at the top of the newsletter to register and make their edu-portal payments. I warmly invite you to join the quest for knowledge.
ReplyDelete(CNN) -- Skin cancer is on the rise, according to the American Cancer Society, with more cases diagnosed annually than breast, prostate, lung and colon cancer cases combined.
ReplyDeleteOn Tuesday, the United States surgeon general issued a call to action to prevent the disease, calling it a major public health problem that requires immediate action. Nearly 5 million people are treated for skin cancer each year.
"Until today, the surgeon general has never said, 'UV radiation is bad for you; protect your skin,' " acting Surgeon General Dr. Boris Lushniak said.
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services has set five goals for communities to decrease the risk of skin cancer, such as providing shade at parks, schools and other public spaces, and reducing indoor tanning.
ReplyDeleteA dermatologist himself, Lushniak said it's important for parents to teach their children about sun safety, just as they would dental care and eating healthily.
"We have to change the social norms about tanning," he said. "Tanned skin is damaged skin, and we need to shatter the myth that tanned skin is a sign of health."
Melanoma, the deadliest form of skin cancer because of how fast it spreads to other parts of the body, accounts for only 2% of skin cancer cases but is responsible for the majority of skin cancer deaths, according to the American Cancer Society.
Clean Edge’s recently released 2014 U.S. Clean Tech Leadership Index finds the U.S. clean-tech market making impressive strides in many areas, while still hampered by inaction and inertia in others. As has been the case in recent years — even with encouraging national-level initiatives from the Obama administration — states and cities continue to be where most of the action is.
ReplyDeleteFind the index here.
Over the past year, supportive policies and aggressive technology deployments from Connecticut to California have made climate and clean-energy related technologies, in particular residential and commercial solar PV, an increasingly popular choice for mainstream America.
According to this year’s Index, eleven states generated more than 10 percent of their electricity from clean-energy sources (not including hydro) in 2013, with two, Iowa and South Dakota, exceeding 25 percent. At least eight states now have more than 50 percent smart-meter market penetration, with California topping 70 percent. Registrations for all-electric vehicles, led by the Nissan LEAF and Chevy Volt , more than doubled between the 2013 and 2014 indexes, to nearly 220,000 cumulative registrations nationwide. And 14 states — among them Georgia, North Carolina, and Pennsylvania — are each now home to more than 500 LEED-certified commercial green building projects.
On the policy front, leading states and metro areas continue to make climate action and clean-energy expansion a priority. Nearly 30 states offer some form of property assessed clean energy (PACE) legislation, 19 have specific greenhouse gas reduction targets, and 10 operate or are members of active cap-and-trade carbon markets. Net-zero or near-zero energy mandates for buildings, green banks and other effective financing mechanisms, and the nation’s first energy-storage mandate in California are just a few policies implemented in the last 12 months that will drive the future clean-tech growth tracked by the Leadership Index.
(CNN) -- Cancer is plaguing a growing number of first responders and rescuers who worked at ground zero after the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001. These are cancers the federal government says are thought to be directly related to that effort -- cancers like leukemia, myeloma, thyroid and prostate cancers.
ReplyDeleteThere are at least 1,646 certified cancer cases that have been documented by Mount Sinai Selikoff Centers for Occupational Health. There are some additional 863 cancer cases among both fire and EMS personnel, according to FDNY, which keeps a separate database for its members.
That's a total of 2,509 cases. The center has screened more than 37,000 World Trade Center rescue and recovery workers since 2002. It will continue to monitor those workers and volunteers for any new cases.
ReplyDeleteSome reports suggest the number of cancer cases in this group has doubled since last year. While that may be mathematically true, cancer experts caution that we can't draw any significant conclusions from the increase.
"For every decade of life, if you look at a population ... cancer rates go up the older you are," said Dr. Otis Brawley, the chief medical and scientific officer and executive vice president of the American Cancer Society. "Looking at an increase from one year to the next is a nonscientific way of making an assessment that is incredibly biased to find a link between the activity and the cancer."
Many have cancers after 9/11
To be scientifically accurate, Brawley said someone would have to look at all the cancer records for the people in the 9/11 group and compare them to a group that had the same age makeup, same gender, and other demographic data. There would also have to be a significant portion of firefighters in that sample, because as a profession they tend to have higher cancer rates than the general population, Brawley said.
CNN) -- Fear over Ebola is growing as international leaders and health organizations struggle to try to stop the deadly epidemic in West Africa.
ReplyDeleteThe Ebola outbreak "is moving faster than our efforts to control it," Margaret Chan, director-general of the World Health Organization, said in a statement Friday. "This is an unprecedented outbreak accompanied by unprecedented challenges. And these challenges are extraordinary."
This is the first Ebola outbreak in West Africa and involves the most deadly strain in the Ebola virus family, Chan said.
"If the situation continues to deteriorate, the consequences can be catastrophic in terms of lost lives but also severe socioeconomic disruption and a high risk of spread to other countries."
One of those countries could be the United States, health officials have said. In fact, the U.S. Department of State announced Friday that it is working with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to bring home two U.S. citizens who have been infected by Ebola in Liberia.
(CNN) -- The National Institutes of Health will begin testing an experimental Ebola vaccine in people as early as September, the NIH announced Thursday.
ReplyDeleteThe federal agency has been working on the Ebola vaccine over the last few years and says it has seen positive results when testing it on primates.
Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said NIH has been working with the Food and Drug Administration to get the vaccine into early trials as soon as possible. According to NIAID, the results of the trial could come early next year.
The announcement comes the same day the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention raised its travel alert for Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone from level two to level three, warning against any nonessential travel to the region due to the Ebola epidemic. Since 2003, the agency has only issued level 3 alerts on two occasions: during the outbreak of SARS, severe acute respiratory syndrome, in 2003, and in the aftermath of the 2010 Haiti earthquake.
The CDC is sending 50 additional personnel to the three countries, CDC Director Dr.Tom Frieden said. They will be working to speed up laboratory testing, trace potentially infected people and strengthen the local health care systems.
ReplyDeleteExperts: The U.S. is ready for Ebola
Ebola is believed to have killed 729 people in Guinea, Liberia, Sierra Leone and Nigeria between March 1 and July 27, according to the World Health Organization. Stopping this particular epidemic could take months. "It's like fighting a forest fire," Frieden said. If you leave even one burning ember, the epidemic can start again.
This is not the first Ebola vaccine to be tested on humans and not the only treatment in the works. In March, a group at the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston, led by Thomas Geisbert, a professor of microbiology and immunology, was awarded a five year, $26 million grant to work with three promising Ebola therapies.
Geisbert is best known as the man who discovered an airborne strain of Ebola that infects only monkeys.
ReplyDeleteThe grant covers three treatments that are thought to be the most promising - i.e. they have shown substantial ability to protect animals against Ebola in a laboratory setting, Geisbert said.
"So these treatments, one of these is actually a vaccine that works as a post-exposure treatment, much like the rabies vaccine when used here in the United States. Another is a small molecule inhibitor called a SIRNA. And the third is just conventional monoclonal antibodies. All of these have been able to protect nonhuman primates against Ebola when given after exposure."
The experimental vaccine Geisbert is working with has been nearly 100% effective in preventing infection in macaque monkeys, and also shows some effectiveness as a treatment when given soon after an exposure. In 2009, it was given to a lab worker in Germany after the worker reported being accidentally pricked with a needle. The worker did not develop Ebola, although it's not clear whether that's because of the vaccine.
Because of its strict rules and standards, the FDA can take years to get a vaccine to market. But it does makes exceptions to fast-track drug development, especially when it comes to deadly diseases like Ebola.
ReplyDeleteGeisbert said that's important, because unlike outbreaks of Ebola in the past, this epidemic is harder to manage
"I think it's very different, I mean historically outbreaks have occurred in central Africa and they have been relatively easy to contain," Geisbert said. "Usually, the outbreaks tend to occur in small villages, but it's controlled and kind of burns out. What we are seeing in West Africa here is completely different.
"They are having the virus occur simultaneously across a very large geographic area in different locations all at the same time. And that's very difficult to contain because again the organizations with the expertise in controlling these outbreaks, their resources are really spread thin."
(CNN) -- Two American missionary workers infected with the deadly Ebola virus were given an experimental drug that seems to have saved their lives.
ReplyDeleteDr. Kent Brantly was given the medication, ZMapp, shortly after telling his doctors he thought he would die, according to a source familiar with his case. Within an hour, doctors say his symptoms -- labored breathing and a widespread rash -- dramatically improved. Nancy Writebol, another missionary working with Samaritan's Purse, received two doses of the medication and has also shown significant improvement, sources say.
As there is no proven treatment and no vaccine for Ebola, this experimental drug is raising lots of questions.
The drug was developed by the biotech firm Mapp Biopharmaceutical Inc., which is based in San Diego. The company was founded in 2003 "to develop novel pharmaceuticals for the prevention and treatment of infectious diseases, focusing on unmet needs in global health and biodefense," according to its website.
ReplyDeleteMapp Biopharmaceutical has been working with the National Institutes of Health and the Defense Threat Reduction Agency, an arm of the military responsible for weapons of mass destruction, to develop an Ebola treatment for several years.
