Health News

Senegal On the Frontline of the Battle With Big Tobacco

Dakar — Djité Sekou, 32, smokes as he passes his nights guarding one of the many high-rise apartment buildings in Dakar, Senegal. It has been eight years since his first cigarette – a Monte Carlo from Morocco – and when money is available he goes through 20 to 30 per day. It is an addiction that can cost him up to a quarter of his monthly income.

Like most smokers in Senegal, he rarely buys a full packet, preferring to purchase cigarettes individually – a sales strategy tobacco companies employ to ensure that even those with limited means are able to afford their daily nicotine.

“If my pocket is heavy, I buy the full packet,” explained Sekou. “If my pocket is empty, I buy four Excellences [cigarettes] at 100 [CFA] francs [US$0.20].”

Sekou is one of a growing number of smokers across Africa. While reliable, up-to-date figures are unavailable, the 2007 Global Youth Tobacco Survey estimated that up to 20 percent of Senegalese boys and 10 percent of girls aged 13 to 15 used tobacco products – a number believed to be much higher today.

Oumar Ndao, Senegal’s focal point for tobacco control at the Ministry of Health, says, “This is due to extremely weak legislation that, apart from prohibiting television advertising, demands no restrictions.”

Tih Ntiabang, Africa coordinator of the civil society Framework Convention Alliance, based in Yaounde, Cameroon, says advertising focuses “on two groups of people – the youth and women. For the youth, they portray smoking as cool. For women, if you smoke you are emancipated.”

In Senegal, there are almost no restrictions on smoking in public places, and warning labels on packets are small.

The exception is the holy city of Touba, where smoking has been banned for religious reasons since 1980 (15 years before the US State of California enacted its ban on smoking in enclosed workplaces).

Yet with Senegal’s parliament due to vote on new anti-smoking legislation, the rest of the country may soon follow suit.

If passed, the law would ban all tobacco advertising, restrict smoking in public places, and demand health warnings that cover 30 percent of all cigarette packaging.

Source : All Africa

 

One in 10 adults suffers from hypothyroidism, finds survey

HypothyroidOne in 10 adults suffers from hypothyroidism, with the prevalence of the condition higher in inland cities than in coastal locations, says a countrywide study.

The seafood diet of coastal people may help prevent the disease, said experts in reaction to the findings.

The study, published in the Indian Journal of Endocrinology and Metabolism, shows that out of the 5,376 people who were surveyed, 10.95% were found to be suffering from hypothyroidism.

Hypothyroidism is a condition characterized by abnormally low thyroid hormone production, which affects the entire body system along with a person’s lifestyle.

“Of the 1,259 people studied in Mumbai, 9.61 per cent were diagnosed with hypothyroidism,” Dr Mahesh Padsalge, the city investigator of the study, said. “Out of these, 2.86 per cent did not even know that they were suffering from it.”

The study found that inland cities such as Bangalore, Delhi, Kolkata, Ahmedabad and Hyderabad had a higher prevalence of hypothyroidism compared to coastal locations such as the city, Goa and Chennai.

“It is just a theory and not a proven fact, but we believe that people in coastal areas have a lower risk of hypothyroidism because of iodine-rich diet,” Dr A G Unnikrishnan, principal investigator of the study, said. “Iodine is found in the head portion of fish and is an element required in the production of thyroid hormone.”

If left untreated, hypothyroidism can cause elevated cholesterol levels, an increase in blood pressure, an increased rate of cardiovascular complications, decreased fertility, and depression. In pregnant women, it can cause placental abnormalities and put the baby’s health at increased risk.

These symptoms are often confused with other disorders, making thyroid disorders one of the most under-diagnosed in the country.

The study revealed that women were three times more likely to be affected than men; of the affected population, 15.86 per cent were women and 5.02 per cent men. The finding was especially true for those in midlife, that is the age bracket of 46-54 years.

Researchers are still trying to figure out why women are more prone to the disorder.

