DR Congo football fans killed in stampede 12 may 2014

At least 15 people reportedly killed in stampede after police fire tear gas in crowded football stadium in Kinshasa.

At least 15 people were killed after police fired tear gas in a crowded football stadium in Democratic Republic of Congo, provoking a stampede, according to a police source and a local official.

Fans in Kinshasa grew angry on Sunday evening after their local team was defeated 1-0 by a team from the eastern town of Lubumbashi in a heated final, according to Emmanuel Akweti, local minister for the capital's inner city.

"Four policemen were harassed by supporters. When they fired tear gas, the stampede began, causing the deaths," he told Reuters news agency on Sunday.

Images on a local television station showed plumes of smoke rising from the stadium's bleachers.

Supporters, blinded by the gas, ran in different directions, sometimes falling over, the footage showed.

Akweti said 15 people died of suffocation and 24 were injured. A police source who declined to be named put the death toll higher, at 18.

A Reuters witness counted 14 bodies lying on benches outside the main hospital in Kinshasa.

Stampedes are a frequent occurrence at crowded events in Congo. Last month at least 21 people were killed when a power cut caused a stampede at a crowded music festival.

Saudi Arabia warns of MERS risk from camels 12 may 2014

Saudi Arabia has warned its citizens to wear masks and gloves when dealing with camels as health experts said the animal was the likely source of the Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) coronavirus.

The Saudi Agriculture Ministry urged people who come in contact with camels to "exercise caution and follow preventive measures," after scientific studies commissioned by the Health Ministry proved a connection between camels and the virus that causes MERS.

"It is advisable to wear protective gloves, especially when dealing with births or sick or dead [camels]," state news agency SPA reported on Sunday.

The link between human cases and camels has been the subject of extensive study among scientists abroad, but has been relatively absent from much of the official domestic debate.

Saudi Arabia also reported three deaths from MERS on Sunday, raising the death toll from the disease since it first appeared in the country in 2012 to 142.

The Health Ministry said in a statement on its website it had identified three new cases of the coronavirus, pushing the total number of infections to 483.

The rate of infection in Saudi Arabia has surged in recent weeks, with the total number nearly doubling in April and rising by a further 25 percent in May.

The recent increase has raised concerns over the influx of visitors expected to convene in thev holy cities of Mecca and Medina in July during the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan, and again during the annual Hajj pilgrimage in October.

The disease has spread across the region, with MERS cases reported in the Lebanon, Egypt, Qatar, Malaysia, Italy, Britain and the United States.

MERS is considered a deadlier but less-transmissible cousin of the SARS virus that erupted in Asia in 2003 and infected 8,273 people, nine percent of whom died.

Who Should and Who Shouldn’t Take Daily Aspirin

The agency says the over-the-counter drug isn’t safe to take if you’re healthy but want to prevent heart disease. So have all the doctors who recommended it been wrong?That’s understandable. With so much of the talk in medicine these days about prevention, millions of Americans take the so-called baby aspirin, believing that it will help them to hold off a heart attack or stroke. (Because aspirin is sold without a prescription, there’s no way to tell how many Americans are doing this, either on their own or at their doctors’ suggestion, but estimates say that number is around 40 million.)It’s not as if the decision is completely irresponsible. Heart disease is the leading killer in the U.S., and has been for decades. There’s strong evidence that daily, low-dose aspirin can help people who have already had a heart attack or other heart event to prevent another one, so extending the drug’s benefits to those who might get into heart trouble, but haven’t yet, makes sense.

MORE: Will an Aspirin Prolong Your Life? It Depends.

“If you go back in time, there was one point where there was a recommendation that any patient with diabetes should consider having aspirin,” says Dr. Gregg Fonarow, a cardiologist at University of California Los Angeles. “But as the data have evolved and we have more trials, the guidelines have been updated and revised to try to balance the risks and benefits.”

Those risks are what the FDA considered when Bayer, maker of low dose aspirin, asked the agency to consider relabeling its product to include a recommendation for preventing heart attacks and strokes. But while aspirin is relatively safe, it does come with a cost – an increased risk of bleeding, both in the stomach and intestines, as well as in the brain. The FDA found that the evidence showing that otherwise healthy people who take aspirin could prevent a first heart attack is not as strong as that for avoiding recurrent heart problems, so when compared to the bleeding risk, FDA officials felt recommending the drug for healthy people wasn’t justified.

