Millions of children risk missing out on measles vaccines, Unicef warns.
Measles resurgence fear amid coronavirus
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Category Archives: Mind Building
UK Biobank: DNA to unlock coronavirus secrets
A vast store of DNA is being used to study why the severity of symptoms for coronavirus is so varied.
Health24.com | Coronavirus morning update: Lockdown slows spread of virus but expert warns ‘can’t escape epidemic’
WHAT’S HAPPENING IN SA
Cases update:
The latest number of confirmed cases is 2 272.
Two more deaths were recorded in the country – the total is now 27.
There have been 83 663 tests conducted so far.
READ MORE |All the confirmed cases of coronavirus in SA
Latest news:
South Africa might still see an exponential increase in Covid-19 once the lockdown is lifted, Professor Salim Abdool Karim, chair of the ministerial advisory group on Covid-19, warned on Monday.
Karim added the lockdown has been effective in delaying transmissions and easing the burden on our healthcare facilities.
Speaking at a public engagement meeting with Health Minister Zweli Mkhize, Karim explained what might happen after the lockdown.
“What we would hope for is that the number of new cases will steadily decline, and it will disappear and that’s the end of the story. I’m sorry to tell you, but that’s very unlikely,” Karim said.
READ MORE | The difficult truth: Rise in cases expected after lockdown, says expert
SLIDESHOW: SA’s Covid-19 epidemic: Trends and next steps
Since the start of the Covid-19 lockdown, 183 schools have been vandalised across South Africa, according to Basic Education Minister Angie Motshekga. In some cases, equipment was stolen and in others, entire schools were burnt down.
“It is quite disheartening that criminal elements in our communities could destroy the infrastructure of their own children with such apparent impunity,” Motshekga said in a statement.
Schools closed on 18 March when President Cyril Ramaphosa declared a national state of disaster. A lockdown was put in place to ensure that as many people as possible stay home to curb the spread of Covid-19.
Pupils were given work to complete at home amid uncertainty over when schools would be able to reopen.
However, an unforeseen outcome of this was that schools were targeted by vandals, burglars and arsonists.
READ MORE | Motshekga: 183 schools targeted since start of lockdown
Seven police officers were arrested for allegedly trying to break into a shop that sells alcohol in Bonnievale on Sunday.
National police spokesperson Brigadier Vishnu Naidoo said they were expected to appear in court on Tuesday.
They face charges of defeating the ends of justice.
The sale of alcohol during the coronavirus lockdown is prohibited.
READ MORE | Lockdown: 7 cops arrested in ‘booze shop break-in’ amid alcohol prohibition
Drugs, knives and contaminated needles were among the items police seized during raids at the Lyttelton sports ground in Centurion, where more than 300 homeless people are being sheltered during the lockdown.
Gauteng’s acting social development MEC Panyaza Lesufi and Tshwane administrator, Lebogang Mahaye, visited the makeshift shelter on Monday, following reports that people were fleeing and heading back to the streets. Many of those living there suffer from substance abuse.
Initially, people living there were allowed to go out as long as their reasons for leaving were allowed under the lockdown regulations.
However, these privileges have been revoked due to the trade of drugs and illicit cigarettes.
READ MORE | Lockdown: Drugs, knives and contaminated needles found at makeshift shelter in Centurion
A 36-year-old man has been arrested for the rape of an 18-year-old woman at the tent the city set up to shelter Cape Town’s homeless on a sports field in Strandfontein during the country’s Covid-19 lockdown.
“According to the victim, the incident occurred on Wednesday evening, but it was only reported on Friday night,” police spokesperson Captain FC van Wyk said.
The 36-year-old is expected to appear in the Mitchells Plain Magistrate’s Court on Tuesday.
The facility at Strandfontein has been bogged down in controversy for various reasons, which range from criticism directed at the City of Cape Town for the type of accommodation offered, to complaints from residents in the immediate vicinity who say they have not been consulted about the camp.
It is on a sports field and critics say that it is not set up properly, has no beds and no proper ablution facilities.
WHAT’S HAPPENING IN THE REST OF THE WORLD
Cases update:
For the latest global data, follow this interactive map from Johns Hopkins University & Medicine.