“Thyroid disorders in India are characterized by a high prevalence, minimal diagnosis, poor awareness and low involvement of doctors in treatment,” Unnikrishnan said. “There is a growing urgency to create awareness of thyroid disorders, the need for early and regular diagnosis and the importance of following a recommended treatment regime.”

Like diabetes, there is no permanent cure for most forms of thyroid disorders, but with medication and precise treatment, these can be controlled so that patients lead normal lives.

Source: Press display

 

Medical tourism driving health care disparity in Thailand

medical tourism

The rise of medical tourism in Thailand has left the country’s health care system facing a critical test. As the government looks to attract ever higher numbers of overseas patients, there are concerns that access to health care for its own population of 67 million may suffer, admit Thai health officials.

In January, the Ministry of Public Health will launch its latest medical tourism strategy, a four-year plan to cement Thailand as the leading medical hub in Asia, with a target to make $6 billion per year by the end of 2017. But cracks are already starting to show in the other side of what the Thai government calls its “dual-track policy,” which aims to develop both the public and private health sector.

Although still little understood, there are mounting fears medical tourism may be fueling brain drain to the private sector, causing a lack of doctors and nurses in state hospitals and in turn widening Thailand’s health gap.

“Some [nongovernmental organizations] and reporters said that our policy impacts on Thai citizens accessing medical services, on the price and quality standards,” said Dr. Saowapa Jongkitipong, deputy director of the Department of Health Service Support, which created the new medical hub strategy.

The Ministry of Public Health has not ignored these criticisms, she said. The aim is to also train more doctors and nurses to meet public health care staffing shortages, according to the ministry’s new strategy, though details remain vague.

Furthermore, plans for a National Health Statute aimed at supporting nonprofit hospitals and primary care services with financial backing by the Thai Board of Investment have stalled, said Dr. Tipicha Posayanonda, a public health expert at the National Health Commission Office, which was charged with devising the plan.

Part of the problem was a change of government in 2011 amid a bitter political divide in the country. For more than two years, the draft plan has been held up and the Board of Investment’s board of directors has still not seen it, meaning there is no strategy in place to fix the deficiencies of Thailand’s health services in less developed areas of the country, said Posayanonda.

“We’re lacking some doctors so we need to get a balance,” she said. “We’re trying to help poorer people.”

As Thailand moves ahead with plans to further increase medical tourism, the effects of catering to the needs of hundreds of thousands of additional patients every year are only just being understood, say researchers and medical professionals.

Medical tourism adds an estimated 0.4% to Thailand’s economy every year, which raises income for the medical services sector, concluded Anchana NaRanong and Viroj NaRanong in their 2011 study of the impacts of the industry. Other positive effects include a higher standard of medical hardware courtesy of the best private hospitals. Overall, however, Thailand’s medical tourism drive is causing growing disparity when it comes to access to health care, the study concludes.

“Negative effects are evidenced by both a shortage of physicians and by increased medical fees for self-paying Thais, which are likely to undermine their access to quality medical services,” the paper added.

In other words, for Thais who can afford to pay for private health care, costs are being driven up by medical tourism. For those who rely on basic, government health schemes — more than 80% of the population — staffing levels in state hospitals are being undermined by private sector brain drain.

The number of Thai medical graduates was expected to climb from 1500 to 2300 after 2010, but the NaRanong study found that foreign patients take up more physician time, so the distribution of doctors in underprivileged, remote areas remains low.

In response, the Ministry of Public Health has recently required new and existing private hospitals to provide data on the number of current and intended employees so that manpower can be better planned.

As Thailand leads the way in the fast-growing medical tourism market, it could provide lessons for other developing countries, such as India and Mexico. But it is only just learning what those lessons might be, said Dr. Nima Asgari, public health administrator in the World Health Organization’s Thailand office.

Data at the local level on the burden of diseases and availability of services remain inadequate, said Asgari. “The impact of medical tourism on the public health sector is currently being investigated by the Ministry of Public Health but it is still too early to say anything definitively.”

