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Category Archives: Mind Building
Health24.com | Closure of ECD centres to prevent coronavirus spread a headache for working parents
Parents of children who attend Early Childhood Development Centres (ECDC) have been left stranded following the announcement made by Social Development Minister, Lindiwe Zulu, last Monday.
Melba Hlongwani (31), a mother from Tembisa in Ekurhuleni, works at an engineering company and says that the closure of ECDCs is going to have a huge impact on her, especially financially.
“I’m concerned because I have to hire someone to look after my children, yet I am expected to pay the crèche the full amount and they don’t care that we don’t have money. The other issue is that our employer is not going to give us time off from work. They say they want a letter should my child get sick and if the child is sick for two weeks or more, I could face disciplinary action.”
Her child’s crèche sent out a newsletter informing parents to make full payment despite the current closure.
While parents like Hlongwani are worried about the potential of contracting the coronavirus and spreading it in their homes, unemployed mother and student from Soweto, Sarah Khumalo* (38) has opened her door to caring for children whose parents have to work.
“I am looking after my child and two more from parents who have to work. As a health care assistant student, I check their (children’s) temperature when the parents bring them in the morning and when they pick them up later. I wash and sanitise their toys every four hours,” she says.
Khumalo* says she also encourages parents to maintain good hygiene practices in order to minimise the risk of contracting or spreading the coronavirus.
State of disaster
Minister Zulu announced the closures of ECDCs following a Special Cabinet Meeting held on Sunday, in response to the Covid-19 pandemic, where President Cyril Ramaphosa declared a National State of Disaster (NSD) in terms of the Disaster Management Act.
The department followed the President’s declaration by deciding that all ECDCs and Partial Care facilities to be closed from March 18 to April 15. It (the NSD) will continue to monitor the containment of the pandemic and advise accordingly.
*Not her real name
READ | Coronavirus: Basic protective measures
READ | Coronavirus: When and how to use a mask
WATCH | How coronavirus hijacks the body
– Health-e news
Image credit: Getty Images
Health24.com | A man in China died from hantavirus and the news has caused some alarm – but what is this virus?
As the world rallies against the Covid-19 pandemic, news from China involving another virus has caused alarm in some parts.
According to reports from the Chinese province Yunnan, a man died a few days after he had tested positive for hantavirus. He had been travelling back to Shandong Province for work, according to a tweet from China’s Global Times.
Thirty-two more people who were on the bus, were also tested, but the results of their tests were not clear.
The news has caused some panic on social media, as people speculate about the origin of the virus – drawing parallels with the coronavirus which had its first cases in Wuhan, China.
But hantavirus is nothing like the latest strain of coronavirus – let’s look at the facts.
What is the hantavirus?
Hantaviruses are viruses spread by rodents. There are several strains of hantaviruses, which can cause an illness known as Hantavirus pulmonary syndrome (HPS), a respiratory illness that starts with flu-like symptoms.
How does this virus spread?
A hantavirus is only spread through the rodents to humans and can’t be spread from human to human.
It is therefore only possible to get sick from this virus directly from a rat infestation – tiny particles of rat droppings, urine or saliva can be inhaled when stirred up into the air, or when directly handled with bare hands and then touching the face and nose.
The World Health Organization says cases of human hantavirus infection usually occur in rural areas – forests, fields, and farms – where sylvatic rodents hosting the virus might be found.
Humans can also be infected with hantavirus when bitten by a rodent. The following activities can put people at risk for HPS:
- Improper cleaning of rodent infestations and nests.
- Cleaning any shed, cabin, garage or building that was closed for a prolonged period.
- Working in areas where there might be rodent infestations such as barns.
It is therefore best to avoid the risk by wearing a protective mask when cleaning rodent nests and droppings up with a broom, to avoid inhaling the particles stirred up into the air.
What are the symptoms of HPS?
When you get infected with a hantavirus, you might suffer from HPS. Signs and symptoms may include:
- Fever and chills
- Headaches and body aches
- Abdominal cramps
After ten days, fluid may start forming in the lungs, which may cause fatal respiratory failure.
Where there any outbreaks in the past?