Are there other experimental Ebola drugs out there?
Yes. In March, the NIH awarded a five-year $28 million grant to establish a collaboration between researchers from 15 institutions who were working to fight Ebola.
"A whole menu of antibodies have been identified as potentially therapeutic, and researchers are eager to figure out which combinations are most effective and why," a news release about the grant said.
How does ZMapp work?
ReplyDeleteAntibodies are proteins used by the immune system to mark and destroy foreign, or harmful, cells. A monoclonal antibody is similar, except it's engineered in a lab so it will attach to specific parts of a dangerous cell, according to the Mayo Clinic, mimicking your immune system's natural response. Monoclonal antibodies are used to treat many different types of conditions.
This medicine is a three-mouse monoclonal antibody, meaning that mice were exposed to fragments of the Ebola virus and then the antibodies generated within the mice's blood were harvested to create the medicine.
UPDATE: Nigeria confirms doctor infected with Ebola virus - See more at: https://www.premiumtimesng.com/news/top-news/166024-update-nigeria-confirms-doctor-infected-with-ebola-virus.html#sthash.feJ2jssB.dpuf
ReplyDelete
ReplyDeleteEbola drug maker's stock surges money.cnn.com
A Canadian biotech called Tekmira is working with the FDA to get its Ebola drug approved. It hasn't been yet. But that hasn't stopped investors from pushing the stock up 50% in the past week.
BackgroundEbola virus (EBOV) infection causes a frequently fatal hemorrhagic fever (HF) that is refractory to treatment with currently available antiviral therapeutics. RNA interference represents a powerful, naturally occurring biological strategy for the inhibition of gene expression and has demonstrated utility in the inhibition of viral replication. Here, we describe the development of a potential therapy for EBOV infection that is based on small interfering RNAs (siRNAs) ;
ReplyDeletehttp://jid.oxfordjournals.org/content/193/12/1650.short
Atlanta (CNN) -- One of the countries hard hit by the Ebola outbreak in West Africa is not able to cope, a health worker said, calling on the international community to step up support.
ReplyDeleteAnja Wolz, emergency coordinator for Doctors Without Borders, spoke to CNN on Tuesday from an Ebola facility in Kailahun, Sierra Leone.
"I think that the government and the ministry of health here in Sierra Leone is not able to deal with this outbreak. We need much more help from international organizations -- as WHO, as CDC, as other organizations -- to come to support the government," Wolz said.
"Still we have unsafe burials; people who are doing the burial without disinfection of the body; still we have patients who are hiding themselves; still we have patients or contacts of patients who are running away because they are afraid."
Sierra Leone, Guinea and Liberia are at the center of an Ebola outbreak that has already killed more than 800 people.
(CNN) -- A nurse in Nigeria. A businessman in Saudi Arabia. A Spanish priest in Liberia.
ReplyDeleteWith the World Health Organization announcing Wednesday that 932 deaths had been reported or confirmed as a result of Ebola hemorrhagic fever, Saudi Arabia joined the list of countries with suspected cases.
"This is the biggest and most complex Ebola outbreak in history," Dr. Tom Frieden, director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said.
Nearly all of those deaths have been in Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea, where more than 1,700 cases have been reported, according to WHO. The agency said 108 new cases were reported between Saturday and Monday in those countries and Nigeria.
Editor's note: Harriet A. Washington, a fellow at the Black Mountain Institute at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, is the author of "Medical Apartheid: The Dark History of Experimentation from Colonial Times to the Present" and "Deadly Monopolies: The Shocking Corporate Takeover of Life Itself -- and the Consequences for Your Health and Our Medical Future." The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of the writer.
ReplyDelete(CNN) -- One of the many questions surrounding the revelation that Americans Kent Brantly and Nancy Writebol received a little-known, experimental serum for their Ebola infection is: "Why did we hear nothing about it earlier, and how did they gain access to it?"
Ebola has no cure, although potential medications and vaccines are in various states of development. The serum ZMapp, an experimental product of Mapp Biopharmaceutical, hasn't been tested in humans, which means it doesn't meet a primary requirement for FDA approval -- so its obscurity is no surprise.
The Americans managed to gain access to what more than 1,660 infected people in Guinea, Sierra Leone, Liberia and now Nigeria did not: medicine that seems to work -- although, of course, we don't know for sure yet. Some reports indicate they received ZMapp under the FDA's "compassionate use" rule, which permits untested drugs to be given to consenting patients who might otherwise die. This is a triumph of common sense and compassion over bureaucratic red tape.
One of the chief concerns about using unapproved medications is that we don't know what the risks are: The drug may not work, it may work with serious adverse effects, or it may prove as deadly as the disease. But as a doctor, Brantly understood the risks, and like him, Writebol had no other options. Most people with Ebola die.
ReplyDeleteCompassionate use is certainly ethically defensible. But apparently only three doses were available, and they were given to Westerners. The lack of broader access to ZMapp highlights what is often a very serious ethical failing.
http://www.cnn.com/2014/08/06/opinion/washington-ebola-zmapp-drug-africa/index.html?hpt=hp_t3
Why didn't Dr. Sheik Umar Khan, the chief Sierra Leone physician who died while treating Ebola patients, receive this medication? Because another method of determining who gets medications is at work here -- the drearily familiar stratification of access to a drug based on economic resources and being a Westerner rather than a resident of the global South.
No health worker wants to intentionally deprive Africans of a needed drug. But informal medical networks, which Africans lack, connect well-to-do Westerners with information and drugs. In addition, the pharmaceutical industry has a history of declining to test medications for diseases of the tropical world, most of whose inhabitants cannot afford high prices.
We don't know how quickly ZMapp could be made in large quantities. If it were to be made available, who should receive it? Some think Ebola doctors and caregivers should, because their survival is essential to treating and quelling the epidemic. This makes sense, but it's not that simple.
First, it violates the principle of distributive justice: The benefits of the drug are being inequitably distributed, with skilled, economically secure professionals more likely to benefit.
Also, by what reckoning do we decide that the doctors' role increases their value and dictates they should be given a preferential chance to survive? Distributing the drug through a clinical trial would allow us to know whether and how well the medication works and what caveats might apply.
I certainly do not want to delve into medical ethics and tuskegee! However the CNN editor has provoked many unanswered questions!
ReplyDeleteAfricans must participate in any clinical trial, which would benefit the pharmaceutical company as well as, it's hoped, Ebola victims. This would mean their lives have irreplaceable value, too, in the equation of who should get the drug.
So, will Africans receive this potentially lifesaving medication?
A U.N. official suggested that drugs cannot be tested in the middle of an epidemic -- but he is wrong. Such tests are conducted all the time.
Dr. David Ho tested AIDS drugs in Uganda in the midst of the pandemic, and the meningitis drug Trovan was tested in Kano, Nigeria, in the midst of an epidemic. One of every three industry trials is conducted in developing countries; scientists often point to high disease rates, including epidemics, as a rationale for conducting them there.
The problem is not testing the drug amid an epidemic. The question is how ethically such trials are conducted.
Only small amounts of ZMapp are available now, but as soon as it can be made in quantity, the drug for Ebola should be made available to Africans in all the regions that are threatened by the epidemic, regardless of ability to pay.
If possible, it should be distributed within clinical trials to determine the safety and efficiency of the medications. Many people assume this requires withholding medications in a control group, but this is not necessarily the case. Experts should and can mount a well-designed study that permits early access to the medication to all who need it.
But if they cannot ensure that sick people get the drug early, then a clinical trial should not be any more of a requirement for poor Africans than it was for Kent Brantly.
It's also natural to wonder whether the threat of Ebola to the Western world, not to Africans, drives this initiative because so few such drugs are devised for Africans.
This simply highlights another reason why we should so our utmost to protect people from Ebola: our medical interdependence. If Ebola makes landfall in the United States, we will need drugs like ZMapp, just as Africans need them today.
http://www.cnn.com/2014/08/06/opinion/washington-ebola-zmapp-drug-africa/index.html?hpt=hp_t3
Fred Hutch researchers are renowned for developing successful treatments that harness the immune system to fight cancer, much as it naturally eliminates everyday infections like the common cold.
ReplyDeleteOur Nobel Prize-winning work on bone marrow transplantation provided the first example of the human immune system's power to cure cancer. Today, we continue to lead this revolutionary field, called immunotherapy, which is yielding effective cancer treatments with far fewer side effects than conventional drugs, radiation or surgery.
We've already used immunotherapy to boost survival rates for patients with leukemia and other blood cancers. And we've shown it has promise for treating many other cancers.
Our goal is to have the same impact on these cancers that bone marrow transplantation has had on leukemia
A new report out of College Station, Texas notes that if the need for mass production of an experimental Ebola drug is needed to combat an epidemic outbreak in the United States, Texas A&M University could serve as a mass-production center for the therapy.