Late on Monday night, positive cases worldwide were more than 1.91m, while deaths were almost 119 000.
There were more than 577 000 cases in the United States, and more than 23 000 death.
Italy has now surpassed China and has the most deaths, with 3 405.
READ MORE | All the confirmed cases worldwide
Latest news:
Under strong international pressure, China on Sunday vowed to improve the treatment of Africans in the southern city of Guangzhou following accusations of discrimination linked to the coronavirus pandemic, and said it rejected all “racist and discriminatory” remarks.
Africans in the industrial centre of 15 million say they have become targets of suspicion and subjected to forced evictions, arbitrary quarantines and mass coronavirus testing, particularly as Beijing steps up its fight against imported infections.
The African Union expressed its “extreme concern” about the situation on Saturday, calling on Beijing to take immediate corrective measures.
The United States, meanwhile, denounced what it called “xenophobia towards Africans by Chinese authorities.”
READ MORE | China vows improvements for Africans after virus discrimination claims
Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates said that the world was entering into “uncharted territory” because it was not prepared for a pandemic like Covid-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus.
Gates, who has been warning about the risk of a pandemic disease for years and who has poured millions into fighting the new coronavirus outbreak, told BBC Breakfast on Sunday that the world should have invested more into mitigating a potential global health crisis.
“Well, there was a period when I and other health experts were saying that this was the greatest potential downfall the world faced,” he told the BBC in an interview on Sunday, highlighting his previous warnings against the possibility of a deadly pandemic.
“So we definitely will look back and wish we had invested more,” he said, “so that we could quickly have all the diagnostics, drugs, and vaccines.”
READ MORE | Bill Gates warns that the world is entering ‘uncharted territory’
HEALTH TIPS (as recommended by the NICD and WHO)
• Maintain physical distancing – stay at least one metre away from somebody who is coughing or sneezing
• Practise frequent hand-washing, especially after direct contact with ill people or their environment
• Avoid touching your eyes, nose and mouth, as your hands touch many surfaces and could potentially transfer the virus
• Practise respiratory hygiene – cover your mouth with your bent elbow or tissue when you cough or sneeze. Remember to dispose the tissue immediately after use.
READ MORE: Coronavirus 101
Image credit: Getty Images
Coronavirus: Scientists to review impact of lockdown measures
The group’s evaluations will be passed to ministers – but restrictions are not expected to be lifted.
Health24.com | What do we know about congenital heart disease and coronavirus?
Like many 20-year-old college students, Alex Cohen is hunkered down and sequestered amid coronavirus chaos. Some of his peers were frequenting their usual hangouts right up until many of them began shutting down, but not Cohen.
Once word of the coronavirus hit the news, it meant something different to him. Cohen was born with congenital heart disease and, like many with similar conditions, lives in fear of how the virus might affect him.
“It’s a scary thing. People see me as a younger person, but I may be at risk – even though I don’t know 100% how,” Cohen said. “It’s unknown, so I have to treat myself as if I’m at risk.”
Cohen was born with pulmonary atresia, a condition in which the valve that releases blood from the heart to the lungs isn’t properly formed. This pulmonary atresia is part of a syndrome called tetralogy of Fallot, a complicated condition comprised of four defects of the heart and its blood vessels.
The unknown risk
Covid-19 can cause fever, cough and respiratory symptoms such as difficulty breathing. Cohen said because his conditions can affect his oxygen intake, he worries this will make him more vulnerable.
The challenge is right now there is no evidence to guide people living with congenital heart disease concerning their personal risks.
“The majority of the information available about this illness does not include information on patients with” congenital heart disease, said Dr Anne Marie Valente, director of the Boston Adult Congenital Heart and Pulmonary Hypertension Program.
“When you live with congenital heart disease, the unknown risk is a real threat,” Valente said. “Healthcare providers are working together to better understand the individualised risks and are counselling patients to be as prepared as possible and follow guidelines from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.”
Currently, there is no data on congenital heart disease and coronavirus, but doctors in China observed in Covid-19 patients that many had coronary heart disease and heart failure. But those conditions are different from congenital heart disease, said Dr Jamil Aboulhosn, director of the Ahmanson/UCLA Adult Congenital Heart Disease Center in Los Angeles.