“I’ve been critical of the FDA at times, but they got this one right,” says Dr. Steven Nissen, chairman of cardiovascular medicine at the Cleveland Clinic Foundation who has disagreed with some of the agency’s actions in the past, including its handling of the diabetes drug Avandia. “When you do the benefit-risk analysis, you realize that in primary prevention patients, the risks exceed the benefits, and some risks are really substantial, including stroke.”

MORE: Can Aspirin Help Ward Off Skin Cancer?

Nissen should know. In 2003, the last time that Bayer applied to the FDA to have aspirin approved for preventing first heart events, Nissen was part of the FDA committee that reviewed the available data. The group concluded then that the evidence wasn’t sufficient, and the FDA rejected Bayer’s request. “I’ve had people self-treat with aspirin and die of gastrointestinal bleeding,” says Nissen.

And making matters more confusing for patients is the fact that theAmerican Heart Association (AHA), the nation’s leading group of heart experts, and the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force don’t exactly agree with the FDA’s conclusion. Their guidelines say that a certain group of people, at moderate risk of heart disease, could benefit from taking daily aspirin to prevent a first heart event – those whose risk of having a heart attack is greater than 1% per year because they smoke, have high cholesterol, uncontrolled blood pressure, diabetes, are overweight or any combination of these. “The evidence is a little stronger for people at moderate risk,” says Dr. Richard Becker, professor of medicine at University of Cincinnati College of Medicine and a spokesperson for the AHA.

MORE: After Avandia: Does the FDA Have a Drug Problem?

Becker says that the FDA may be taking a harder position because its decision affects how medications are labeled, and its evidence threshold may be higher. “The guidelines for the AHA, the American College of Cardiology and the European Society of Cardiology take information and craft guidance that puts people into categories of risk, and looks at where risks and benefits fall in favor of recommending aspirin,” he says. For some people at moderate risk, the benefits of taking aspirin may outweigh the risk, while for others it might not. That’s why the AHA isn’t against using aspirin for primary prevention, but advises people to consult with their doctors before doing so.

Becker says that more information about aspirin’s use in healthy people may be coming in the next year or so; large trials looking at whether daily low dose aspirin can help people to avoid not just having heart events but dying early from heart disease are currently ongoing. Those results may better help both the FDA to refine aspirin’s labeling as well as doctors in advising their patients about the drug.

by Taboolall heart experts still agree that there’s only one group who should be taking an aspirin a day to protect their hearts – people who have already have a heart attack or stroke. For the rest of us, while it might seem like a proactive way to stay healthy, taking daily low-dose aspirin may end up doing more harm than good.

Why is Britain such a bad place to be a mother?

David Cameron may think the Tories are 'underselling' the work they've done for women but, as the UK comes joint-26th place with Belarus in the World Mothers Index, Sally Peck offers a prescription for a better Britain: good childcare, more female MPs, and income equality.David Cameron has asked his MPs to unleash a PR offensive on women, to boast of the advancements the Conservative Party has made in the battle for gender equality.

Unfortunately for the Prime Minister, his call came a day after Britain was ranked joint 26th in the World Mothers Index with Belarus.

The UK has the sixth largest economy in the world, in terms of GDP. Belarus is ranked 67th. It is outrageous that we come so far behind when measuring the prospects of our women and children. Angry commenters online like to blame this on immigration. But our problems are universal; it's not a case of one community or another bringing overall rates down.

As a mother-of-two here are the four things I believe have to happen to make Britain a better place to be a mother:

1. Top-quality state-funded childcare

The UK simply does not have this. Countries awarded top rankings in the World Mothers Index – Finland, Norway, Sweden, Iceland, the Netherlands, Denmark and Germany – all offer high-quality childcare to all families. And the offer is taken up.

Do Slimming Belts Work?

Today we take a look at "slimming belts" which are often advertised as a way to remove belly fat by simply wearing them.

When we evaluated the Tummy Tuck Belt back in January, we wanted to see if we could duplicate marketing claims that the product removes belly fat without any lifestyle change. In our evaluation, the product did not work. Since then, we have heard from many readers about that product and others like it. So we decided to delve further into the question of whether slimming belts work, or if they provide any benefit at all.

What type of belt?

