2500, France | AFP | Hepatitis C is easily cured. Yet, about 400,000 people die of the liver disease every year as only a smattering get the medicine they need. On Friday, the World Health Organization (WHO) urged governments to attack the problem with more urgency, and more money. Only …
Read More »Are lonely hearts prone to cardiovascular disease?
Paris, France | AFP | Feeling lonely contributes less to the risk of cardiovascular disease than recent research suggests, scientists said Tuesday, but social isolation really does up the odds of dying after a heart attack or stroke. The alleged link between loneliness and heart disease essentially disappears once other …
Read More »300 million hepatitis B sufferers but only one in 20 treated: study
Paris, France | AFP | Some 300 million people worldwide are living with the deadly hepatitis B virus (HBV), but only one in 20 received adequate treatment, researchers reported Tuesday. For expectant mothers carrying the virus — which can be transmitted to their children — that percentage drops to one …
Read More »Spanish flu: more deadly than World War I
Paris, France | AFP | The Spanish flu outbreak 100 years ago is the modern world’s deadliest epidemic, its toll of more than 50 million surpassing that of World War I. Here is some background. – Why ‘Spanish flu’? – Countries caught up in the 1914-1918 war censored information about …
Read More »Record highs in Nigeria Lassa fever outbreak: WHO
Lagos, Nigeria | AFP | Nigeria is suffering its worst outbreak of Lassa fever, the World Health Organization (WHO) said on Wednesday, as local health officials said 72 people had died since the start of this year. “Nigeria’s Lassa fever outbreak has reached record highs, with 317 laboratory confirmed cases,” …
Read More »Diarrhoea kills 26 Congolese in Ugandan refugee camp
Kampala, Uganda | AFP | Twenty-six Congolese refugees at a fast-growing camp in western Uganda died from acute diarrhoea in just three days, the UN said Thursday. Tens of thousands of people have fled an upsurge of fighting in the east of the Democratic Republic of Congo this year, many …
Read More »Sterile mosquitos released in Miami to battle disease
Miami, United States | AFP | In a bid to cut the population of disease-carrying Aedes aegypti mosquitos, health officials in Miami are releasing millions of their brethren treated with a bacteria that makes them sterile. “Treat them carefully! You don’t want to hurt them,” said South Miami mayor Philip Stoddard …
Read More »Scientists thwart cancer-spreading compound, in mice
Paris, France | AFP | A common amino acid produced in the human body or absorbed from food can be suppressed to stop breast cancer spread in mice, researchers reported Wednesday. They hope the finding may yield a method to prevent cancer cells spreading from their origins in a woman’s …
Read More »100 years after ‘Spanish flu’, new global pandemics feared
Davos, Switzerland | AFP | Ebola, zika, SARS: a century after the “Spanish flu” killed 50 million people, humanity now risks a new wave of deadly diseases, and in today’s globalised world another such pandemic may be unavoidable, experts warned at the Davos summit this week. “Pandemics are becoming a …
Read More »Two tomatoes a day may keep lung disease at bay: study
Paris, France | AFP | Adults who ate more than two tomatoes a day had a slower rate of natural lung function decline, with ex-smokers seeming to benefit most of all, scientists said Thursday. Similar benefits, they said, were observed for people who ate more than three portions of fresh fruit …
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