HEALTH - Page 24

The Australian government announced Thursday an inquiry into handling the coronavirus pandemic, including its use of fortress-like travel restrictions and a sluggish initial vaccine rollout. According to a statement from the prime minister’s office, the independent panel will examine communications, decisions, actions, and protocols involving the government during the pandemic. It also will review more than 20 earlier inquiries and reviews, some of which were led by state governments. The country imposed some of the world’s most stringent restrictions during

Over the last few years, high blood pressure or hypertension has been a silent killer for millions across the globe. The deadly condition leads to stroke, heart attack, heart failure, kidney damage, and other health problems if left untreated for a long time. In its first-ever report, the World Health Organisation shared that four out of five people with hypertension are not adequately treated worldwide. This is a significant reason why the global health body estimates that 76 million deaths

Three British citizens have been infected with Brucella canis, an incurable dog disease previously unseen in UK canines. This bacterial infection can cause infertility, mobility issues, and discomfort in affected dogs, but it also poses a severe threat to infected humans. Brucellosis is a genital infection that can be spread through bodily fluids – specifically reproductive fluids – and is often spread through contact with aborted fetuses, so people should avoid handling such tissues. Infection can cause fever, malaise, enlarged

An irregular heartbeat, also known as arrhythmia, is a condition where the heart beats too fast, too slow, or irregularly. It happens when a disturbance in the heart’s electrical system controls the heart rate and rhythm. It can cause various symptoms, including palpitations, dizziness or fainting, and shortness of breath. While occasional irregular heartbeats can be shared and harmless, if you notice them frequently, they may indicate an underlying medical condition. There are many causes of abnormal heart rhythms. Most

India’s southern state of Kerala shut some schools, offices, and public transport on Wednesday in a race to stop the spread of the rare and deadly Nipah virus. The state health department has ordered seven villages in Kozhikode district to be declared containment zones, imposing strict isolation rules and restricting travel. The virus, which causes brain-damaging fevers, has killed two people in this outbreak. A state health official said that an adult and a child are still infected in the

In a scientific first, scientists have successfully created synthetic models of 14-day-old human embryos derived entirely from stem cells grown in a lab. Their work, published in the journal Nature, provides an unprecedented glimpse into the mysterious earliest stages of human development and could open up new avenues of research into infertility, congenital disabilities, and organ growth. Scientists reprogrammed skin cells to become stem cells that can differentiate into the many cell types that make up an embryo. They then

Danish drugmaker Novo Nordisk briefly overtook LVMH (LVMH.PA) as Europe’s most valuable listed company in intraday trading on Friday, ending the French luxury group’s 2-1/2 year-long reign at the top. The luxury sector has been battered by growing concerns about the outlook for the Chinese economy, which is critical to demand for high-end goods. Novo, meanwhile, is riding a wave of sky-high demand for its highly effective diabetes and weight-loss drugs Ozempic and Wegovy, which have sent its earnings and

As a wave of COVID-19 cases continues to surge across the United States, virus trackers have been eyeing another strain that may cause more infections than its predecessors. According to a leading World Health Organization official, a highly mutated variant called BA.2.86 has now been detected in Switzerland and South Africa in addition to Israel, Denmark, the U.S., and the U.K. This offshoot of the Omicron lineage carries more than 35 mutations in critical portions of the virus compared with

A COVID-19 variant with a long list of mutations is stirring fears among experts, but the impact is still unknown. The latest discovery comes just days after the same lineage was spotted in Israel and Denmark. The virus is currently only being tracked as a “variant under monitoring” and not classified as a ‘’variant of concern (VOC)’’ or a ‘’variant of interest’’, the categories WHO uses to describe the most dangerous versions of the coronavirus. But a study by the

Surgeons have successfully transplanted a genetically engineered pig kidney into a patient who was declared brain dead. The surgery marks the longest time a pig organ has functioned in a human and is a step toward establishing an alternative source of life-saving organs, doctors at NYU Langone Health said. The surgeons used a kidney from pigs engineered to suppress the expression of the protein alpha-gal, which triggers an immediate rejection response by the human immune system. The team also embedded