According to the World Health Organization (WHO), the following outbreaks were listed:
- March 2002 in the Republic of Panama
- September 2012 in Yosemite Park, US
- January 2019 in the Republic of Panama and the Argentine Republic
Image credit: Unsplash
Health24.com | World TB Day: TB meds, a bitter pill for children and parents to swallow
Child-friendly tuberculosis (TB) treatment is needed, says a Limpopo mother who fought tooth and nail for her child to get correction medication and not default on her treatment.
Pulane Mangena’s nine-year-old daughter was diagnosed with TB a year ago. Mangena, from Topanama Village outside Tzaneen, says her daughter experienced a severe cough for two weeks prior to being diagnosed at her local clinic. “She coughed persistently and sometimes she would vomit while at it. At first, I thought it was just the flu and I gave her flu medication. After I saw the flu medication wasn’t working, I took her to the clinic. That’s when they confirmed that she had TB,” Mangena tells OurHealth.
‘I fought with my child so much’
“The difficult task was giving her the medication. She wouldn’t swallow it, and instead spat the pills out whenever I wasn’t looking. This happened for a while until one day I caught her in the act. I then decided to dissolve them in water so she could drink it, but even that was not easy as she’d hysterically cry whenever she had her medication,” says Mangena.
TB activists in South Africa have already vocalised their dissatisfaction with the state of childhood tuberculosis medication. They expressed how difficult the medication schedule is for children to endure, and for parents or care-givers to stick to. In 2018, Global Coalition of TB Activists launched Childhood Stigma and Tuberculosis: Conversations of Resilience in the War against TB, and in it they noted that parents and care-givers struggled immensely with not only the financial impact of their child having TB, but the practicalities of administering the bitter TB medication.
Mangena calls for a treatment that’s tailored to children, as that will help parents effectively give their child TB medication. She says that child-friendly methods include having shorter regimens, which will “reduce the burden on parents, and reduce people defaulting on medication”.
Mangena adds: “I fought so much with my child because of her TB treatment. I had to promise that I would buy her something if she takes her treatment – and that happened every day for nine months. Because I am unemployed, I didn’t fulfil any of my promises.”
Parents need more education
While Magena’s diagnosis process was swift, her unawareness about TB, and childhood TB in particular, was also experienced by Johana Sebanyoni. Sebanyoni, from Atteridgeville, Gauteng, didn’t know that she had TB until she went to Kalafong Hospital with her 13-year-old daughter, who was experiencing night sweats, chest pain and extreme weight loss. “I had a fever at first, and later, my daughter had it too. We were living in pain, not knowing what was going on.
“We tried all sorts of fever medication from the pharmacy, but nothing helped until we were taken to Kalafong Hospital. That’s where they discovered I had TB and also tested HIV-positive. My daughter tested positive for TB. The doctor said it spread to her because of cough droplets – and sleeping in the same bed was not safe for her,” she says.
South African National Tuberculosis Association (SANTA) Coordinator in Limpopo, Letti Sadike, told OurHealth that more efforts should be channelled to parents’ education on TB. SANTA offers services such as home community-based care programmes, youth programmes and orphan and vulnerable children care. “The medication is fine, and parents must get more education about children’s medication. But, ultimately, our duty is to support the parents,” says Sadike.
Heavy personal burden
According to World Health Organization (WHO), TB remains the world’s deadliest infectious killer. Each day, over 4 000 people lose their lives to TB and close to 30 000 fall ill with this preventable and curable disease. According to the latest WHO statistics, in 2018 South Africa had a staggering 301 000 TB infections.
For Ndlela Haward Dlamini, his journey with TB meningitis has left him wheelchair bound and feeling hopeless. Dlamini was affected with TB meningitis when he was 19 – nearly 20 years ago. He was advised by a nurse, who was a family friend, to get tested because of the symptoms he presented: coughing for more than two weeks, weight loss, night sweats and loss of appetite.
‘I didn’t know what was happening’
“I went to the clinic to get tested, and they found out that I had TB meningitis and was also HIV-positive. I then started taking medication called Rifampin and supplements to boost my immune system.”
Dlamini has lost many friends along the way, and experienced challenges in changing his diet and living differently. “After six months of taking the medication [initially], I went to the clinic to test again, only to find out I still had TB. They continued to put me on TB treatment – this time with an injection.”