There are currently two popular categories of abdominal belts on the market. One type, such as the Tummy Tuck Belt, promises belly fat reduction by merely applying a cream and strapping on a belt. The other type, such as the Flex Pro, delivers Electrical Muscle Stimulation (EMS) to the midsection (also known as NEMS, or neuromuscular electrical stimulation) in order to build stronger abdominal muscles.

Sponsored Links

Studies

We found no studies that proved the effectiveness of non-electronic slimming belts. In fact, Tummy Tuck Belt offers no clinical evidence that their product works. Even their before and after photos are “recreated” according to their FAQ.

A single study is highly cited to promote the effectiveness of Slendertone EMS-type belts. The study by Dr. John Porcari of the University of Wisconsin, La-Crosse found that participants using the Slendertone belt saw an increase of abdominal endurance and an overall more “toned” look to their midsection. The study, however, also noted, “There were no significant differences in body weight, BMI, or skinfold thickness over the course of the study in either group.” It was also stated that, “…even though the subjects felt that their abdomens were stronger and firmer, they didn’t perceive themselves to look any different because they did not lose any subcutaneous fat.”

Porcari’s study found that EMS belts showed improvement in abdominal muscles, but no improvement in the reduction of belly fat.

 

Slimming belts have not been shown to remove belly fat, but they may hide it for a while.

2002 FTC Actions

In 2002, the Federal Trade Commission charged three top selling EMS ab exercise products at that time with making false claims. AB Energizer, AbTronic, and Fast Abs received complaints involving false advertising claims that their products could develop “six pack” or “washboard” abs with no exercise.

Porcari’s study addressed the 2002 charges, stating that, “The lack of positive results was attributed to the poor quality of the stimulators themselves and the uncomfortable nature of the stimulation…”

There are two complaints filed with the FDA against Slendertone. One regarding exploding batteries, and another in which an implanted cardiac defibrillator malfunctioned. (See here for example)

Improved Posture

Livestrong has suggested that, although slimming belts may not help you lose fat around your midsection, they may help you improve your posture: “Wearing the slimmer belt on a daily basis can help you sit straighter, which can lead to a reduction in back pain.”

As a corset

If one dons a slimming belt with the idea that it will simply compress and contain belly fat into a smaller area – in the manner of a corset – then some slimming belts may actually be beneficial in this manner.

Decreased appetite?

It has been suggested that slimming belts, by compressing the stomach, may help give the wearer the sensation of being full while donning it. There is no evidence to support this claim, and it isn’t known if wearing a slimming belt during a meal (or immediately after) is even safe or recommended.

Bottom Line

There is no evidence that slimming belts remove belly fat. There is a highly-cited study that EMS-type belts may increase abdominal muscle tone, but these belts were not shown to remove belly fat. Some slimming belts may have peripheral uses, such as compressing belly fat or improving posture.

Lebanon Detects First Case Of MERS Virus 09 may 2014

BEIRUT, May 9 (Bernama) -- Lebanon's Health Ministry said Thursday the first case of MERS coronavirus had been detected in the country, Xinhua news agency reported.

The patient is a Lebanese citizen who had visited several Gulf countries over the past one month.

"The Health Ministry has inspected safety measures taken by the hospital where the patient was treated before he was discharged from hospital," Health Minister Wael Abu Faour said in a statement.

"The ministry is continuing detection operations to make sure that this epidemic does not spread in Lebanon," he said.

MERS has spread from the Gulf countries to northern Africa, southeast Asia and Europe, killing more than a hundred people and infecting a few hundred others.

-- BERNAMA

Fear the Camel...Why a deadly new virus will be so hard to stop. By Helen Branswell

Infectious disease experts have been worriedly watching a new disease for more than a year and a half now, but it’s a fair bet that most people still haven’t twigged to the existence of the world’s latest infectious threat: MERS.

That may be changing, with new infections popping up recently in Malaysia, Greece, the Philippines, and Egypt. And late last week, the United States became the 16thcountry to detect a case of MERS, in an American health care worker who has been living and working in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.