However, he did say many patients had arrhythmias, or irregular heart rhythms, which are common for people with heart defects.
Continue medications already prescribed
“We are keeping track of those patients and building a much-needed database,” Aboulhosn said during a webinar organised by the Adult Congenital Heart Association. “As of yet, we don’t have any data for (congenital heart disease) patients.”
Researchers are investigating whether angiotensin-converting enzyme (ACE) inhibitors, which widen blood vessels and are often prescribed for heart conditions, have a negative effect on Covid-19 patients.
On March 17, the American Heart Association, the Heart Failure Society of America and the American College of Cardiology jointly published a statement recommending patients continue medications already prescribed for conditions such as heart failure, high blood pressure and ischaemic heart disease.
“Cardiovascular disease patients who are diagnosed with Covid-19 should be fully evaluated before adding or removing any treatments, and any changes to their treatment should be based on the latest scientific evidence and shared decision-making with their physician and health care team,” the statement said.
Valente points out that general recommendations for people living with congenital heart disease appear no different from recommendations for the general population: wash hands for 20 seconds each time regularly; practise social distancing; cough and sneeze into a tissue and throw it away; and avoid touching your face.
An emotional tightrope
Despite a lack of information about congenital heart disease and coronavirus, there are a handful of resources for patients. Michigan Medicine Congenital Heart Center has identified conditions it says may put people at higher risk for Covid-19 complications. They include pulmonary hypertension, heart transplant, unrepaired complex congenital heart disease and a single heart ventricle, which means one of the lower chambers of the heart hasn’t developed, reducing the amount of oxygenated blood to the body.
Valente said it is important for people with congenital heart disease to remember that this time of unrest and uncertainty is not permanent.
“We all need to adjust our activities for this period of time, to stay strong and in greatest overall health, to guard ourselves, and to respect each other by protective distancing,” Valente said.
For Cohen, he is walking an emotional tightrope – trying to find the happy medium between caution and panic.
“For now, I’m just planning to stay in and I’m being careful,” he said. “If I get sick, it could really hurt me, or it could do nothing. I’m trying not to get too freaked out.”
AHA News for HealthDay
READ | What heart patients should know about coronavirus
READ | How does a severe coronavirus infection possibly injure the heart?
READ | Why heart patients need to be wary of coronavirus
Image credit: Getty Images
New formation theory explains the mysterious interstellar object ‘Oumuamua
Since its discovery in 2017, an air of mystery has surrounded the first known interstellar object to visit our solar system, an elongated, cigar-shaped body named ‘Oumuamua (Hawaiian for “a messenger from afar arriving first”).
How was it formed, and where did it come from? A new study published April 13 in Nature Astronomy offers a first comprehensive answer to these questions.
First author Yun Zhang at the National Astronomical Observatories of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and coauthor Douglas N. C. Lin at the University of California, Santa Cruz, used computer simulations to show how objects like ‘Oumuamua can form under the influence of tidal forces like those felt by Earth’s oceans. Their formation theory explains all of ‘Oumuamua’s unusual characteristics.
“We showed that ‘Oumuamua-like interstellar objects can be produced through extensive tidal fragmentation during close encounters of their parent bodies with their host stars, and then ejected into interstellar space,” said Lin, professor emeritus of astronomy and astrophysics at UC Santa Cruz.
Discovered on October 19, 2017, by the Panoramic Survey Telescope and Rapid Response System 1 (Pan-STARRS1) in Hawaii, ‘Oumuamua is absolutely nothing like anything else in our solar system, according to Zhang. Its dry surface, unusually elongated shape, and puzzling motion even drove some scientists to wonder if it was an alien probe.
“It is really a mysterious object, but some signs, like its colors and the absence of radio emission, point to ‘Oumuamua being a natural object,” Zhang said.
“Our objective is to come up with a comprehensive scenario, based on well understood physical principles, to piece together all the tantalizing clues,” Lin said.