The fight continues
Sadike states that although efforts to fight TB in the country are hindered by untraceable patients and defaulters, she is adamant the fight can be won. “Current challenges of TB in the province are: Patients giving wrong addresses to health facilities, and difficulties in tracing them, migration of patients without noticing their care-givers, TB treatment interrupters or defaulters, unemployment rate and mining industries,” she says.
She adds, saying that it’s only through engagement with communities, civil society organisations and legislators that TB can be eradicated and managed. “We also need to provide health education [to patients] about behavioural changes and adherence to their treatment,” she concludes.
– Health-e News
WATCH | Why preventing TB could be as easy as 1, 2, 3HP
READ | World TB Day: One man’s long – but victorious – battle against TB
READ | Coronavirus: What you need to know if you’re living with HIV, diabetes or TB
Image credit: iStock
Health24.com | Hidden coronavirus carriers with mild cases – these symptoms could give clues to an infection
When we are down with the seasonal flu, we may notice that our sense of taste and smell are gone.
Also with the new coronavirus, a sudden, profound loss of smell appears to be a key indicator of the virus, even when there are no other symptoms present.
Anosmia is a term we use to describe a total or partial loss of smell, which can be caused by a blocked nose or something more serious such as a head injury.
According to evidence compiled by leading rhinologists in the UK, anyone experiencing a sudden loss of smell may be a hidden, asymptomatic carrier of the Covid-19 virus. Because they don’t meet the vital criteria to be tested (two or more symptoms and a travel history), they are unlikely to get a definite positive and may spread the virus unknowingly.
And more investigation is indicating that a profound loss of smell is indeed a key sign of the virus:
“In South Korea, where testing has been more widespread, 30% of patients testing positive have had anosmia as their major presenting symptom in otherwise mild cases,” the president of the British Rhinological Society, Professor, Clare Hopkins, and the president of the British Association of Otorhinolaryngology, professor Nirmal Kumar, said in a joint statement.
One of the hidden signs
Recent research reported by Health24 has shown that mild or asymptomatic people who were unaware that they carried the Covid-19 virus contributed to most of the spread.
Because it’s virtually impossible to get tested without showing clear symptoms (coughing, shortness of breath, fever) and a recent travel history to or from a high-risk area, people wouldn’t be able to know whether they are carrying the disease or not.
But now it has become clear that the loss of smell can be a clear indicator you may be carrying the virus, even if you are not sick.
Why the lost sense of smell?
Medical experts are still unsure how the sudden, profound loss of smell is linked to the Covid-19 virus. But while evidence is unclear, it’s significant enough for medical experts to call upon people to isolate themselves when they experience this symptom.
“We really want to raise awareness that this is a sign of infection and that anyone who develops loss of sense of smell should self-isolate,” Prof Claire Hopkins, president of the British Rhinological Society, wrote in an email to the New York Times. “It could contribute to slowing transmission and save lives.”
Self-isolation 101
The World Health Organization and several authorities around the world are asking people to refrain from socialising and going out at this stage, as it is the mild, undocumented cases that could cause serious illness in other, more vulnerable members of society.
- Try to make use of online delivery services to get groceries and medicine delivered to your house if possible.
- When going out to shops, be sensible – sanitise your hands and refrain from touching your nose and face.
- Wash your hands and wipe down surfaces such as door and cupboard handles as soon as you come back home.
- Exercise in smaller groups of two or three while maintaining a distance of at least 2m from each other.
- Even if you don’t fit the criteria for testing, stay home and isolate yourself from other people if you suspect that you might have been in contact with someone carrying the virus.
Image credit: iStock
Coronavirus: Private clinic defends charging £375 for test
The clinic in London says it has “paused” its service following reports it sold several thousand tests.
Coronavirus: Pandemic is ‘accelerating’, WHO warns as cases pass 300,000
More than 300,000 cases have now been reported, as Covid-19 spreads to almost every country.
Coronavirus Adaptations for Local Businesses
In Conscious Growth Club, we’ve been discussing the coronavirus situation since February 26, and our discussion thread called “Coronavirus preparation” is now up to 325 posts and still growing. Perhaps a half-dozen related threads have been started as well, as members are discussing topics like self-care in isolation, immunity boosting tips, and sharing updates on what’s happening in different countries. So we’ve had some visibility on it this sooner than most, which gave us a head start on mentally and emotionally preparing ourselves for it.