ReplyDeleteThe news comes on the heels of a developing story surrounding two seriously ill American medical missionaries, Dr. Kent Brantly of the Samaritan’s Purse non-denominational evangelical Christian International Relief organization based in Boone North Carolina, and Nancy Writebol — an aid worker also from North Carolina who works with Serving in Mission (SIM) – were flown this week to Atlanta on a private jet fitted with an isolation chamber, and transferred under heavy security to the Emory University hospital’s special isolation unit for treatment. The two Americans became infected with highly-lethal Ebola while working at a treatment center in Liberia — one of the West African nations hit hardest by the worst Ebola outbreak on record. Dr. Brantly and Ms. Writebol have both volunteered to be treated with an unlicensed experimental drug called ZMapp, a product of Mapp Biopharmaceutical of San Diego, in collaboration with San Diego based Leaf Biopharmaceutical Inc.
In July, Toronto, Canada-based Defyrus, a private, life sciences biodefense company that collaborates with military and public health R&D partners in the United States, Asia, and Canada to develop broad spectrum anti-viral drugs, MAbs, and vaccines as medical countermeasures to viral and bacterial infectious diseases, announced an exclusive, worldwide license to their Ebola therapeutic monoclonal antibody (mAb) patent portfolio to Leaf Biopharmaceutical. The license expands the commercial relationship between LeafBio and Defyrus, which have been actively collaborating to drive the commercialization of mAb-based Ebola therapies.
ReplyDeleteLeafBio, the commercialization partner of Mapp Biopharmaceutical, had been developing proprietary Ebola-specific antibody drug MB-003 in collaboration with the National Institutes of Health and the Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA). The licensing of Defyrus ZMAb antibody portfolio, pioneered at the Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC) and licensed earlier to Defyrus, consolidates the intellectual property of a superior combination mAb drug — ZMab — which is composed of the best mAbs of MB-003 and ZMapp.
How two U.S. patients changed the debate about using untested Ebola drugs; http://news.sciencemag.org/health/2014/08/how-two-u-s-patients-changed-debate-about-using-untested-ebola-drugs
ReplyDelete(CNN) -- The worst outbreak of Ebola, which has killed 961 people and triggered an international public health emergency, may have started with a 2-year-old patient in a village in Guinea.
ReplyDeleteAbout eight months ago, the toddler, whom researchers believe may have been Patient Zero, suffered fever, black stool and vomiting. Just four days after showing the painful symptoms, the child died on December 6, 2013, according to a report published in The New England Journal of Medicine.
Scientists don't know exactly how the toddler contracted the virus. Ebola is spread from animals to humans through infected fluids or tissue, according to the World Health Organization.
"In Africa, infection has been documented through the handling of infected chimpanzees, gorillas, fruit bats, monkeys, forest antelope and porcupines," WHO says, though researchers think fruit bats are what they call the virus's "natural host."
(CNN) -- As the death toll from the Ebola epidemic soars over 1,000, doctors in one of the hardest-hit countries will soon get an experimental drug that has never been clinically tested on humans.
ReplyDeleteThe World Health Organization said it believes the virus has infected 1,848 people and killed 1,013 -- making this the deadliest Ebola outbreak in history.
The desperation has pushed Liberia's government to ask for scarce quantities of an untested drug from a U.S.-based company.
The Food and Drug Administration approved Liberia's request for access to ZMapp, and sample doses of the medicine will be sent to Liberia this week to treat doctors who have contracted Ebola, the Liberian government said.
The drug's manufacturer, Mapp Biopharmaceutical, said its supply was exhausted after fulfilling the request of a West African country.
ZMapp made international headlines after two American aid workers infected with Ebola in Liberia took the serum -- and their conditions apparently improved.
But a Spanish priest who was infected Ebola in Liberia and started taking ZMapp died Tuesday morning.
Spain's Ministry of Heath said Saturday that Miguel Pajares was being treated with ZMapp at a Madrid hospital. The hospital confirmed Pajares' death Tuesday.
Ebola has suddenly become a global threat. It has killed a lot of people in Africa. Why hasn;t America supplied the Zmapp to Africa?
ReplyDeleteI believe its a strategy by the western world to colonize Africa again
DeleteHave we arrived at another international medical ethics dilemma of tuskegee dimensions? I certainly hope not! http://www.tuskegee.edu/about_us/centers_of_excellence/bioethics_center/about_the_usphs_syphilis_study.aspx
DeleteEditor's note: Harriet A. Washington, a fellow at the Black Mountain Institute at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, is the author of "Medical Apartheid: The Dark History of Experimentation from Colonial Times to the Present" and "Deadly Monopolies: The Shocking Corporate Takeover of Life Itself -- and the Consequences for Your Health and Our Medical Future." The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of the writer.
(CNN) -- One of the many questions surrounding the revelation that Americans Kent Brantly and Nancy Writebol received a little-known, experimental serum for their Ebola infection is: "Why did we hear nothing about it earlier, and how did they gain access to it?"
Ebola has no cure, although potential medications and vaccines are in various states of development. The serum ZMapp, an experimental product of Mapp Biopharmaceutical, hasn't been tested in humans, which means it doesn't meet a primary requirement for FDA approval -- so its obscurity is no surprise.
The Americans managed to gain access to what more than 1,660 infected people in Guinea, Sierra Leone, Liberia and now Nigeria did not: medicine that seems to work -- although, of course, we don't know for sure yet. Some reports indicate they received ZMapp under the FDA's "compassionate use" rule, which permits untested drugs to be given to consenting patients who might otherwise die. This is a triumph of common sense and compassion over bureaucratic red tape.
So, will Africans receive this potentially lifesaving medication?
A U.N. official suggested that drugs cannot be tested in the middle of an epidemic -- but he is wrong. Such tests are conducted all the time.
Dr. David Ho tested AIDS drugs in Uganda in the midst of the pandemic, and the meningitis drug Trovan was tested in Kano, Nigeria, in the midst of an epidemic. One of every three industry trials is conducted in developing countries; scientists often point to high disease rates, including epidemics, as a rationale for conducting them there.
The problem is not testing the drug amid an epidemic. The question is how ethically such trials are conducted.
Only small amounts of ZMapp are available now, but as soon as it can be made in quantity, the drug for Ebola should be made available to Africans in all the regions that are threatened by the epidemic, regardless of ability to pay.
If possible, it should be distributed within clinical trials to determine the safety and efficiency of the medications. Many people assume this requires withholding medications in a control group, but this is not necessarily the case. Experts should and can mount a well-designed study that permits early access to the medication to all who need it.
But if they cannot ensure that sick people get the drug early, then a clinical trial should not be any more of a requirement for poor Africans than it was for Kent Brantly.
It's also natural to wonder whether the threat of Ebola to the Western world, not to Africans, drives this initiative because so few such drugs are devised for Africans.
This simply highlights another reason why we should so our utmost to protect people from Ebola: our medical interdependence. If Ebola makes landfall in the United States, we will need drugs like ZMapp, just as Africans need them today.
" Ebola outbreak: Liberia sent untested ZMapp treatment as death toll passes 1,000 ; http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/africa/ebola-o ... "
ReplyDeleteCNN) -- Suicide should NEVER be presented by media as a means to resolve or escape one's problems (contrary to the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences' twitter post, the genie is not free, the genie's pain has now been dispersed to a very large audience).
ReplyDeleteWhile I do not know, and no one knows, if Robin Williams is "free," he is dead, and his loss has devastated us all.
Suicide needs to be talked about as a fatal outcome that is, in the majority of cases, preventable and caused by severe illness and/or extreme psychological anguish.
Editor's note: David Daigle is associate director for communications at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's Office of Public Health Preparedness and Response. He arrived in Lagos, Nigeria, on August 7 with a team of CDC specialists sent to West African nations battling Ebola.
ReplyDelete(CNN) -- There are nine of us from the Centers of Disease Control and Prevention in Lagos, Nigeria.
We arrived from different U.S. states, or from the CDC's polio team already in Nigeria, and possess varying skill sets, including infection control, global migration and quarantine, data management, epidemiology and communications.
We're here to work with colleagues and partners from Nigeria's Ministry of Health, UNICEF, Doctors Without Borders and the World Health Organization to stop the largest Ebola outbreak in history -- the first in a densely populated, urban environment.
Nigeria is the latest country to become affected by the outbreak. The first person to die of Ebola here was an American named Patrick Sawyer, who arrived from Liberia. Now WHO suspects Nigeria has had 12 cases and three deaths.
Our team in Lagos is a small part of the CDC's effort to fight Ebola, with work going on in several African countries, and back in the United States at our headquarters in Atlanta. There, the CDC's Emergency Operations Center has activated its highest level to maintain 24/7 operations to coordinate the agency's efforts.
Hello Dr. Lajide. I have some questions for you. Please how exactly does the Ebola virus spread? Does it spread through the air?Also, what is the origin of the virus?
ReplyDeleteThanks.
Nancy Drew.
Hi Nancy, It doesnt spread through the air. I may be wrong but I believe the Dr. can clarify this.
DeleteBishop Clarke, SA
The principal route of contracting the ebola virus is through close contact with the bodily fluids of an infected human or infected animal. The bodily fluids, humans, particularly health workers come in frequent contact with include; sweat, vomit, feces, sputum, nasal secretions, etc. Therefore the bishop is partially right. However, an individual, with ebola, who is sneezing can spread the disease through nasal secretions via air droplets. Therefore you would soon become familiar with healthcare workers, wearing nasal masks as part of their personal protection kits.