Astronomers had expected that the first interstellar object they detected would be an icy body like a comet. Icy objects like those populating the Oort cloud, a reservoir of comets in the outermost reaches of our solar system, evolve at very large distances from their host stars, are rich in volatiles, and are often tossed out of their host systems by gravitational interactions. They are also highly visible due to the sublimation of volatile compounds, which creates a comet’s coma (or “tail”) when it is warmed by the sun. ‘Oumuamua’s dry appearance, however, is similar to rocky bodies like the solar system’s asteroids, indicating a different ejection scenario.
Other researchers have calculated that there must be an extremely large population of interstellar objects like ‘Oumuamua. “The discovery of ‘Oumuamua implies that the population of rocky interstellar objects is much larger than we previously thought,” Zhang said. “On average, each planetary system should eject in total about a hundred trillion objects like ‘Oumuamua. We need to construct a very common scenario to produce this kind of object.”
When a smaller body passes very close to a much bigger one, tidal forces of the larger body can tear the smaller one apart, as happened to comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 when it came close to Jupiter. The tidal disruption processes can eject some debris into interstellar space, which has been suggested as a possible origin for ‘Oumuamua. But whether such a process could explain ‘Oumuamua’s puzzling characteristics remained highly uncertain.
Zhang and Lin ran high-resolution computer simulations to model the structural dynamics of an object flying close by a star. They found that if the object comes close enough to the star, the star can tear it into extremely elongated fragments that are then ejected into the interstellar space.
“The elongated shape is more compelling when we considered the variation of material strength during the stellar encounter. The ratio of long axis to short axis can be even larger than ten to one,” Zhang said.
The researchers’ thermal modeling showed that the surface of fragments resulting from the disruption of the initial body would melt at a very short distance from the star and recondense at greater distances, thereby forming a cohesive crust that would ensure the structural stability of the elongated shape.
“Heat diffusion during the stellar tidal disruption process also consumes large amounts of volatiles, which not only explains ‘Oumuamua’s surface colors and the absence of visible coma, but also elucidates the inferred dryness of the interstellar population,” Zhang said. “Nevertheless, some high-sublimation-temperature volatiles buried under the surface, like water ice, can remain in a condensed form.”
Observations of ‘Oumuamua showed no cometary activity, and only water ice is a possible outgassing source to account for its non-gravitational motion. If ‘Oumuamua was produced and ejected by the scenario of Zhang and Lin, plenty of residual water ice could be activated during its passage through the solar system. The resulting outgassing would cause accelerations that match ‘Oumuamua’s comet-like trajectory.
“The tidal fragmentation scenario not only provides a way to form one single ‘Oumuamua, but also accounts for the vast population of asteroid-like interstellar objects,” Zhang said.
The researchers’ calculations demonstrate the efficiency of tidal forces in producing this kind of object. Possible progenitors, including long-period comets, debris disks, and even super-Earths, could be transformed into ‘Oumuamua-size pieces during stellar encounters.
This work supports estimates of a large population of ‘Oumuamua-like interstellar objects. Since these objects may pass through the domains of habitable zones, the possibility that they could transport matter capable of generating life (called panspermia) cannot be ruled out. “This is a very new field. These interstellar objects could provide critical clues about how planetary systems form and evolve,” Zhang said.
According to Lin, “‘Oumuamua is just the tip of the iceberg. We anticipate many more interstellar visitors with similar traits will be discovered by future observation with the forthcoming Vera C. Rubin Observatory.”
U.S. Naval Academy astronomer Matthew Knight, who is co-leader of the ‘Oumuamua International Space Science Institute team and was not involved in the new study, said this work “does a remarkable job of explaining a variety of unusual properties of ‘Oumuamua with a single, coherent model.”
“As future interstellar objects are discovered in coming years, it will be very interesting to see if any exhibit ‘Oumuamua-like properties. If so, it may indicate that the processes described in this study are widespread,” Knight said.
Breaking the size and speed limit of modulators: The workhorses of the internet
Researchers developed and demonstrated for the first time a silicon-based electro-optical modulator that is smaller, as fast as and more efficient than state-of-the-art technologies. By adding indium tin oxide (ITO) — a transparent conductive oxide found in touchscreen displays and solar cells — to a silicon photonic chip platform, the researchers were able to create a compact device 1 micrometer in size and able to yield gigahertz-fast, or 1 billion times per second, signal modulation.