The acronym is short for Middle East respiratory syndrome. The disease is caused by a cousin of SARS, the coronavirus that killed roughly 900 people and crippled hospital systems in China, Hong Kong, Vietnam, and Canada in 2003, knocking billions of dollars out of the world’s economy in the process.  Canada’s outbreak occurred in Toronto, where I live; I covered SARS from its alarming beginning through its exhausting end. The information coming out of Saudi Arabia is limited, and it’s hard to be sure from a distance, but there appear to be many similarities between how the MERS outbreak is playing out in Saudi hospitals and what happened in Toronto during SARS. We are lucky that to this point MERS doesn’t seem to spread as easily as SARS did, though SARS didn’t spread particularly well either, and it still caused major trouble.

As the name suggests, this new disease has been mostly found in the Middle East, in countries such as Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Jordan, and most especially Saudi Arabia, which has reported 431 cases and 117 deaths, about 80 percent of known infections. All cases to date link back to seven countries in the Middle East.

But one of the curious things about this new disease is that although cases appear to be concentrated in mainly a handful of countries, the virus itself is much more widespread. Evidence of the MERS coronavirus has been found over a wide swath of territory in dromedary camels, the beasts strongly suspected of passing this virus to people. Camels showing signs of previous infection with the virus have been found as far afield as Spain’s Canary Islands, off the northeastern coast of Africa; Tunisia; Ethiopia; Nigeria; and Kenya.

SARS exploded into the human population, seeding itself in hospitals in several parts of the world before it even had a name. But MERS has been doing a slow burn. The new virus was first identified in June 2012 by an Egyptian doctor working in Saudi Arabia and scientists in a Dutch laboratory he turned to for help. But it was only brought to the world’s attention a few months later, in September 2012, when a gravely ill man from Qatar checked into a London hospital. The virus had ravaged the Qatari man’s lungs; he never recovered, dying after nine months in the hospital.

The early deaths—following devastating illness—spooked public health officials and scientists observing the evolving situation. “Don’t become infected with this virus,” a public health officer familiar with one of the first cases told me more than a year ago. “It is not kind to humans.”

What is behind the extraordinary surge of cases over the past five weeks?

Most of the earliest patients succumbed to their infections, but in the past year some mild and even symptom-free cases have been detected. Still, at this point nearly 30 percent of people who have been diagnosed with MERS did not survive. That’s a staggering percentage for any disease, especially a respiratory one that seems to spread via the mechanisms colds and flu viruses use—though fortunately not as efficiently as those human-adapted viruses spread. SARS, by comparison, killed about 11 percent of those infected.

The recent milder cases support the hunch experts have long held—that the true ratio of fatal cases is lower because until now doctors in the main have only ordered MERS testing on people seriously ill with pneumonia. In fact the ratio has been dropping, from more than 50 percent early on to 28.5 percent, an estimate issued this week by the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control. Epidemiologically, MERS is probably like an iceberg, with the severe cases making up the visible tip. But as none of the affected countries have been testing broadly to see how many people have been infected, it’s impossible at this point to even guess at how much lower the real death rate might be.

It’s one of many unanswered questions about MERS. Another—and currently more pressing—is what is behind the extraordinary surge of cases over the past five weeks? The cumulative global case count more than doubled last month. Saudi Arabia alone has reported upward of 250 cases since the beginning of April; prior to that, only 207 cases had ever been reported globally.