DeleteOrigin of ebola virus; Scientists believe, the fruit bat is the natural reservoir of ebola virus, because they live with the virus and do not fall ill from the virus . However they spread ebola to wild animals such as monkeys and chimpanzees, when bats come in close contact with them. Humans become infected when they come in close contact with infected animals, such as the index case in this current ebola pandemic
DeleteSir wats your take on the index case here in Nigeria, Mr. Sawyer? Do you think he came to Nigeria on purpose?
DeleteDear Nancy, watch out for future up-dates on mp-4 videos on ebola, that , i am presently editing. Permit me to add that the present ebola pandemic, is the first ebola epidemic in which the virus is spreading easily, between, cities, countries and continents. Previous outbreaks of ebola used to be confined primarily to rural areas in east and central Africa
DeleteDear Nancy, Kindly watch out for future mp-4 video updates on ebola virus that i am currently editing.
DeleteDear Lamech; The index case in this epidemic is believed to be a 2 year old Guinean who came in contact with an infected animal; Researchers believe that the first human case of the Ebola virus disease leading to the 2014 outbreak was a 2-year-old boy who died on 6 December 2013, a few days after falling ill in the Guinean village of Guéckédou. A week later the same illness killed his mother, then his three year-old sister became ill and died, and then his grandmother. They all had fever, vomiting, and diarrhea, but it was unknown what had caused their illness. Next, two people who had attended the grandmother's funeral carried the disease to their village, and a health worker carried it to yet another village
DeleteI do not believe Mr Sawyer came to Nigeria to spread the disease intentionally, having had the opportunity of reading excerpts of the interview his wife had with the press. He must have partially believed that, Nigeria had a better health care delivery system than Liberia and secondly he had scanty information about ebola virus and its treatment
DeleteIf sneezing can spread the virus as the dr. said, then it stands to reason that Ebola can be spread indirectly by air. We should have full disclosure on the spread of this virus so we can be fully prepared here in America. I think Pres. Obama should not be carefree about the spread of the virus.
ReplyDeleteMore vaccine should be produced and distributed to Africa. We are protecting ourselves if we protect Africans.
The honest answer to to your question is that the virus can spread by semen,[a body fluid] and therefore can be sexually transmitted. Humans who have recovered from the ebola virus continue to secret the virus in sperm for a minimum of 10 weeks. I do not intend to disseminate and create fear, because not all ebola victims sneeze. However, a few epidemiologists including me, believe that the epidemiology of ebola has not been fully elucidated. The current pandemic with a case fatality ratio of 60% perplexes scientists. I totally agree with you that humanity, is protecting itself when we protect Africans.
DeleteI think iti is high time we stop deceiving ourselves. This Ebola scare is an attempt by the western world to sell their vaccines to Africa.
DeleteZmapp the experimental drug that was given to the 2 Americans that fell ill in West Africa is not a vaccine. Zmapp is a potentially promising treatment for ebola. 10 Nigerians, including the physician that treated Mr sawyer are ebola positive and lying critically ill in an isolation unit in Lagos, according to the Federal Ministry of health. Close associates of the ebola positive physician, which includes eminent medical practitioners, made a passionate and heart moving appeal to the United states and the international community to offer more help to ebola positive Nigerians about 24 hours ago. The greatest danger about the current ebola pandemic is the spread of false information, fear, blatant profession of illiteracy and of course discrimination. Only proper education about infectious diseases of animal origin and the threat they pose to global security, and other topical global issues can liberate Africa.
DeleteYes, Ebola can be sexually transmitted ; http://www.salon.com/2014/08/06/yes_ebola_can_be_sexually_transmitted/
ReplyDeletePermit me to ask? Have epidemiologists fully elucidated the importance of the several routes of transmission of the ebola virus. When a virus that was hitherto confined to outbreak in rural areas, causes a global pandemic alert, i believe several questions will beg for answers!
For how long have we monitored the sexual behavior of survivors of this pandemic, with a case fatality ratio of approximately 60%, which is nearly 30% less than that of previous ebola epidemics?
(CNN) -- The magnitude of the Ebola crisis in West Africa is "vastly" underestimated, the World Health Organization warned this week, as the death toll steadily climbed.
ReplyDeleteEbola has infected at least 2,127 people in Nigeria, Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone since the outbreak began this year.
Of the victims, 1,145 have died, according to the WHO. It said the number reflects the count as of Wednesday.
"The outbreak is expected to continue for some time," the WHO said in a statement Thursday. "Staff at the outbreak sites see evidence that the numbers of reported cases and deaths vastly underestimate the magnitude of the outbreak."
Editor's note: Kay Redfield Jamison is professor of psychiatry at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine and co-author of the standard medical text on bipolar disorders and recurrent depression. She has written extensively about mood disorders and creativity and is the author of An Unquiet Mind, a memoir about her bipolar illness. The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of the author.
ReplyDelete(CNN) -- The suicide death of Robin Williams has generated interest in the relationship between creativity and depression. No one knows the nature of Mr. William's problems (added to them today was the revelation that he was suffering with early stage Parkinson's disease), but the possibility of a link between "madness" and creativity is ancient and persistent. It is also controversial; some believe that making such a link romanticizes painful, potentially lethal illnesses and ignores the diversity of temperament and imagination that is essential to artistic work as a pathology.
The evidence for such a link, however, especially between bipolar disorder and creativity, is strong and growing. Many biographical studies, as well as studies of living artists, writers, and musicians have found higher rates of mania, severe depression, and suicide in creative individuals. First-degree relatives (that is, a parent, offspring or sibling) of creative people with bipolar disorder or depression also have elevated rates of both mood disorders and creative accomplishment.
ReplyDeleteOpinion: Why Robin Williams lost to depression
In the past five years alone there have been four large studies (one that reported on 20,000 individuals and three others, each of which studied more than 700,000 individuals), that found that those with bipolar illness were disproportionately likely to be overrepresented in creative occupations; so too were their first-degree relatives.
Additionally, the first-degree relatives of people with schizophrenia, although not those with schizophrenia, were more likely to be in creative occupations.
Mood, temperament, behavioral and cognitive factors associated with bipolar illness can, in some people, make them more creative by increasing the fluency and originality of their thinking, as well as by increasing risk-taking, ambition, energy, exuberance and a desire to create meaning from suffering and chaos.
ReplyDeleteIt must be emphasized that most creative people do not have a mental illness and most people who have mental illnesses, such as bipolar disorder, are not unusually creative. It is rather that there is a disproportionate rate of mood disorders, especially bipolar disorder, in creative individuals.
A corporate boxing match broke from the ring and swelled into all-out rumpus last weekend, as readers and authors took sides in Amazon and Hachette’s fight over the publishing industry’s future.
ReplyDeleteThe dispute between the online retailer and the publishing conglomerate began this spring, and revolves around the pricing of ebooks and contract details for distributing Hachette’s books. Much of it remained private – as most contract negotiations between giant corporations do – until Amazon halted sales of some Hachette books, making some unavailable to purchase, delaying deliveries of others by weeks and months, and advertising alongside some titles with a banner of “similar items at a lower price”.
As the primary seller of ebooks in the US – with about 65% of the market, according to the New Yorker – and a major share of publishers’ sales, Amazon’s aggressive tactics were meant to press Hachette in negotiations. Hachette, however, is no lightweight: the Paris-based multinational, with $7.37bn in 2012 net sales, has resisted, and the CEO of Hachette Book Group, Michael Pietsch, responded with a rare statement about the dispute.
ReplyDeleteAuthors divided
Hachette authors, who include Donna Tartt, JK Rowling and Malcolm Gladwell, were initially reluctant to step into the fray, but became increasingly outspoken as some, such as James Patterson, began making public statements against Amazon. Then came the flood: more than 900 authors, only some of whom publish with Hachette and including many bestsellers across a range of genres, signed a full-page letter that ran in the New York Times denouncing Amazon for “harming the livelihood of the authors on whom it has built its business”. Their message to the Amazon: leave us out of it, and do right by your customers and the authors who provide you business.
But not all authors concur, with major names in self-publishing petitioning Hachette to find a compromise with Amazon. Barry Eisler, one of the novelists leading the petition, accuses the authors against Amazon of being “the top 1%” who “have no interest at all in improving publishing for everyone. Only in preserving it for themselves.” Self-publishing authors, often closed off from the publishing titans who compose an insular industry that’s strapped for resources, have an easily accessible platform in Amazon and opportunities for success there.
Who exactly is right in this dispute? Is it Amazon or Hachette? I'm also an author here in the USA. I prefer self publishing my own works.
DeleteDear Anthony, This is a classical case of a clash of interests, with financial undertones and implications between a very successful on-line store on one hand and authors and publishers on the other hand. Who you adjudge right depends on which side you belong. I am an author like you, my publisher is SPBRA, and amazon.com is one of the on-line stores that market my book. Authors live on their works! On-line stores, must strike a balance, between the profits they make, and the financial well being of authors and publishers that patronize them!
DeleteWell said.
DeleteHello Dr Lajide. I have seen your website and find your work quite illuminating. Keep up the good work.