Source: CMAJ

Medical student study: sickly schools, healthy results

Medical student study

Students with the same entry grades perform better at medical school if they hail from poor-performing schools.

This is one of the conclusions of a study of nearly 5,000 students from 12 UK medical schools published last week in the journal BMC Medicine.

The research, titled The UKCAT-12 Study, finds that the average A-level scores of students’ schools is the only piece of contextual data with significant power to predict performance in medical school.

The finding complements a study by the Higher Education Funding Council for England in 2003, which came up with a similar result for UK universities in general, and the early findings of a follow-up, expected to be published next year.

The UKCAT-12 Study, authored by Chris McManus, professor of psychology and medical education at University College London, and colleagues from UCL and Birkbeck, University of London, says the reason for the phenomenon may be that high-performing schools give pupils’ work “extra polish”that is not available when they leave. Another possibility is the “big fish, little pond effect”, so students from lesser academic environments have higher ambitions.

“That the effect found by [Hefce] is now found in medical students suggests that there is a strong argument for using the contextual measure of average A-level attainment at a secondary school in making admission decisions,” the authors say.

The paper also lends support to the widespread use in medical school admissions of the UK Clinical Aptitude Test (UKCAT), which tests numerical, verbal and abstract reasoning, decision-making and situational judgement. It was introduced in 2006 to help distinguish between high-achieving applicants.

Based on their analysis of students who took the test between 2006 and 2008, the authors conclude that A-level grades remain the strongest predictors of medical school success. But used in conjunction with A-level and GCSE results, the UKCAT offers a small but significant boost to predictability, particularly for mature students, who often have “unusual combinations of academic qualifications”, and female students, who tend to outperform males at medical school but get worse UKCAT scores.

The paper also notes evidence that the test has widened participation and concludes that its use in admissions is “in many ways more justifiable than the use of Ucas personal statements, which…are open to criticism for difficulty in scoring consistently, are subject to a range of influences, including social opportunity, and have not been shown to predict success in medical school”.

Source: Times Higher Education

Makeup Tips for Holiday Beauty

Even if you are going to dig out the same little black dress to wear to your holiday parties every year, you can still turn up the volume on your everyday beauty routine. Don’t be scared to break out of your beauty box for just one night.
Take a cue from makeup artist James Boehmer, director of global artistry at Nars Cosmetics who uses his expertise at many runway shows.

He describes this season’s look seen at designer Carmen Marc Valvo’s fall show as “baroque with a punk edge.”

This trend is a great way to show off a holiday face — glamour with a twist.

“The eyeliner is a reference to the classic eyeliner, but with a punk spirit,” says Boehmer, “so it’s not delicate. The skin is very luminous; we talked about the girls looking haunted, but in a very pretty way.”

So Morticia Addams, move over. This season, it’s all about the drama, and not just during conversation around the bar. Let’s get the party face started. Here are some tips and trends:

–Be prepared

The trend in makeup foundation may be all aglow … but the shade of your foundation is critical. There are lots of factors that come into play. If you’ve been wearing Revlon all your life ever since you outgrew Bonne Bell in your teens then you need to take a U-turn right now, no matter where you are, and make an appointment with a makeup expert. There are hundreds of them out there … and many of them are available instantly by just walking into your favorite department store. They can answer all your questions, including “Do I have warm undertones or cool undertones in my skin?” Ask your friends for suggestions, and get thee to a beauty consultant fast. You’ll be surprised at how many years younger you may look with this one switch.

–Have a rosy outlook

Yes, the nude face may be a big trend, but the holidays are all about being merry and bright! So experiment with the newest berry hues and warm up those lips. If you don’t do anything else for your party face, try using a darker lipstick or gloss. This is another one of those times when consulting an expert may be your best bet. Velvety matte lipsticks and lip liners are popular now, but if you’re stuck on glosses, not to worry, just try a new hue. And make sure you reapply lipstick often.

