New way to diagnose malaria by detecting parasite’s waste in infected blood cells

Over the past several decades, malaria diagnosis has changed very little. After taking a blood sample from a patient, a technician smears the blood across a glass slide, stains it with a special dye, and looks under a microscope for the Plasmodium parasite, which causes the disease. This approach gives an accurate count of how many parasites are in the blood — an important measure of disease severity — but is not ideal because there is potential for human error.

New way to diagnose malaria by detecting parasite's waste in infected blood cells

A research team from the Singapore-MIT Alliance for Research and Technology (SMART) has now come up with a possible alternative. The researchers have devised a way to use magnetic resonance relaxometry (MRR), a close cousin of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), to detect a parasitic waste product in the blood of infected patients. This technique could offer a more reliable way to detect malaria, says Jongyoon Han, a professor of electrical engineering and biological engineering at MIT.

“There is real potential to make this into a field-deployable system, especially since you don’t need any kind of labels or dye. It’s based on a naturally occurring biomarker that does not require any biochemical processing of samples” says Han, one of the senior authors of a paper describing the technique in the Aug. 31 issue of Nature Medicine.
Peter Rainer Preiser of SMART and Nanyang Technical University in Singapore is also a senior author. The paper’s lead author is Weng Kung Peng, a research scientist at SMART.

Hunting malaria with magnets
With the traditional blood-smear technique, a technician stains the blood with a reagent that dyes cell nuclei. Red blood cells don’t have nuclei, so any that show up are presumed to belong to parasite cells. However, the technology and expertise needed to identify the parasite are not always available in some of the regions most affected by malaria, and technicians don’t always agree in their interpretations of the smears, Han says.

“There’s a lot of human-to-human variation regarding what counts as infected red blood cells versus some dust particles stuck on the plate. It really takes a lot of practice,” he says.

The new SMART system detects a parasitic waste product called hemozoin. When the parasites infect red blood cells, they feed on the nutrient-rich hemoglobin carried by the cells. As hemoglobin breaks down, it releases iron, which can be toxic, so the parasite converts the iron into hemozoin — a weakly paramagnetic crystallite.

Those crystals interfere with the normal magnetic spins of hydrogen atoms. When exposed to a powerful magnetic field, hydrogen atoms align their spins in the same direction. When a second, smaller field perturbs the atoms, they should all change their spins in synchrony — but if another magnetic particle, such as hemozoin, is present, this synchrony is disrupted through a process called relaxation. The more magnetic particles are present, the more quickly the synchrony is disrupted.

“What we are trying to really measure is how the hydrogen’s nuclear magnetic resonance is affected by the proximity of other magnetic particles,” Han says. For this study, the researchers used a 0.5-tesla magnet, much less expensive and powerful than the 2- or 3-tesla magnets typically required for MRI diagnostic imaging, which can cost up to $2 million. The current device prototype is small enough to sit on a table or lab bench, but the team is also working on a portable version that is about the size of a small electronic tablet.

After taking a blood sample and spinning it down to concentrate the red blood cells, the sample analysis takes less than a minute. Only about 10 microliters of blood is required, which can be obtained with a finger prick, making the procedure minimally invasive and much easier for health care workers than drawing blood intravenously.

“This system can be built at a very low cost, relative to the million-dollar MRI machines used in a hospital,” Peng says. “Furthermore, since this technique does not rely on expensive labeling with chemical reagents, we are able to get each diagnostic test done at a cost of less than 10 cents.”

Tracking infection
Hemozoin crystals are produced in all four stages of malaria infection, including the earliest stages, and are generated by all known species of the Plasmodium parasite. Also, the amount of hemozoin can reveal how severe the infection is, or whether it is responding to treatment. “There are a lot of scenarios where you want to see the number, rather than a yes or no answer,” Han says.

In this paper, the researchers showed that they could detect Plasmodium falciparum, the most dangerous form of the parasite, in blood cells grown in the lab. They also detected the parasite in red blood cells from mice infected with Plasmodium berghei.

The researchers are launching a company to make this technology available at an affordable price. The team is also running field tests in Southeast Asia and is exploring powering the device on solar energy, an important consideration for poor rural areas.

Source: science daily

Sitting in an office chair for long periods

How much can sitting affect our body? Too much time spended in the sitting position is killing you. Sitting all day at work, and later on the couch or infront of computer at home have been proven to have negative  impact on human health.

Sitting in an office chair for long periods

Diabetes and heart disease.
Stressful working conditions are increasing the risk of stroke at women fir 88%, and employees who are middle-aged or older and sit most of the working time have twice the risk of diabetes, according to research from the British University of Leicester.

In order to improve the circulation of the blood and sugar balance, every hour stand and walk for five minutes or do some practice in office.

Hip pain.
This pain often affects women who work sitting, especially those who are genetically prone to getting osteoporosis.

Adjust your chair for your legs and back so thay can form an angle of 90 degrees. Allso practicing yoga can help with problems with hips.