ReplyDeleteGreat! I look forward to patronage from you and your friends in the United Kingdom, utilizing links at the top of the news letter and my website ; http://www.amazon.com/dp/1609767136/ref=rdr_ext_tmb
DeleteFor international payments in U.S. Dollars, please use this account:
Account Name: ADESOLA LAJIDE
Bank: UBA PLC
Account Number - 3000460366
Swift code; UNAFNGLA;
Sort code 033192736 ;
Intermediary bank;
Citi bank New York;
Swift code CITIUS33;
Routing No. 021000089;
A/C No 36320321;
Ok. What's your area of specialization as an author?.
DeleteMy area of specialization, is the epidemiology of communicable and non-communicable diseases, with special interest on how the present climate change phenomenon, has affected the routes of transmission and geographical location of communicable diseases and also on how the use of renewable forms of energy can mitigate the disastrous effects of the climate change phenomenon!
DeleteThe Infoplus blog is quite popular here in
DeleteUK. I saw it on one of my colleagues facebook posts and I really enjoyed your posts. Nice work.
The Infoplus blog is quite popular here in
DeleteUK. I saw it on one of my colleagues facebook posts and I really enjoyed your posts. Nice work.
Great! It is always very rewarding when an author and a teacher is communicating with a receptive audience. Be on the look out for a couple of mp-4 videos on ebola and the kindle and e-book version of 3 books , that i am currently editing and several interactive multiple choice questions, all for a token and reasonable fee.
DeleteHello friends, I heard an Ebola case has been discovered in Ibadan, Nigeria. Please how true is that?
ReplyDeleteThe latest report from the Oyo state branch of the Nigerian medical association reveals that the suspected ebola patient referred to Ring road state hospital underwent blood tests that confirmed the patient ebola negative; The truth of the matter is that ebola positive patients have not yet been confirmed in Ibadan.
DeleteWow. Thanks for the info Dr. I never expected so fast a reply. You are indeed a treasure.
Delete(CNN) -- The number of deaths from the Ebola outbreak in West Africa has climbed to 1,229, the World Health Organization said Tuesday.
ReplyDeleteThe death toll increased between August 14 and 16, as 113 new cases were reported, raising the total number of cases this year to 2,240, the world health body said.
The information came from Guinea, Liberia, Nigeria and Sierra Leone -- the four West African countries hit by the deadly virus.
KUALA LUMPUR -- As the world watches the horrifying spread of the Ebola virus across West Africa, there is some good news from Southeast Asia in regards to another potentially fatal disease -- dengue fever.
ReplyDeleteOn July 11, French drugmaker Sanofi announced in The Lancet, a medical journal, that its dengue vaccine had passed phase III clinical trials in Southeast Asia, one of the last stages of tests for a drug before it can be put on the market.
Until now, there has been no way to prevent the mosquito-borne disease.
Southeast Asia is home to most of the world's 100 million to 200 million dengue infections reported each year. This year has been particularly bad in Malaysia, where 110 people have died and over 56,810 cases have been recorded as of Aug. 2, two-and-a-half times the number from this time last year. In Singapore, a "high-risk dengue cluster" was identified on the campus of National University of Singapore this month.
Dengue fever again? We haven't finished tackling Ebola fever. May God help us all.
DeleteThe news on dengue fever is encouraging! http://asia.nikkei.com/Tech-Science/Tech/Dengue-research-breakthrough-creates-public-health-dilemma
Delete(CNN) -- Three health care workers who were given the experimental Ebola drug ZMapp in Liberia have shown "very positive signs of recovery," the Liberian Ministry of Health said Tuesday.
ReplyDeleteMedical professionals treating the workers have called their progress "remarkable."
The good news comes as the number of deaths from the outbreak in West Africa climbed to 1,229, according to the World Health Organization.
Does it mean that Ebola now has a cure?
DeleteDefinitely Bill; Questions and Answers on Experimental Treatments and Vaccines for Ebola; http://www.cdc.gov/vhf/ebola/outbreaks/guinea/qa-experimental-treatments.html
DeleteExperimental ZMapp treatment for Ebola virus has roots at Johns Hopkins; http://hub.jhu.edu/2014/08/12/zmapp-ebola-treament-cone-labEbola: Three Infected In Liberia Recovering "Remarkably" After Receiving Zmapp Treatment ; http://saharareporters.com/2014/08/19/ebola-three-infected-liberia-recovering-remarkably-after-receiving-zmapp-treatment
Permit me to add, and forgive me if i bore you with excessive scientific jargon! Fear, anxiety, apprehension and discrimination have spread with this latest ebola pandemic because of the dearth of information about the disease and its treatment, not the adequacy of factual information!
DeleteHello people, for all those who registered for the Eduportal and have not paid, this is your chance to enjoy a limited-time promo - Instead of N1,500 you pay N1,000 for Dr. Adesola's eProducts.
ReplyDeleteWhat are you waiting for?
J.I.
Admin
Please what do you think of our new look template? Lets hear your thoughts. Keep the comments comming...
ReplyDeleteVery nice look and feel.
DeleteI prefer this new look. Mr. James you have done a nice work.
ReplyDeleteBravo James!
DeleteBat-borne viruses are transmitted via bat bite and transfer via saliva, as well as aerosolization of salvia, feces, and/or urine. Like rabies virus, newly emerging bat-borne viruses can be transmitted to humans directly by bats. These include Ebola virus, SARS, and the Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus.
ReplyDeleteLeft unrecognized and untreated, the interval between transmission of rabies virus strains until the disease manifests in the victims, varies from hours to years. Most victims are not aware of either having been bitten by a bat or exposed to a bat's secretions. This can be due to a lack of awareness of a bat's presence in the same space, such as when sleeping, not feeling the bite if aware of the bat's presence, and/or exposure to bat saliva, urine, and/or feces in closed environments. These include caves and human living spaces such as attics, basements, barns and sheds. Bats invading human living and working spaces will normally offensively attack by biting and urinating on the victim to mark the victim's location.[
Jonathan Epstein: The current scientific evidence suggests that Ebola virus is carried by fruit bats, which can be infected with it without ever having symptoms or developing severe disease. People and other animals catch Ebola when they are exposed to an infected bat’s bodily fluids, either directly or indirectly via another infected species.
ReplyDeleteFor example, a piece of fruit half-eaten by an infected bat in the forest canopy may drop to the forest floor. All it takes to infect a new species is for another animal to come along and eat that piece of fruit contaminated with Ebola-ridden bat saliva. That’s one hypothesis. Another is that because fruit bats roost in trees, it’s possible for other forest dwellers’ food to be contaminated by bat droppings. If a colony of bats is defecating and urinating in a particular place and another animal eats vegetation off that part of the forest floor, it could be exposed that way.
Most of our past experiences with Ebola outbreaks in Africa have been in Democratic Republic of the Congo, Congo, Gabon and Uganda. Many of these outbreaks have been linked to people eating great apes as “bush meat,” either by hunting the animals or finding a dead gorilla or chimp (that died from Ebola) and bringing it back to a village. Primates and other animals are also susceptible to infection with Ebola virus, and both animals and people can remain infectious for a period of time after death.
- See more at: http://now.tufts.edu/articles/what-drives-ebola#sthash.VLg9HcyZ.dpuf
Hello folks, please wats the latest update on the ebola disease in Liberia? I'm a Liberian living in US
ReplyDeleteHello Finney, it seems the virus is still ravaging Liberia. I think that the patients who escaped have been found. Also, the military have been called in.
DeleteThe Ebola outbreak continues to spiral out of control amid reports of looting at a Liberian health center and the isolation of a traveler from Sierra Leone here in the U.S. ; http://abcnews.go.com/Health/ebola-outbreak-worsens-missing-patients-us-scare/story?id=25024218
DeletePolice in Liberia respond with force as slum residents attempt to break Ebola quarantine to get food and water
LAST UPDATED AT 12:55 ON Thu 21 Aug 2014
Police in Liberia respond with force as slum residents attempt to break Ebola quarantine to get food and water
Liberian police have fired live rounds and teargas at residents who attempted to leave a government-imposed Ebola quarantine zone in the country's capital, Monrovia.
Officials sealed off the city's West Point slum, home to up to 75,000 people, in order to stop the spread of the Ebola virus. But the introduction of curfews and quarantines has angered residents who say they were given no advance warning of the measures which have stopped them from buying food and water.
Read more: http://www.theweek.co.uk/world-news/ebola/57952/ebola-police-open-fire-to-enforce-liberia-quarantine#ixzz3B7Lr9cBd
The energy storage era is upon us. States like California and New York have adapted energy policies that will make it possible to economically deploy storage systems, while technology advancements have boosted performance and trimmed costs. For the first time in history it will become feasible to store electric energy.
ReplyDeleteThese breakthroughs in turn will change the underlying infrastructure of our whole industry. Utilities in most jurisdictions are legal monopolies because it was the only way to economically and technically bring electricity to a society. Forcing companies to build competing grid networks and power plants would have led to bankruptcies, chaos and terrible service.