Contrast this with various local businesses that haven’t been as aware of what’s coming up and were thrown for a loop at the speed and surprise of changes coming at them.
Let me share some local Las Vegas businesses how have been adapting.
Casinos and Hotels
The casinos and hotels are shut down statewide. So the Vegas Strip is shuttered. This essentially turns off the flow of money coming into the city.
The larger operations seem to be paying their employees for the next 2 weeks up to 30 days, but the smaller ones are already laying people off. I read that about 206K casino employees are out of work now.
This is going to crash the cities economy, badly enough that I think it will take years to recover. When we reach the point that the bigger casinos have to start laying people off, it will take them a long time for them to rebuild afterwards. And it will take a while to rebuild tourism to the city.
These larger operations don’t have a lot of good adaptations right now other than laying everyone off. It’s not like they can convert their large spaces to other social uses. They’ve had to turn off just about every revenue stream: hotel stays, gambling, shows, restaurants, night clubs, spas, arcades, etc. The entire resorts are closed.
Some local places have remained open 24/7 for many years, so they literally had to hire a locksmith to come over and install locks. They’d never had cause to lock their front doors because they had never closed before.
Additionally Cirque du Soleil, which has many shows in Vegas, laid off 95% of its global workforce, basically letting go of all of its performers.
Presently the casinos seem to be begging the federal government for bailout money, along with many other businesses.
Some resorts actually have to pay rent because they don’t own the land they’re on. The Bellagio is in this situation, for instance. So what happens when rent is due, but there’s no money coming in?
Fitness Studio
My local fitness studio has adapted to this situation quickly. They converted their in-person classes to online streaming classes. They provided all active members with access to a private area of their website where we can watch streaming classes online. Each day they post a schedule of classes.
Today, for instance, there are 11 classes include various forms of yoga, pilates, bootcamp, and barre. There’s even an indoor cycling class, which I guess is suitable for people who have exercise bikes at home.
It looks like they may stream a class live the first time and also record it. Or maybe they just record them all – it’s hard to tell. But they’re streaming on a schedule with only one class available at a time, and you cannot pause a video in progress, so it simulates the feeling of live classes. It’s less flexible though because if they’re recording these anyway, they could just make all recordings available at all times.
They must be in a tough situation though. Rachelle and I have each done a few of the streaming classes. They’re well done, and I like that this option is available so I can continue what I started in February in some fashion. But it’s not as good as the in-person experience at the studio.
This studio is part of a growing chain across several states, so they can pool resources to create the online classes. The ones we watched looked like they’re being recorded in Vegas though. Some people were wearing Vegas shirts in one video, and another was done by an instructor we know from our local studio.
This must be a tough situation for them. If the online classes are only needed for a few weeks, hopefully it will help members keep their memberships going and not cancel. But if this situation goes on for months, I think more people will conclude that they should cancel their memberships. I think people will find it hard to justify paying as much for online video workouts as they do for the live in-studio experience.
One issue Rachelle and I both noted though is that on some of the videos they’re creating, they’re clearly not practicing good social distancing. They have an instructor and several students on yoga mats within arm’s length of each other sometimes. That’s a concern. I think a lot of people are having a hard time noting just how disciplined we need to be about social distancing.
Rachelle and I stopped going to classes at this studio about two weeks ago. We were sad to stop, but we saw this situation coming a while before it began to unfold locally. Initially after we stopped going, the studio tried to adapt with fewer classes and more sanitation procedures, but I knew it wasn’t going to matter.
That’s a pattern I’ve seen a lot locally. Businesses are trying to incrementally adapt, but often by the time they figure out their incremental adaptations and announce them to their customers or clients, the situation has already moved beyond that.
Music Store
Initially the local music store where I take guitar lessons tried to keep their stores open but with more limited hours. Fortunately our Nevada Governor shut that idea down by ordering (instead of merely requesting) all nonessential businesses to shut down.
I did my last lesson there more than two weeks ago and canceled all upcoming lessons indefinitely, having a glimpse of what was about to unfold. I told someone at the store that I expected the store would be closed by the end of the month. I don’t think he believed me at the time.