–Keep an eye out

Besides your lips, the eyes are another way to focus on upping the glam factor for a holiday party face. The smoky eye is now famous (and infamous) for stealing the show. But there’s nothing worse than overdoing it and scaring the kids. Try some of the newer pencils that are more subtle than smearing on dark eyeshadows. Then, opt for a volumizing mascara to give your eyes that extra emphasis for an evening soiree.

–Go bold on brows

Maybe you’ve got the smoky eye down, but you rarely pay attention to your brows. Well, they can make a huge impact on your overall look. And this is one thing with which you can easily experiment — brow pencils and brow gels are very affordable. Fill in those barely there hairs and follow the natural line of your brows … you’ll be amazed at the results. Remember, bolder is better, but “natural” is the key word.

In the photo: Model backstage at Carmen Marc Valvo’s fall runway show in Nars Sheer Glow Foundation, Belle de Jour Velvet Matte Lip Pencil and Madere Pure Matte Lipstick.

Source: The National Ledger

Ghana: Urgent Need to Fix Mental Health system

The recent visit to Ghana by the United Nations expert on torture highlights the need to end abuses against people with mental disabilities.

The government of Ghana should take steps to implement the 2012 Mental Health Act before the end of 2013.

The UN special rapporteur on torture, Juan Mendez, in his visit from November 8-14, expressed deep concern about the state of Ghana’s mental health care system, and called for urgent reform of both psychiatric hospitals and prayer camps warehousing those with mental disabilities.

“The UN expert on torture expressed serious concerns about the use of electro-shock therapy and prolonged shackling of people with mental disabilities,” said Shantha Rau Barriga, disability rights director at Human Rights Watch. “He sent a clear message: the Ghanaian government should do what it takes to end this inhuman and degrading treatment – and it should do so soon.”

As a first step, the government needs to carry out the provisions of the 2012 Mental Health Act, including setting up the oversight mechanism to begin visiting mental health facilities and unregulated prayer camps across the country, Human Rights Watch said.

In some of the thousands of privately run prayer camps in Ghana, people with mental disabilities – some as young as five – are shackled by their ankles to trees in open compounds, where they sleep, defecate, and bathe.

In his report to the UN in March this year, Mendez said that there is no therapeutic justification for the use of prolonged restraint of people with disabilities, and that any use of restraints for even a short period of time, may constitute torture or ill-treatment. Hecalled on the Ghanaian government to make the Mental Health Act operational, including oversight of the prayer camps, by the end of 2013.

Human Rights Watch documented mistreatment of people with mental disabilities in Ghana in its 2012 report “‘Like a Death Sentence’: Abuses against Persons with Mental Disabilities in Ghana.” The report describes how thousands of people with mental disabilities such as bipolar disorder or schizophrenia are forced to live in psychiatric hospitals, often against their will, and with little possibility of challenging their confinement.

Human Rights Watch found that at least hundreds – and possibly thousands – of people with mental disabilities are kept in prayer camps associated with pentecostal and evangelical churches. Managed by self-proclaimed prophets, these camps operate completely outside of government control. People with mental disabilities at these camps do not receive any medical treatment and instead are forced to take herbal concoctions or deprived of any food or water for days. Some had been at the prayer camps for as long as five years.

The Special Rapporteur also expressed concern about the practice of electro-shock therapy in Accra Psychiatric Hospital, which is not used as a last resort and which is performed without anesthesia and without the free and informed consent of the patient. In Ghana’s psychiatric hospitals, Human Rights Watch also found a lack of trained mental health workers and overcrowded, filthy conditions, with foul odors in some wards or even feces on the floors due to broken sewage systems.

The government should create community-based support services, including housing and health care that enable people with mental disabilities to live in the community, Human Rights Watch said. The government should ensure that people are not forcefully detained in prayer camps or psychiatric hospitals and that they have access to mechanisms to challenge any violations of their rights.

“People with mental health problems need community-based support, not electro-shock treatment,” Barriga said. “We hope that the special rapporteur’s visit will spark real change in Ghana’s mental health care system. Thousands of people are counting on it.”