Energy storage allows monopolies and the regulatory infrastructure that comes with it to become less relevant. Microgrids erected by private companies or owned by small groups of individuals, with benefits in security, reliability and low-cost deployment, are suddenly a very attractive alternative.; http://www.renewableenergyworld.com/rea/news/article/2014/08/the-next-big-challenge-for-energy-storage?cmpid=WNL-2014-08-22
I believe renewable energy is here to stay.
DeleteAbsolutely; Learn more at this link; http://www.amazon.com/dp/1609767136/ref=rdr_ext_tmb#reader_1609767136
DeleteBats (order Chiroptera, suborders Megachiroptera [“flying foxes”] and Microchiroptera) are abundant, diverse, and geographically widespread. These mammals provide us with resources, but their importance is minimized and many of their populations and species are at risk, even threatened or endangered. Some of their characteristics (food choices, colonial or solitary nature, population structure, ability to fly, seasonal migration and daily movement patterns, torpor and hibernation, life span, roosting behaviors, ability to echolocate, virus susceptibility) make them exquisitely suitable hosts of viruses and other disease agents. Bats of certain species are well recognized as being capable of transmitting rabies virus, but recent observations of outbreaks and epidemics of newly recognized human and livestock diseases caused by viruses transmitted by various megachiropteran and microchiropteran bats have drawn attention anew to these remarkable mammals. This paper summarizes information regarding chiropteran characteristics and information regarding 66 viruses that have been isolated from bats. From these summaries, it is clear that we do not know enough about bat biology; we are doing too little in terms of bat conservation; and there remain a multitude of questions regarding the role of bats in disease emergence. ; http://cmr.asm.org/content/19/3/531.full
ReplyDeleteThe pig as a mixing vessel for influenza viruses: Human and veterinary implications; http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2702078/
ReplyDeleteShould we stop eating pigs, Dr?
DeleteI have not, and would not suggest that humans should stop eating pigs. The World health organization, opined at the outbreak of the 2009 H1NI human influenza pandemic, that there was no risk of contacting the disease from well cooked pork and therefore by extension many other viruses that infect pigs! Pork remains one of the cheapest sources of protein worldwide
Delete(CNN) -- For the first time, a worker with the World Health Organization has fallen ill from Ebola, the WHO told CNN on Sunday.
ReplyDeleteThe health worker, a man from Senegal, is in Sierra Leone and receiving care, the WHO said. No further details were given immediately.
When asked how the worker contracted the virus, a WHO spokesperson said officials don't yet know all the details.
Separately, a British citizen infected with the virus in Sierra Leone is being flown home, the British Department of Health announced Sunday.
The man, simply identified as William, lives in the West African nation in a home established by an American university for researchers.
He is a volunteer nurse in Kenema Government Hospital, where he was working with Ebola patients, according to Dr. Robert Garry of Tulane University.
Editor's note: Jay Parini, a poet and novelist, teaches at Middlebury College in Vermont. He has just published "Jesus: The Human Face of God," a biography of Jesus. Follow him on Twitter@JayParini. The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of the author.
ReplyDelete(CNN) -- Does money make you happy? Does being rich contribute to your spiritual life and its possibilities?
Is the gap between the rich and poor a religious problem as well as a social problem in desperate need of solutions?
Jesus, Pope Francis, and brain scientists have asked these questions, and the answers are clear if unnerving. Wealth and power are dangerous for your mental health, your spiritual condition, and for society in general -- especially when they contribute to the neglect of the poor. New research explains how this works (more on this in a minute).
Wealth is a very strong opium in the hands of the powerful. A powerful man becomes intoxicated when he has enormous wealth.
DeleteI agree with you! I am currently editing an e-book on religion, the mind and creativity. Kindly stay tuned.
Delete
ReplyDeleteWhat Role Do Religion and Spirituality Play In Mental Health? http://www.apa.org/news/press/releases/2013/03/religion-spirituality.aspx
I believe religion serves as an opium for the masses. This is very good way to relieve stress for some people.
ReplyDeleteI am currently editing an e-book on religion, the mind and creativity. Kindly stay tuned.
DeleteThat wud make an interesting read.
Delete(CNN) -- Congo is reporting Ebola cases in a northern town, sparking fears that the deadly virus is expanding far beyond West Africa.
ReplyDeleteTwo people in Gera town in the Democratic Republic of Congo tested positive for Ebola, a government spokesman said Sunday.
A lab and quarantine station have been set up in the town, which is about 750 miles from the capital of Kinshasa.
Africa has to be careful o. This Ebola is really spreading very fast. May God help us all. I pray it doesn't come to S.A again.
DeleteThe central African nation said its test showed the strain is different from the one that has killed nearly 1,500 people in the West African nations of Guinea, Sierra Leone, Liberia and Nigeria.
DeleteThe international community and the World health organization have instituted effective surveillance and control measures to contain this scourge. Fear not!
Thanks for your insightful and prompt response.
Delete(CNN) -- A strong earthquake struck southern Peru on Sunday evening, injuring at least two people and damaging buildings, authorities said.
ReplyDeleteA house was destroyed and 19 other buildings were damaged, including a hospital, Peru's Emergency Operations Center said.
The 6.9-magnitude earthquake hit a mountainous area 43 kilometers (27 miles) east-northeast of Tambo at a depth of 101 kilometers (63 miles), according to the U.S. Geological Survey.
The USGS revised down the quake's strength from the magnitude of 7.0 that it initially reported, as well as adjusting its data on the location and depth of the epicenter.
The damaged buildings included 14 houses, three schools and a church, according to authorities.
The emergency center also reported minor landslides in two areas.
Too many calamities affecting the world all at once. This is serious.
DeleteAn earthquake (also known as a quake, tremor or temblor) is the result of a sudden release of energy in the Earth's crust that creates seismic waves. The seismicity, seismism or seismic activity of an area refers to the frequency, type and size of earthquakes experienced over a period of time.
DeleteAt the Earth's surface, earthquakes manifest themselves by shaking and sometimes displacement of the ground. When the epicenter of a large earthquake is located offshore, the seabed may be displaced sufficiently to cause a tsunami. Earthquakes can also trigger landslides, and occasionally volcanic activity.
Obtain more information, from my e-book on energy with links at the top of the news letter.
Good morning Dr. Hope you had a nice night. What do you have for us today? I really enjoy reading your posts.
ReplyDeleteI warned about the threat that infectious diseases of animal origin, could pose to global and regional security, as far back as March 2013, in my book; of which you can read the introduction at this link; http://www.amazon.com/dp/1609767136/ref=rdr_ext_tmb and subsequently buy and review the book
DeleteIt is indeed very rewarding that as an author and teacher, i am communicating with a receptive audience
You can also learn more about 3 strategic goals that need to be achieved to combat an infectious disease pandemic, and the challenges that health workers are likely to face in my book and at this link; http://www.cnn.com/2014/08/25/health/ebola-contact-tracing/index.html?hpt=hp_t2
DeleteHmmm...interesting. The world is actually heading towards a precipice with all the incessant wars, epidemics and disasters.
DeleteIf Ebola contacts go missing, that means a great danger for the general population in Liberia.
many traditional "tribes" in those African countries refuse to stop eating bush meat and fruit bats. It's well known that fruit bats are natural ebola carriers. It's no surprise when they get infected.
ReplyDeleteCooking the meat well will kill the virus. The person can still get infected while handling the meat, but less likely.
ReplyDeleteThe UN specifically warned about eating fruit bats in soup which I guess is common in that area. More likely the child ate soup or was around the dead animal when it was being prepared.
ReplyDeleteDiscrimination, stigma and fear, directed towards ebola survivors; http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3033100/
ReplyDeleteEbola Victims Face Stigma in West Africa;
DAKAR — As medical experts work to control the Ebola outbreak in West Africa, survivors and their families say they are being stigmatized. While some people are welcomed back into their communities after they recover, many are shunned due to fear of contagion. Health workers say education is key.
Family and friends gathered in Lofa County, Liberia, last week to welcome home 48-year-old Joseph Taylor, who was falsely suspected of being infected with the Ebola virus. Taylor’s wife died earlier this month after contracting the disease from her sister.; http://www.voanews.com/content/ebola-victims-face-stigma-in-west-africa/1902587.html
Health education and promotion messages we have received in the context of this current ebola epidemic face certain ethical dilemma;
ReplyDeleteChallenging questions for heath education and promotion!
What if the goal of protecting or promoting the common good infringes on individual civil liberties or shared values of minority cultural communities?
How far should we go in presenting positive[ even moralizing] health information campaigns in the name of protecting public health without unduly stigmatizing people or making them feel guilty for their non-compliance?
Are there tensions or conflicts between the goals and practices of health promotion and fundamental social values such as autonomy, responsibility, social justice or beneficence?
What are the consequences of the social construction of health as an ultimate social good? http://genethics.ca/personal/papers/Masse-WJ.pdf
I believe the goal of protecting the common good supercedes the individual civil liberties because where one person's liberties ends another starts.
ReplyDeleteIn the context of this current global epidemic of Ebola, preventing the further spread of the disease is of paramount importance to the world. I'm sure the Dr. will agree with me.
ON A LIGHTER MOOD!
ReplyDeleteMy wife and I were having a serious quarrel when I said to her...
"pack your things and ....."
At that point, her phone rang, so I had to stop for her to receive the call.