During the past week, the store sent out a couple of emails announcing reduced hours for their physical locations and added the ability to continue lessons online, saying that the guitar teachers would follow up with their students individually about this. Their plan was to still have the teachers stream the lessons from the stores.
I knew this wouldn’t last long. A few days later the store had to completely by Governor’s orders.
I’m not sure if they’re going to try adapting to this now by letting their music teachers team and stream lessons from home. That seems a bit risky for them because they take a cut of the lesson tuition. So it’s like cutting themselves out of the loop, although they could still handle booking and billing lessons.
I like the in-person lessons, but I don’t think I’d want to do them remotely if given the options. There are other ways I could take online lessons that are more flexible. And I’d miss the face-to-face aspect.
Farmers Market
Close to our house they’ve converted the usual weekend farmers market into a drive-through version, so people can get fresh produce without leaving their cars. There’s a short video of it at the link below if you want to see how it works.
This seems like an okay adaptation at first, especially since the helpers wear gloves when they handle the produce and money. But the video still shows some examples of people not applying good social distancing as they move around the area, so while this may be better than going to an overcrowded grocery store, it’s still showing risky behavior.
An even worse issue is that when a local food bank announces that they’re giving away food, like in a parking lot, people swarm the area to acquire the food. These giveaways may be well-intentioned, but there’s a serious lack of awareness or discipline about the criticality of social distancing, which makes it easier for the virus to spread.
If we keep seeing this pattern locally, it’s just going to make the situation worse.
Strip Club
Vegas has a lot of strip clubs, and this situation puts many of them out in the cold. One local club quickly tried to adapt by offering drive-by strip shows. The idea was that patrons would stay in their cars, pay $100, pull up to a window, and a stripper would perform for them from a distance for 10 minutes. No touching allowed of course.
This idea generating some local press, maybe for its creativity or simply for its desperation, but was dead on arrival. The club didn’t have a chance to implement it before the it was ordered fully closed by the Governor, along with all other nonessential businesses.
Earlier today I learned that a strip club in Portland came up with a different idea. Partly as a joke, the club’s owner suggested on social media that they should convert to a food delivery service and have the strippers deliver food to people. Some people started to seriously inquire about the idea, so the owner decided to do exactly that. Now they have strippers with drivers (who also serve as security for them) taking food orders and delivering food. They say they’ll even deliver food to the coast (about an hour’s drive from Portland) if people are willing to pay enough for it. The name of the new service: Boober Eats.
Since strippers typically work as independent contractors, they’re not eligible for unemployment benefits. So while it’s to be expected that they may try to create new income streams, reporters have noted that the place in Portland isn’t practicing social distancing.
One source noted that while the owner is providing masks, disposable gloves, and sanitizing wipes, there are major problems present with social distancing:
But social distancing seemed to be a struggle for the women themselves. The club has turned into the headquarters for Boober Eats, and on Friday, it remained full of dancers, delivery drivers and members of the media. Some of the dancers greeted each other with hugs and took selfies together.
Source: Oregon Live
So there’s a genuine risk that this could become a coronavirus delivery service.
Problems with These Adaptations
These adaptations, while understandable, creative, and perhaps even admirable in some situations, aren’t without issues, especially when it comes to social distancing.
I think we’ll likely run into more local businesses trying to make similar adaptations, and I caution everyone not to ignore social distancing since it remains so critical right now.
Some of these problems can be solved with better attention to detail. For instance, we don’t not need lots of students on a streaming yoga video to demonstrate the postures. One or two would be sufficient, separated by a generous distance. And the Farmers Market could assign one person to one or two tables, so their paths aren’t crossing each other and they stay in their own zones.
The USA has now surpassed 42K reported coronavirus cases. Three days ago (on March 20) we were at 16K cases, and on that day I predicted that we’d surpass 50K cases sometime on Tuesday (tomorrow). Unfortunately we’re right on schedule, even slightly ahead of schedule.
My other predictions were that we’d reaching 100,000 USA cases on March 27 and that we’d reach 1,000,000 cases on April 3rd. Of course it’s possible that we may not do enough testing to achieve those predictions on the reporting side, but the virus is still showing abundant momentum to get there whether or not testing can keep up with it. Many experts suggestion that the true cases are likely to be at least 10x higher than the reported cases, so we could be looking at 10M+ true cases (or more) sometime next week. That can and will overwhelm many hospitals.
