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Nov92021 by GHealth NewsNo Comments

Climate-linked health risks to rise, COP26 panelists warn

Climate Change

If you thought the COVID pandemic was disruptive and deadly, climate change will be so much worse. So said a slew of panelists Tuesday at the U.N. climate talks in Glasgow, warning about escalating climate-linked health threats such as disease, heatstroke and air pollution. But they also called out the health systems in rich nations as part of the problem, with the healthcare sector responsible for up to 5% of global carbon emissions. “We need to recognize the role of health systems as emitters,” said Rachel Levine, the U.S. assistant secretary of health. “We cannot stand back and only tell others what they should do to protect our patients.” The main sources of emissions from the healthcare sector include the manufacture and transport of medical goods, as well as the construct...

Nov12021 by GHealth NewsNo Comments

Climate Change Is a Health Crisis

Climate Change

By: JULIA GILLARD The damaging effects of a warming planet are not limited to the environment. The United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP26) currently underway in Glasgow is an ideal opportunity for world leaders to demonstrate that they understand that global warming is a health crisis, and that they are learning from the pandemic response. The threat COVID-19 poses to human health is now well understood around the world. In contrast, the enormous health threat of global warming, with its broad array of persistent impacts on our well-being, is under-recognized and poorly understood. Yet climate change is harming human health right now. During the 2020 monsoon season in Bangladesh, for example, water flooded a quarter of the country. More than 1.3 million homes we...

Oct292021 by GHealth NewsNo Comments

The search for people who never get COVID

COVID19

A couple walk on the streets of Istanbul, Turkey.Credit: Ibrahim Oner/SOPA Images/Shutterstock By: Smriti Mallapaty An international team of researchers want to find people who are genetically resistant to SARS-CoV-2, in the hope of developing new drugs and treatments. Imagine being born naturally resistant to SARS-CoV-2, and never having to worry about contracting COVID-19 or spreading the virus. If you have this superpower, researchers want to meet you, to enrol you in their study. As described in a paper in Nature Immunology this month, an international team of scientists has launched a global hunt for people who are genetically resistant to infection with the pandemic virus. The team hopes that identifying the genes protecting these individuals could lead to the development...

Oct252021 by GHealth NewsNo Comments

WHO and partners call for action to better protect health and care workers from COVID-19

COVID19

The World Health Organization and partners[i] have issued an urgent call for concrete action to better protect health and care workers worldwide from COVID-19 and other health issues. The organizations are concerned that large numbers of health and care workers have died from COVID-19, but also that an increasing proportion of the workforce are suffering from burnout, stress, anxiety and fatigue. In a Joint Statement issued this week, WHO and partners are calling on all Member State governments and stakeholders to strengthen the monitoring and reporting of COVID-19 infections, ill-health and deaths among health and care workers. They should also include disaggregation by age, gender and occupation as a standard procedure, to enable decision makers and scientists ...

Oct212021 by GHealth NewsNo Comments

Global heating ‘may lead to epidemic of kidney disease’

Climate Change

Sugar-cane cutters in Nicaragua, where abnormally high numbers of agricultural workers suffer from CKDu (chronic kidney disease of unknown causes). Photograph: Ed Kashi/VII Chronic kidney disease linked to heat stress could become a major health epidemic for millions of workers around the world as global temperatures increase over the coming decades, doctors have warned. More research into the links between heat and CKDu – chronic kidney disease of uncertain cause – is urgently needed to assess the potential scale of the problem, they have said. Unlike the conventional form of chronic kidney disease (CKD), which is a progressive loss of kidney function largely seen among elderly people and those afflicted with other conditions such as diabetes and hypertension, epidemics of CKDu h...

Oct152021 by GHealth NewsNo Comments

New advice could trigger global change in use of aspirin to prevent heart attacks

Global Health

By Melissa Cunningham It was once deemed the “wonder drug” in the fight against heart attacks and strokes. But an influential medical taskforce in the United States has overhauled guidelines for aspirin, recommending that middle-aged and older people no longer take a low dose of the mild analgesic to prevent a first heart attack or stroke, in a move experts hope will make Australians rethink taking aspirin preventatively of their own accord. Bleeding risks for adults in their 60s and older who haven’t had a heart attack or stroke outweigh potential benefits from the painkiller, the US Preventive Services Task Force said in its draft guidance. Doctors have long recommended daily low-dose aspirin for many patients who have already had a heart attack or stroke, and the ta...

Oct92021 by GHealth NewsNo Comments

Sweden, Denmark pause Moderna COVID-19 vaccine for younger age groups

COVID19

Sweden and Denmark said on Wednesday they are pausing the use of Moderna's (MRNA.O) COVID-19 vaccine for younger age groups after reports of possible rare cardiovascular side effects. The Swedish health agency said it would pause using the shot for people born in 1991 and later as data pointed to an increase of myocarditis and pericarditis among youths and young adults that had been vaccinated. Those conditions involve an inflammation of the heart or its lining. "The connection is especially clear when it comes to Moderna's vaccine Spikevax, especially after the second dose," the health agency said, adding the risk of being affected was very small. Shares of Moderna fell 4.9%, or $16.08, to $316.11 in afternoon trading. A Moderna spokesperson said in an email the company was aw...

Sep282021 by GHealth NewsNo Comments

Resistance to front-line malaria drugs confirmed in Africa

Global Health

Scientists have confirmed that malaria parasites in Africa have developed resistance to a key family of drugs used to protect against them. “We’ve all been expecting and dreading this for quite some time,” says Leann Tilley, a biochemist at the University of Melbourne in Australia, who researches the molecular basis of antimalarial resistance. Signs of drug resistance have long been present in Africa: for instance, in Rwanda between 2012 and 2015, scientists detected the existence of gene mutations associated with resistance in malaria parasites. A new study, published in the New England Journal of Medicine today, bolsters these findings by showing that such mutations are causing an observable drop in antimalarials’ ability to quickly treat people with the disease. The ‘gold stand...

Sep242021 by GHealth NewsNo Comments

Bill Gates Says We Aren’t Ready for the Next Pandemic

Global Health

Not enough is being done to prepare for the next pandemic, a new report from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has said. In the report, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation challenged nations to invest long-term in healthcare systems as well as calling for a reduction in vaccine and resource inequalities between high and low income nations. “It seems obvious that in a globalized world, where people and goods move constantly across borders, it’s insufficient for rich countries to be the only ones with the equipment and resources to sequence viruses,” the report stated. In 2015, Bill Gates warned of the threat of a global pandemic on human life, and in the report outlined these challenges, such as 31 million additional people in extreme poverty as a result of coronavi...

Sep152021 by GHealth NewsNo Comments

Here’s what we know about the MU variant

COVID19

A coronavirus variant known as “mu” or “B.1.621” was designated by the World Health Organization as a “variant of interest” earlier this week and will be monitored by the global health body as cases continue to emerge across parts of the world. It is the fifth variant of interest currently being monitored by the WHO. Where was it first detected and where is it now? The variant was first detected in Colombia in January 2021, where cases continue to rise. It has since been identified in more than 39 countries, according to the WHO, among them the United States, South Korea, Japan, Ecuador, Canada and parts of Europe. Will my coronavirus vaccine work against mu? It’s unclear how much protection the vaccines offer against this variant. “The Mu variant has a constella...