Electro-optical modulators are the workhorses of the internet. They convert electrical data from computers and smartphones to optical data streams for fiber optic networks, enabling modern data communications like video streaming. The new invention is timely since demand for data services is growing rapidly and moving towards next generation communication networks. Taking advantage of their compact footprint, electro-optic converters can be utilized as transducers in optical computing hardware such as optical artificial neural networks that mimic the human brain and a plethora of other applications for modern-day life.
THE SITUATION
Electro-optical modulators in use today are typically between 1 millimeter and 1 centimeter in size. Reducing their size allows increased packaging density, which is vital on a chip. While silicon often serves as the passive structure on which photonic integrated circuits are built, the light matter interaction of silicon materials induces a rather weak optical index change, requiring a larger device footprint. While resonators could be used to boost this weak electro-optical effect, they narrow devices’ optical operating range and incur high energy consumption from required heating elements.
THE SOLUTION
By heterogeneously adding a thin material layer of indium tin oxide to the silicon photonic waveguide chip, researchers at the George Washington University, led by Volker Sorger, an associate professor of electrical and computer engineering, have demonstrated an optical index change 1,000 times larger than silicon. Unlike many designs based on resonators, this spectrally-broadband device is stable against temperature changes and allows a single fiber-optic cable to carry multiple wavelengths of light, increasing the amount of data that can move through a system.
FROM THE RESEARCHER
“We are delighted to have achieved this decade-long goal of demonstrating a GHz-fast ITO modulator. This sets a new horizon for next-generation photonic reconfigurable devices with enhanced performance yet reduced size,” said Dr. Sorger
Story Source:
Materials provided by George Washington University. Note: Content may be edited for style and length.
Tumors hijack the cell death pathway to live
Cancer cells avoid an immune system attack after radiation by commandeering a cell signaling pathway that helps dying cells avoid triggering an immune response, a new study led by UTSW scientists suggests. The findings, published in a recent issue of Nature Immunology, could eventually lead to new ways to augment existing treatments to fight this disease.
Researchers have long known that radiation — a mainstay of treatment protocols for many types of cancerous tumors — kills cancer cells in two different ways: The high-energy beams smite some cells directly, and these dead cells leak DNA that triggers a tumor-fighting immune response through proteins known as interferons (IFNs). But even though cancerous cells make up the vast majority of a tumor, explains study leader Yang-Xin Fu, Ph.D., studies have shown that these cells secrete very little IFN themselves, muting the immune response that could eradicate them.
“We figured that tumor cells must have some mechanism to escape interferon production,” Fu says.
To figure out what that mechanism might be, he and his colleagues tested 42 FDA-approved drugs that block various parts of cell signaling on mouse colon cancer cells growing in petri dishes, searching for any that might be able to prompt these cells to secrete abundant interferons after radiation. Their search identified a drug known as emricasan, often prescribed to liver transplant recipients to help prevent rejection. This drug broadly inhibits production of a family of enzymes known as caspases, which not only help trigger cell death but also muffle the immune system’s response to dying cells.
Further experiments indicated that one particular member of this family known as caspase-9 (CASP9) was key for preventing the cancer cells from secreting IFN. When the researchers genetically manipulated cancer cells to turn off CASP9 production, radiation increased their IFN production thousands-fold compared with “wild type” cancer cells that hadn’t been modified.
When the researchers placed these CASP9-deficient cancer cells into mice, their tumors completely regressed after radiation, compared with those carrying tumors made of wild type cells. Additional experiments showed that a particular population of immune cells, known as CD8+ T cells, were recruited by the secreted interferon and were responsible for this dramatic regression.
Peering deeper into the mechanism behind how CASP9 helps protect tumor cells from the immune system, the researchers looked for the molecular trigger behind the production of this enzyme. Because cells secrete DNA from the nucleus only after they’re dead, the researchers looked to an event that occurs earlier after radiation damage: the secretion of DNA from mitochondria, the cell’s power-generating organelles. When the researchers removed mitochondrial DNA from cancer cells, they no longer produced IFN when they were irradiated, suggesting that this was the triggering event.