I’ve also noticed that this virus is moving socially closer. Last week I learned that a friend of a friend of a friend died from it. Then last night a friend’s niece passed away from it. More people that I connect with on social media have been reporting their own confirmed or likely infections.
Now imagine all of this being 25X higher sometime next week. And then it will flow right into 50X and then 100X without stopping.
If the adaptations seem reasonable, they aren’t. If they seem ridiculously strict, they may be just barely adequate.
Ancestor of all animals identified in Australian fossils
A team led by UC Riverside geologists has discovered the first ancestor on the family tree that contains most familiar animals today, including humans.
The tiny, wormlike creature, named Ikaria wariootia, is the earliest bilaterian, or organism with a front and back, two symmetrical sides, and openings at either end connected by a gut. The paper is published today in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
The earliest multicellular organisms, such as sponges and algal mats, had variable shapes. Collectively known as the Ediacaran Biota, this group contains the oldest fossils of complex, multicellular organisms. However, most of these are not directly related to animals around today, including lily pad-shaped creatures known as Dickinsonia that lack basic features of most animals, such as a mouth or gut.
The development of bilateral symmetry was a critical step in the evolution of animal life, giving organisms the ability to move purposefully and a common, yet successful way to organize their bodies. A multitude of animals, from worms to insects to dinosaurs to humans, are organized around this same basic bilaterian body plan.
Evolutionary biologists studying the genetics of modern animals predicted the oldest ancestor of all bilaterians would have been simple and small, with rudimentary sensory organs. Preserving and identifying the fossilized remains of such an animal was thought to be difficult, if not impossible.
For 15 years, scientists agreed that fossilized burrows found in 555 million-year-old Ediacaran Period deposits in Nilpena, South Australia, were made by bilaterians. But there was no sign of the creature that made the burrows, leaving scientists with nothing but speculation.
Scott Evans, a recent doctoral graduate from UC Riverside; and Mary Droser, a professor of geology, noticed miniscule, oval impressions near some of these burrows. With funding from a NASA exobiology grant, they used a three-dimensional laser scanner that revealed the regular, consistent shape of a cylindrical body with a distinct head and tail and faintly grooved musculature. The animal ranged between 2-7 millimeters long and about 1-2.5 millimeters wide, with the largest the size and shape of a grain of rice — just the right size to have made the burrows.
“We thought these animals should have existed during this interval, but always understood they would be difficult to recognize,” Evans said. “Once we had the 3D scans, we knew that we had made an important discovery.”
The researchers, who include Ian Hughes of UC San Diego and James Gehling of the South Australia Museum, describe Ikaria wariootia, named to acknowledge the original custodians of the land. The genus name comes from Ikara, which means “meeting place” in the Adnyamathanha language. It’s the Adnyamathanha name for a grouping of mountains known in English as Wilpena Pound. The species name comes from Warioota Creek, which runs from the Flinders Ranges to Nilpena Station.
“Burrows of Ikaria occur lower than anything else. It’s the oldest fossil we get with this type of complexity,” Droser said. “Dickinsonia and other big things were probably evolutionary dead ends. We knew that we also had lots of little things and thought these might have been the early bilaterians that we were looking for.”
In spite of its relatively simple shape, Ikaria was complex compared to other fossils from this period. It burrowed in thin layers of well-oxygenated sand on the ocean floor in search of organic matter, indicating rudimentary sensory abilities. The depth and curvature of Ikaria represent clearly distinct front and rear ends, supporting the directed movement found in the burrows.
The burrows also preserve crosswise, “V”-shaped ridges, suggesting Ikaria moved by contracting muscles across its body like a worm, known as peristaltic locomotion. Evidence of sediment displacement in the burrows and signs the organism fed on buried organic matter reveal Ikaria probably had a mouth, anus, and gut.
“This is what evolutionary biologists predicted,” Droser said. “It’s really exciting that what we have found lines up so neatly with their prediction.”
Health24.com | WATCH | How long can the new coronavirus live on surfaces?
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