Spread of polio now a world health emergency -- 6 may 2014

London: For the first time ever, the World Health Organization on Monday declared the spread of polio an international public health emergency that could grow in the next few months and unravel the nearly three-decade effort to eradicate the crippling disease. Representational Image The agency described current polio outbreaks across at least 10 countries in Asia, Africa and the Middle East as an "extraordinary event" that required a coordinated international response. It identified Pakistan, Syria and Cameroon as having allowed the virus to spread beyond their borders, and recommended that those three governments require citizens to obtain a certificate proving they have been vaccinated for polio before traveling abroad. "Until it is eradicated, polio will continue to spread internationally, find and paralyze susceptible kids," Dr. Bruce Aylward, who leads WHO's polio efforts, said during a press briefing. Critics, however, questioned whether Monday's announcement would make much of a difference, given the limits faced by governments confronting not only polio but armed insurrection and widespread poverty. "What happens when you continue whipping a horse to go ever faster, no matter how rapidly he is already running?" said Dr. Donald A. Henderson, who led the WHO's initiative to get rid of smallpox, the only human disease ever to have been eradicated. The WHO has never before issued an international alert on polio, a disease that usually strikes children under 5 and is most often spread through infected water. There is no specific cure, but several vaccines exist. Experts are particularly concerned that polio is re-emerging in countries previously free of the disease, such as Syria, Somalia and Iraq, where civil war or unrest now complicates efforts to contain the virus. It is happening during the traditionally low season for the spread of polio, leaving experts worried that cases could spike as the weather becomes warmer and wetter in the coming months across the northern hemisphere. The vast majority of new cases are in Pakistan, a country which an independent monitoring board set up by the WHO has called "a powder keg that could ignite widespread polio transmission." Dozens of polio workers have been killed over the last two years in Pakistan, where militants accuse them of spying for the U.S. government. Those suspicions stem at least partly from the disclosure that the CIA used a Pakistani doctor to uncover Osama bin Laden's hideout by trying to get blood samples from his family under the guise of a hepatitis vaccination program. U.S. commandos killed the al-Qaida leader in May 2011 in the Pakistani garrison town of Abbottabad. At the end of last month, there were 68 confirmed polio cases worldwide, compared with just 24 at the same time last year. In 2013, polio reappeared in Syria, sparking fears the civil war there could ignite a wider outbreak as refugees flee to other countries across the region. The virus has also been identified in the sewage system in Israel, the West Bank and Gaza, although no cases have been spotted. In February, the WHO found that polio had also returned to Iraq, where it spread from neighboring Syria. It is also circulating in Afghanistan (where it spread from Pakistan) and Equatorial Guinea (from neighboring Cameroon) as well as Nigeria, Ethiopia, Somalia and Kenya. Officials also worry countries torn by conflict, such as Ukraine, Sudan and the Central African Republic, are rife for polio reinfection. Some critics say it may even be time to accept that polio may not be eradicated, since the deadline to wipe out the disease has already been missed several times. The ongoing effort costs about $1 billion a year. "For the past two years, problems have steadily, and now rapidly mounted," Henderson said in an email. "It is becoming apparent that there are too many problems (for the polio eradication effort) to overcome, however many resources are assigned." Henderson and others have suggested the extraordinary efforts needed for polio eradication might be better spent on other health programs, including routine vaccination programs for childhood diseases. But he conceded that transitioning to a control program would be difficult. "If not eradication, how does one accomplish a 'soft landing' which could sustain the global program on immunization?" Henderson said. Aylward said the WHO and its partners, including the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, aren't yet considering pushing back their latest deadline to eradicate polio by 2018. CDC Director Dr. Tom Frieden said the reemergence and spread of polio out of Pakistan, Cameroon and Syria pose "a serious threat to our ability to eradicate polio." "Conflicts in many areas where polio is circulating are hampering efforts to vaccinate but success remains within reach," Frieden said. Still, the independent board monitoring the progress being made on polio has called for overhauling the program. "Few involved in (polio eradication) can give a clear account of how decisions are made," concluded a recent report by the group. "If a billion-dollar global business missed its major goal several times, it would be inconceivable that it would not revisit and revise its organizational and decision-making structure." 

E-Cigarette Sparks Concept For New Medical Device That Safely Dispenses Drugs In Prescribed Doses

A mechanical engineer has constructed a new and conventional way for the electronic cigarette’s design to dispense drugs in a safe and medically useful way. After improving upon the electronic cigarette’s anatomy, a new device could hold merit in the medical field and help smokers and drug abusers quit thanks to release-controlled doses of nicotine and other drugs.  

Electronic cigarettes were first developed by Hon Lik, a Chinese pharmacist who invented the device after his father died of lung cancer. It was then introduced into the U.S. markets in 2006 and months later, Noah Minskoff’s mother died of lung cancer and spurred a similar inspiration.

Minskoff took the electronic cigarette, which is a battery operated device used to deliver nicotine and other chemicals into a vapor form for the user, and sent it to his mechanical engineer friend Nathan Terry. These devices, commonly known as e-cigarettes, are emblematic of the everyday cigarette or cigar; however, they are unregulated by theFood and Drug Administration (FDA) and are not standardized across the board.

When Terry disassembled the device, he found wires, bundles of glass fibers, steel wool, silicon, plastic, tape, and adhesive, according to Reuters. Terry believed current e-cigarette users could unintentionally be inhaling dangerous particles and toxic fumes.

“There were red flags everywhere,” Terry told Reuters.