Although blocking CASP9 production appears to be a promising way to boost the anti-tumor immune response, it comes with a significant drawback: When tumors in animal models lost CASP9 signaling, these masses found a new way to evade immune attack by stepping up production of a protein called programmed death-ligand 1 (PD-L1), which shields cancer cells from immune discovery. However, when the researchers administered an antibody that blocked PD-L1, the tumors regressed again. Using a combination of CASP9 inhibitors with anti-PD-L1 could offer a new strategy for boosting the effects of radiation, Fu says.
“This approach could eventually give doctors the confidence that they’re irradiating the tumor that they can see and using the immune system to knock out other tumor cells that they can’t see,” he adds. “Together, this may be able to give some patients long-lasting survival that’s not yet achievable.”
Story Source:
Materials provided by UT Southwestern Medical Center. Note: Content may be edited for style and length.
Health24.com | Who’s caring for family caregivers? 1 in 5 says health is poor
Caring for a loved one at home can be rewarding, but it can also be overwhelming and take a toll on your own health, a new study suggests.
According to a new report from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, nearly one in five of the nearly 18 million Americans who provide informal, unpaid care may be in fair or poor health.
“As the population of America ages and the number of older adults with diseases such as Alzheimer’s continue to grow, there concomitantly has been a growth in the number of non-paid, informal caregivers,” said Dr Teresa Murray Amato, director of geriatric emergency medicine at Long Island Jewish Forest Hills in New York City.
“Many of these caregivers are family members, which can be very helpful for allowing older adults to remain at home,” said Amato, who was not part of the study.
Support for caregivers
Over the three years of the study (2015 to 2017), using data from 44 states, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico, researchers led by the CDC’s Valerie Edwards found that 21% of more than 252 000 respondents were caregivers. Nearly 20% of them rated their health fair or poor.
The findings were published in the CDC’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report.
“Although the report did not identify the drivers of this finding, it is not hard to understand that trying to balance work, family responsibilities and caring for an older adult could at the very least cause increased stress and also lead to lack of personal time to attend to one’s health issues,” Amato said.
Katherine Ornstein, an associate professor of geriatrics and palliative medicine at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York City, also reviewed the findings, and said the health care system needs to start thinking about how to support these caregivers.
Specifically, they need to consider what resources and training are needed to do the things they have to do, she said.
“It’s really making sure we think of family as part of the care team and make sure that they have the resources and training they need to know what to do,” Ornstein said. “That includes taking time off.”
Caring can be lonely
Caregiving is not necessarily a terrible thing, she said, “But it’s a bad thing when it’s stressful.”
Also, caring for a sick and dying person can be lonely and leave caregivers feeling isolated, Ornstein pointed out.
“A lot of times, especially in the end-of-life situation, which is arguably one of the most difficult, people are working alone, meaning there’s no one else helping to do anything, and often people don’t want to ask for help. It’s a tough thing,” she said.
Ornstein said that help is available for these family caregivers and they should reach out to hospitals and community services. But help needs to be tailored to both the patient’s and caregiver’s needs and desires.
Dr Steven Radwany, a professor in the Division of Palliative Medicine at Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center in Columbus, also reviewed the report. He said that as baby boomers age, the problem of home caregiving is only going to increase, because most of these people will want to stay in their own home rather than go to nursing homes or other outside care.
Radwany noted that states that haven’t adopted expanded Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act are the states where caregivers are most likely to report being in poor health.
Burden getting greater
“Now, this may be a correlation and not a cause and may reflect states that have a better infrastructure for support,” he said.
Expanded Medicaid, however, does include more options for home care. For those eligible for both Medicaid and Medicare, a lot of support is available for home care of the sickest patients, Radwany said.
He also believes that children of baby boomers are more likely to have to work, making caregiving even more stressful.
“The burden is only going to get greater, and we have to anticipate this as a country,” Radwany said. “And we have to have the political will to step up and address this. I do think more people in this age group should be looking at purchasing long term-care insurance.”
Image credit: iStock
Coronavirus: Gown supply ‘critically low’ in some hospitals
It comes as the number of coronavirus deaths in UK hospitals rises to 11,329 – up by 717 since Sunday.