Source: Inagist

‘Dead’ baby wakes at China funeral parlour before cremation

dead baby

A Chinese baby boy who had been declared dead was saved from being cremated alive when he started crying at a funeral parlour, media reported Thursday.

The parents of the critically-ill boy, who was less than one month old, had agreed to end his medical treatment at Anhui Provincial Children’s Hospital in eastern China, hospital sources told Xinhua state news agency.

A death certificate was issued before the baby was sent to a funeral parlour in Hefei, the provincial capital — only for staff there to be alerted by crying on Wednesday.
It was unclear how long he had been at the funeral parlour, or when his cremation had been due.

The baby was immediately sent back to the hospital, several news outlets including the Beijing News reported on Thursday.

“Because the baby still had life signs, we continued to give him transfusion to maintain his life for humanitarian reasons,” a hospital staff member told Xinhua.

The baby was born with a “congenital respiratory system malformation”, the report added.
The baby was receiving treatment at the hospital late Wednesday, reports said.

A doctor was suspended, a nursing worker laid off and an investigation launched into the incident, the hospital said, according to Xinhua.

Source: Times of India

 

Positive lifestyle changes to cut risk of metabolic syndrome

Data reported by the a new study reinforces the positive influence of lifestyle factors in mitigating risks which could potentially up heart disease risk and other health problems.

Findings based on 1,059 residents of New Ulm, Minnesota underscore the importance of obesity prevention and nutrition, specifically eating more fruits and vegetables, in addressing metabolic syndrome (MS), a common precursor to cardiovascular disease (CVD).

This study used an easily calculated Optimal Lifestyle Score (OLS), which is a composite summary of smoking, fruit and vegetable consumption, alcohol use, physical activity, and body mass index.

The results were presented by Jackie Boucher, MS, RD, LD, CDE, Vice President for Education, Minneapolis Heart Institute Foundation on Tuesday November 19 at the American Heart Association Scientific Sessions in Dallas, TX.

Boucher said that these findings clearly support national recommendations encouraging individuals to achieve energy balance and to increase fruit and vegetable consumption.

She said that their data suggests that there is a clear connection between increased body weight or the decrease in the consumption of fruits and vegetables, and the development of metabolic syndrome, a clustering of CVD risk factors.

In 2009, 1,059 of screened residents did not have MS, with 123 (12 percent) going on to develop MS by 2011.

A decline in the OLS was associated with a nearly 3-fold increased risk of incident MS (aOR = 2.9, CI: 1.69, 5.04). Changes in BMI and fruit/vegetable consumption were the OLS components most strongly associated with MS.

People who became obese during the two-year time period were more than eight times more likely to develop MS and people who reduced their intake of fruits and vegetables to less than 5 or more servings per day were four times more likely to develop MS.

Source: ANI

Toxic waste ‘major global threat’

More than 200 million people around the world are at risk of exposure to toxic waste, a report has concluded.

The authors say the large number of people at risk places toxic waste in a similar league to public health threats such as malaria and tuberculosis.

The study from the Blacksmith Institute and Green Cross calls for greater efforts to be made to control the problem.

The study carried out in more than 3,000 sites in over 49 countries.

“It’s a serious public health issue that hasn’t really been quantified,” Dr Jack Caravanos, director of research at the Blacksmith Institute and professor of public health at the City University of New York told the BBC’s Tamil Service.

The study identified the Agbobloshie dumping yard in Ghana’s capital Accra as the place which poses the highest toxic threat to human life.

The researchers say that the report has not been hidden from governments, and they are all aware of the issue.

Agbobloshie has become a global e-waste dumping yard, causing serious environmental and health issues Dr Caravanos explained.

The study says that “a range of recovery activities takes place in Agbobloshie, each presenting unique occupational and ecological risks”.