It was her dad. The phone was on speaker so I could hear what he was saying.
After the usual pleasantries between father and daughter, he said:
"my daughter, I have transferred $1,000,000 into your account, give your husband $500,000 out of it, and you can have the other half."
After the good-byes, the call ended, and she turned to me:
"you said I should pack my things and do what?"
"I SAID PACK YOUR THINGS AND GIVE THEM TO ME TO WASH.".
This week the Lord will smile at you...have a fruitful week.
I agree with you Dr Carl. However how do we tailor our messages, regarding the availability of treatment for ebola?
ReplyDeleteAs West Africa experiences the largest and most severe outbreak of Ebola virus disease in history, the World Health Organization convened a panel of ethics experts to weigh some of the complex questions around access to treatment. The group reached consensus: it is ethical to offer “unproven interventions,” even if effectiveness or complications are unknown.
George Annas, a renowned ethicist and the William Fairfield Warren Distinguished Professor and chair of the department of health law, bioethics, and human rights at the School of Public Health and a professor at the Schools of Medicine and Law, sees the hype over drug availability as expected, but misplaced. He offers his thoughts on ethical considerations:
http://www.bu.edu/today/2014/battling-ebola-the-ethical-issues/
(CNN) -- If you think school starts too early, you aren't the only one.
ReplyDeleteA new policy statement published by the American Academy of Pediatrics is on the side of groggy students falling asleep at their desks and their parents who are tired of nagging them to get out of bed in the morning.
They say that lack of sleep in adolescents causes poor academic performance and poses a serious public health concern. Traffic accidents, depression and obesity can result, with schools that start too early contributing to the problem.
The technical report released with the policy statement says that sleep-deprived teens tend to eat more carbohydrates and fats, with every hour of sleep that is lost increasing the odds of obesity by 80%. Adolescents that go to sleep at midnight or later are also more likely to suffer from depression and have suicidal thoughts.
The Ebola situation really poses serious ethical issues in the medical field.
ReplyDeleteOn the other hand, middle and high schools that start later in the day tend to have students with less daytime sleepiness, less tardiness, fewer attention difficulties and better academic performance than early-starting schools.
ReplyDeleteSleep deprivation linked to depression in teens
Even if you don't have children in school, you might still be impacted if you drive to work.
One community in Lexington, Kentucky, decreased the average crash rate for teenaged drivers by 16.5% after delaying high school start times by one hour, according to a study published in the Journal of Clinical Sleep Medicine. And a two-year study of two high schools in Virginia found that the school with the later start time had significantly fewer students in accidents.
To reduce these public health concerns, the American Academy of Pediatrics policy statement recommends that schools start no earlier than 8:30 a.m. Only 14% of public high schools currently meet this guideline, according to the National Center for Education Statistics.
ReplyDelete"I'm hoping that the visibility of the sleep deprivation issue and research can help spark more discussion," said Jennifer Davis, co-founder and president of the National Center on Time & Learning and former U.S. Department of Education deputy assistant secretary.
"It's one more example of how are schools need to be student centered," she said. "There are thousands of children, bus schedules, lunch schedules, parent needs. But we have to focus on how we are going to help our children succeed. And making sure they have enough sleep is one of those things."
Tips for parents
The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends that adolescents get 8.5 to 9.5 hours of sleep per night, which parents can help enforce by setting bedtimes and limiting their child's use of electronic devices and social media in bed.
"Avoid keeping screens such as computers or TVs in your child's bedroom, and keep portable ones (phones, tablets, handheld games) out as much as possible," said Dr. Jennifer Shu, a board-certified pediatrician in Atlanta. "It can be helpful to have a central charging station where all of the family's electronics spend the night."
ReplyDeleteShe adds that parents can also encourage sleep routines such as reading before bed and avoid scheduling music lessons, sports and social events that might delay bedtime.
Are your kids getting enough sleep?
"Setting the stage for good sleep now is an important habit that can make a difference in your child's future health," Shu said. If you have concerns, talk to a pediatrician or check out the National Institutes of Health's guide to healthy sleep."
Thanks Dr. Lajide for this thoughtful post. As parents we have a moral obligation to protect our kids from the harmful effects of the plethora of devices that they are exposed to on a daily basis, especially here in the United States. Having a central charging point sounds quite good.
ReplyDeleteIndeed Dr [Mrs] Cyndy ; We must not shirk our responsibilities as parents!
DeleteSurprisingly we are beginning to observe more cases of obesity and depression in adolescents, back home here in Nigeria!
Delete(CNN) -- The Ebola outbreak "continues to accelerate" in West Africa and has killed 1,552 people so far, the World Health Organization said Thursday.
ReplyDeleteThe total number of cases stands at 3,069, with 40% occurring in the past three weeks. "However, most cases are concentrated in only a few localities," the WHO said.
The outbreak, the deadliest ever, has been centered in Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia, with a handful of cases in Nigeria. The overall fatality rate is 52%, the WHO said, ranging from 42% in Sierra Leone to 66% in Guinea.
The WHO issued a "road map" Thursday that "responds to the urgent need to dramatically scale up the international response" in light of the acceleration of new cases, it said.
Vaccine trials accelerated
ReplyDeleteAn Ebola vaccine being developed by the U.S. National Institutes of Health and GlaxoSmithKline will be fast-tracked for human trials, the international consortium behind the effort said Thursday.
The experimental vaccine could be given to healthy volunteers in Britain, Gambia and Mali as early as September, according to a statement from the consortium, which provided funding.
The vaccine, which does not contain infectious virus material, has shown promise in early tests on primates to protect them from Ebola without significant adverse effects, the statement said.
The human trials will begin as soon as ethical and regulatory approvals are granted.
(CNN) -- The debate over a link between autism and vaccines continues.
ReplyDeleteA study published earlier this month concluded African-American boys are more at risk for autism if they're given the measles, mumps and rubella vaccine before the age of 2. The study author says researchers at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention knew about the link in 2004 -- and covered it up.
CDC researchers are standing by their original findings: that there is no link between autism and vaccination schedules.
The new study was funded by the Focus Autism Foundation, which says it is dedicated to exposing the causes of autism, "focusing on the role of vaccinations."
The study has since been removed from the public domain pending further investigation, according to Translational Neurodegeneration.
In an online statement, the scientific journal said the paper had been removed "because of serious concerns about the validity of its conclusions."
CNN first became aware of the study when an iReport was posted about its publication and the controversy surrounding it. iReport is CNN's user-generated news community.
Autism involves abnormalities of brain development and behavior which become apparent before a child is three years old and have a steady course with no remission. It is characterized by impairments in social interaction and communication, as well as restricted interests and stereotyped behavior, and the characterization is independent of any underlying neurological defects.
ReplyDeleteAutism's theory of causation is incomplete. It has long been presumed that there is a common cause at the genetic, cognitive, and neural levels for autism's characteristic triad of symptoms. However, there is increasing suspicion among researchers that autism does not have a single cause, but is instead a complex disorder with a set of core aspects that have distinct causes. Different underlying brain dysfunctions have been hypothesized to result in the common symptoms of autism, just as completely different brain problems result in intellectual disability. The terms autisms or ASDs capture the wide range of disease processes at work. Although these distinct causes have been hypothesized to often co-occur, it has also been suggested that the correlation between the causes has been exaggerated.[The number of people known to have autism has increased dramatically since the 1980s, at least partly due to changes in diagnostic practice. It is unknown whether prevalence has increased as well.
ReplyDeleteThe consensus among mainstream autism researchers is that genetic factors predominate. Environmental factors that have been claimed to contribute to autism or exacerbate its symptoms, or that may be important to consider in future research, include certain foods, infectious disease, heavy metals, solvents, diesel exhaust, PCBs, phthalates and phenols used in plastic products, pesticides, brominated flame retardants, alcohol, smoking, illicit drugs, and vaccines. Among these factors, vaccines have attracted much attention, as parents may first become aware of autistic symptoms in their child around the time of a routine vaccination, and parental concern about vaccines has led to a decreasing uptake of childhood immunizations and an increasing likelihood of measles outbreaks. However, there is overwhelming scientific evidence showing no causal association between the measles-mumps-rubella vaccine and autism, and there is no scientific evidence that the vaccine preservative thiomersal helps cause autism.
ReplyDeleteLiving with autism as an adult Living with autism as an adult
In 2004, scientists at the CDC's National Immunization Program published their study in the journal Pediatrics. Researchers compared 624 children with autism, age 3 to 10, with 1,824 developmentally healthy children. Most of the children, according to the study, were vaccinated between 12 and 17 months of age in accordance with vaccination recommendations.
The CDC study authors found no link between the age children were given their first MMR vaccination and autism diagnoses. Nor did they find a statistically significant increased risk for a particular racial group.
(CNN) -- The West African country of Senegal has confirmed its first Ebola case one week after closing its border with Guinea over fears that the deadly outbreak could spread, the Senegalese Press Agency reported Friday.
ReplyDeleteSenegal is the fifth country in the region where the virus has spread.
Senegal's health minister, Awa Marie Coll Seck, confirmed that a 21-year-old university student from Guinea was infected with the Ebola virus and placed in quarantine in the Fann Hospital in Dakar, the news agency reported.
Officials in Guinea alerted Senegal on Wednesday after losing track of the young man, the agency reported.
The man, who doesn't have any signs of bleeding, went to the hospital for a checkup, the agency said. His condition is stable.
CNN) -- States that have legalized marijuana for managing chronic pain have significantly fewer deaths from prescription painkiller overdoses each year, according to a new study published Monday in JAMA Internal Medicine.
ReplyDeleteResearchers looked at medical marijuana laws and death certificate data in all 50 states between 1999 and 2010. During that time, just 13 states had medical marijuana laws in place.
"We found there was about a 25% lower rate of prescription painkiller overdose deaths on average after implementation of a medical marijuana law," lead study author Dr. Marcus Bachhuber said.
n 2010 alone, he said, states with medical marijuana laws had approximately 1,700 fewer overdose deaths than would have been expected based on the numbers before such laws were passed.
ReplyDeleteBachhuber, a primary care doctor at the Philadelphia Veterans Affairs Medical Center, has treated many chronic pain patients.
"It can be challenging for people to control chronic pain, so I think the more options we have the better," he said. "But I think it's important, of course, to weigh the risks and benefits of medical marijuana."
Opioid analgesics are a class of drug that includes painkillers like morphine, oxycodone and methadone. According to the study, the number of patients in the United States with chronic pain who get prescriptions for one of these drugs has nearly doubled over the last 10 years, and overdose rates have risen dramatically.
CDC Director Tom Frieden will offer his assessment of the Ebola outbreak on "New Day" at 7:22 a.m. ET.
ReplyDelete(CNN) -- A highly anticipated test of an experimental Ebola vaccine will begin this week at the National Institutes of Health, amid mounting anxiety about the spread of the deadly virus in West Africa.
After an expedited review by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, researchers were given the green light to begin what's called a human safety trial, said Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.
It will be the first test of this type of Ebola vaccine in humans.
The experimental vaccine, developed by the pharmaceutical company GlaxoSmithKline and the NIAID, will first be given to three healthy human volunteers to see if they suffer any adverse effects. If deemed safe, it will then be given to another small group of volunteers, aged 18 to 50, to see if it produces a strong immune response to the virus. All will be monitored closely for side effects.
The vaccine will be administered to volunteers by an injection in the deltoid muscle of their arm, first in a lower dose, then later in a higher dose after the safety of the vaccine has been determined.
ReplyDeleteSome of the preclinical studies that are normally done on these types of vaccines were waived by the FDA during the expedited review, Fauci said, so "we want to take extra special care that we go slowly with the dosing."
The vaccine did extremely well in earlier trials with chimpanzees, Fauci said. He noted that the method being used to prompt an immune response to Ebola cannot cause a healthy individual to become infected with the virus.
Still, he said, "I have been fooled enough in my many years of experience... you really can't predict what you will see (in humans)."
According to the NIH, the vaccine will also be tested on healthy volunteers in the United Kingdom, Gambia and Mali, once details are finalized with health officials in those countries.
Trials cannot currently be done in the four countries affected by the recent outbreak -- Guinea, Sierra Leone, Liberia and Nigeria -- because the existing health care infrastructure wouldn't support them, Fauci said. Gambia and Mali were selected because the NIH has "long-standing collaborative relationships" with researchers in those countries.
According to the NIH, officials from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention are also in talks with health officials from Nigeria about conducting part of the safety trial there.
ReplyDeleteFunding from an international consortium formed to fight Ebola will enable GlaxoSmithKline to begin manufacturing up to 10,000 additional doses of the vaccine while clinical trials are ongoing, the pharmaceutical company said in a statement. These doses would be made available if the World Health Organization decides to allow emergency immunizations in high-risk communities.
The GSK/NIAID vaccine is one of two leading candidate vaccines. The other was developed by the Public Health Agency of Canada and licensed this month to NewLink Genetics, a company based in Iowa.
According to the NIH, safety trials of that vaccine will start this fall.
ReplyDeleteEarlier this month, the Canadian government shipped what it said was "800 to 1,000" doses of that vaccine to Liberia, at the government's request. It's not clear whether it has been given to health workers or anyone else there.
Worth noting: In 2009, an earlier version of the vaccine was given to a lab worker in Germany after he thought he had pricked himself with a needle tainted with Ebola. He did not develop the disease.
While there currently is no proven treatment for Ebola beyond supportive care, government agencies and small biotech firms have been scrambling to speed up development of several potential therapies and vaccines.
(CNN) -- The Ebola outbreak in West Africa is much worse than official figures show, and other countries are unintentionally making it harder to control, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Dr. Tom Frieden told CNN on Tuesday.
ReplyDelete"We've seen outbreaks of Ebola before. This is the first epidemic spreading widely through many countries, and it is spiraling out of control," said Frieden, who recently returned from a trip to the region. "It's bad now, much worse than the numbers show. It's going to get even worse in the very near future."
More than 2,600 people have been infected by Ebola in Liberia, Guinea, Sierra Leone and Nigeria since the outbreak began in December, according to the World Health Organization. More than 1,500 have died.
This Ebola is fast becoming a scourge in Africa. It seems that our governments are incapable of handling the situation. God help us all.
DeleteThe Nigerian govt in collaboration with the CDC, UNICEF, AND OTHER international organizations, have mounted a robust response to this epidemic. However, Prof, you would agree with me that this is about the first time, we are facing this type of threat, in West Africa, since the HIV/AIDS pandemic;
Deletehttp://www.cnn.com/2014/09/02/health/ebola-outbreak/index.html?hpt=he_c1
http://www.amazon.com/dp/1609767136/ref=rdr_ext_tmb
Editor's note: CNN's David Mattingly reports on the case of a Missouri man sentenced to life in prison for purchasing marijuana Tuesday at 7 p.m. on Erin Burnett Out Front. Vanita Gupta is a deputy legal director at the American Civil Liberties Union and director of the organization's Center for Justice. The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Vanita Gupta.
ReplyDelete(CNN) -- Clearly something is broken when a Missouri man named Jeff Mizanskey can be sentenced to die in prison for purchasing seven pounds of marijuana. With two nonviolent marijuana convictions already on his record, Jeff received life without parole under Missouri's three strikes law.
The punishment of growing old and dying behind bars for offenses like Mizanskey's is extreme, tragic, and inhumane. This should outrage us, but it should not surprise us.
This country has spent 40 years relentlessly ratcheting up the number of people going to prison and dramatically expanding the time we hold them there. We've spent decades criminalizing people with drug dependency, passing extreme sentencing laws, and waging a war on drugs that has not diminished drug use. Small wonder, then, that even less serious crimes like Mizanskey's marijuana purchase result in costly and cruel sentences.
It's time for states to end the costly criminalization of marijuana and recalibrate sentencing laws so that the punishment actually fits the crime as opposed to a politician's reelection agenda. Public attitudes toward marijuana are rapidly evolving, and a Gallup poll last year found for the first time that a majority of Americans now favor legalization as a better course than criminalization.
ReplyDeleteUnfortunately, laws and police practices that enforce them are out of step with public opinion. Nationally, nearly half of all drug arrests are for marijuana offenses. At least one person is arrested for marijuana possession every hour in Mizanskey's home state of Missouri, which also wasted nearly $50 million on marijuana enforcement in 2010. Although black people and white people use marijuana at about the same rate, a black person in Missouri was 2.6 times more likely to be arrested for having marijuana than a white person.
The solution is clear. Instead of taxpayers spending millions of dollars on this unnecessary enforcement and keeping folks like Mizanskey in prison for the rest of their lives, states could follow Colorado and Washington by taxing and regulating marijuana and investing saved enforcement dollars in education, substance abuse treatment, and prevention and other health care.
Evening sir, pls who is Mizanskey?
Delete(CNN) -- Clearly something is broken when a Missouri man named Jeff Mizanskey can be sentenced to die in prison for purchasing seven pounds of marijuana.
DeleteWith two nonviolent marijuana convictions already on his record, Jeff received life without parole under Missouri's three strikes law.
http://www.cnn.com/2014/09/02/opinion/vanita-gupta-marijuana-life-sentence/index.html?sr=sharebar_facebook
Japan is tackling its first outbreak of dengue fever in almost 70 years, with at least 22 people confirmed as being infected.
ReplyDeleteAn outbreak of dengue fever was last recorded in Japan in 1945.
Disease outbreaks everywhere
DeleteTOKYO —
DeleteThe first cases of dengue fever to be reported in Japan in 70 years sent government health officials scrambling to fumigate Yoyogi Park, where so far at least 22 people—none of whom have traveled abroad recently—are believed to have contracted the disease from mosquito bites.
The dengue outbreak, reports Yukan Fuji (Aug 31), was not entirely surprising, as it has been predicted for some time now that climate change is likely to make Japan increasingly vulnerable to tropical diseases, including dengue fever, West Nile fever, malaria and yellow fever.
http://www.japantoday.com/category/kuchikomi/view/will-global-warming-make-japan-more-vulnerable-to-tropical-diseases
Do you know that recent research shows that roughly 100 million users are sharing, posting and commenting on YouTube every second?
ReplyDeleteThat's a staggering information