As the second largest e-waste processing area in West Africa, Ghana annually imports around 215,000 tonnes of second hand consumer electronics from abroad, particularly from Western Europe, and generates another 129,000 tons of e-waste every year.

The study warns that that Ghana’s e-waste imports will double by 2020.

At the Agbobloshie site, the study found the presence of lead in soil at very high levels, posing serious potential health and environment hazards to more than 250,000 people in the vicinity.

Chernobyl in Ukraine ranks second in the study, while the Citarum River Basin in Indonesia ranks third.

Among the worlds top ten toxic threat sites as listed in the study, Africa, Europe and Asia have three sites respectively and Latin America one.

Children at risk

The study says that tens of thousands of women and children are at risk due to toxic dumping and environmental pollution.

“These are sites that are releasing toxic chemicals into air, water and soil. These are sites where children are particularly at risk and the numbers are rather high. We have not hidden this list from the respective governments and they are all aware of the issue” said Dr Caravanos.

He also agrees that the developed nations are part of this problem.

Dr Caravanos told the BBC that many westerners buy products without knowing the environmental impact.

He said Ghana actively wanted to progress in the IT field and as such started importing used computers from Europe 10 years ago. That had resulted in Agbobloshie becoming a dumping yard for e-waste from Europe.

In some places the damage caused to the land is so huge that it cannot be reversed, so the only option is to move people away and seal the contamination. Heavy metals are very difficult to remove from the soil, Dr Caravanos pointed out.

While the study sates that India has made significant progress in dealing with pollution issues on a national level, environmentalists and activists disagree with that observation.

The World Health Organization, in conjunction with the World Bank, estimates that 23% of the deaths in the developing world are attributable to environmental factors, including pollution, and that environmental risk factors contribute to more than 80% of regularly reported illnesses according to the report.

Source: BBC

African Children’s Well-Being Improved, but Still Inadequate

Africa has become a better place for children in recent years, but more investments are needed in health and education to further improve the lives of African children, according to a new study of the African Child Policy Forum.

The African Report on Child Well-being 2013, says conditions for children on the African continent improved in the last five years, mostly because of recent achievements in increasing the survival rate of children, reducing infant mortality and improved access to water and sanitation.

Mauritius, South Africa and Tunisia top the list of the 52 investigated African countries in the report launched by the African Child Policy Forum. They put in place national laws that protect children from violence and maltreatment. That resulted in better outcomes for children in those countries.

But executive director of the African Child Policy Forum Theophane Nikyeme says that despite the improvements, the continent is still facing serious challenges when it comes to providing basic needs for children.

“What they need is an environment in which they can grow in freedom. Where their basic needs will be satisfied,” said Nikyeme. “Where they can go to school and get proper education. They could go to a health service not from their home, not having to go through kilometers to reach their clinic. Being able to go to school all the way to university if they want to do so.”

Many children in Africa still die from preventable diseases such as malaria, diarrhea and malnutrition. While African governments committed to spend 15 percent of their budget on health, on average only 11 percent is spent.

The worst places for children to grow up are unstable and fragile countries such as the Central African Republic, Chad and Eritrea.

The report focuses on 44 indicators such as a government’s provision for children’s basic needs and the participation of children in decisions that affect them.

Countries with low GDP such as Rwanda and Malawi scored higher than countries with a relatively higher GDP such as Namibia and Equatorial Guinea.

Nikyeme says the report shows that a child’s well-being does not necessarily depend on a country’s wealth, but on the government’s commitment:

“What we are advocating for, is for governments, when they ratify a law or a treaty at the international level or regional level, they should go back to harmonize it to the national laws. But this is not happening,” said Nikyeme.

The first report on child well-being in Africa was done in 2008. While the overall well-being of children seems to have improved, the report calls upon African governments to increase investments in education, health and social protection. The African Child Forum Policy also urges African countries to enhance accountability and good governance so that the recent economic growth on the continent should translate into concrete results.

Somalia, South Sudan and Western Sahara were not included in the report because of a lack of reliable data.

Source: All Africa