Sitting in an office chair for long periods2

Weight Gain.
More than 60% of the employees in the office regularly snack unhealthy foods such as chips or chocolate, and experts say that the work associated with sitting and unhealthy diet are the main causes of obesity in countries around the world.Eat less fast food and unhealthy snacks, replace them with healthier options, such as dried fruit or nuts.

Dry eyes.
Looking at the computer screen causes pressure on the eye muscles. It causes dryness and deteriorating eyesight.

To prevent this, apply the 20-20-20 rule. Every 20 minutes, look 20 feet in distance and hold the gaze 20 seconds. It will be enough for the eyes to rest.

Source: secretly healthy

Equipment needed to contain Ebola in Senegal; WHO calls case ‘top priority’

The effort to contain Ebola in Senegal is “a top priority emergency,” the World Health Organization said Sunday, as the government continued tracing everyone who came in contact with a Guinean student who has tested positive for the deadly disease in the capital, Dakar.

Equipment needed to contain Ebola in Senegal; WHO calls case 'top priority'

Senegal faces an “urgent need” for support and supplies including hygiene kits and personal protective equipment for health workers, the WHO said in a statement Sunday.
“These needs will be met with the fastest possible speed,” the WHO said.

The U.N. health agency provided new information on the movements of the 21-year-old student in the city before he was diagnosed with Ebola.
Senegal confirmed that the student had tested positive for Ebola on Friday, making the country the fifth in West Africa to be affected by an outbreak that has killed more than 1,500 people.

The student showed up at a hospital in Dakar on Aug. 26 but did not reveal that he had been in contact with other Ebola victims, said Health Minister Awa Marie Coll Seck.
The next day, an epidemiological surveillance team in neighbouring Guinea alerted Senegalese authorities that it had lost track of a person it was monitoring three weeks earlier, and that the person may have crossed into Senegal.

The student was tracked to the hospital in Dakar that same day and was immediately quarantined, and a test confirmed he had Ebola, Seck said.
In Sunday’s statement, the WHO said the student arrived in Dakar by road on Aug. 20 and was staying with relatives “in the outskirts of the city.”

It said that on Aug. 23, he went to a medical facility seeking treatment for fever, diarrhea and vomiting, all symptoms of Ebola. He was treated for malaria, however, and continued to stay with his relatives before turning up at the Dakar hospital on Aug. 26.

“Though the investigation is in its early stages, he is not presently known to have travelled elsewhere,” said the WHO, which received its information from Senegal’s health ministry.

The presence of Ebola in Senegal, a tourist and transport hub, could complicate efforts to bring the outbreak under control. The country has already closed its land border with Guinea, where the outbreak originated, and barred air and sea travel from Sierra Leone and Liberia in an attempt to keep the disease out.

In Dakar on Sunday, at least one pharmacy was limiting purchases of hand sanitizer to one small bottle per person because of rising demand — underscoring fears that the number of cases in the city could soon multiply.

Senegalese authorities have isolated the house where the Guinean student was staying as well as the medical facility where he sought treatment prior to visiting the Dakar hospital.

There is no cure or licensed treatment for Ebola, so health workers can only provide supportive care to patients such as keeping them hydrated.
The Guinean student “is doing very well,” a doctor monitoring his case in Dakar said Sunday.

“This morning when I called the hospital, the doctor told me that the patient had no complaints and that his fever had disappeared,” said Dr. Gallaye Ka in an interview with the private radio station RFM.

Health care workers are especially vulnerable to infection. The WHO says 240 health workers have contracted the disease during the current outbreak and more than half of those have died.

In Sierra Leone on Sunday, officials said they had avoided a strike threatened by workers at an Ebola treatment centre in the east of the country, the region hardest hit by the outbreak.

Protective equipment is being sent to the health workers and a “monthly incentive allowance” will be paid on Monday, health ministry spokesman Sidie Yahya Tunis told

On Friday, Sierra Leone President Ernest Bai Koroma replaced Health Minister Miatta Kargbo with Abu Bakarr Fofanah, a move his office described as necessary to more efficiently combat the outbreak. Kargbo was recalled to work in the president’s office.

SOurce: ctv news

Could Climate Change Cause Deadly Epidemics?

If people aren’t as concerned about climate change as they should be, one reason may be that the gradual rise of temperatures and ocean waters seems to give us plenty of time to take mitigating measures, such as seawalls to protect coastal cities and genetically-engineered crops that would be able to flourish in the altered environment. It’s harder to understand that climate change may endanger us in other ways that will be more difficult to combat. For example, it may cause a slew of deadly diseases, which are now seen mostly in poorer regions in the tropics, to spread to developed nations in temperate zones.

Could Climate Change Cause Deadly Epidemics

The latest concern: A newly-published study in BMC Public Health looked at dengue fever, a virus spread by mosquitoes that sickens 50 million people and kills about 12,000 people worldwide each year, mostly in tropical areas.

The researchers found that dengue eventually could become a significant health problem in parts of Europe, including Mediterranean and Adriatic coastal areas that are popular with tourists. Europe is becoming hotter and more humid, conditions that foster the growth of the mosquitoes.

The researchers studied data from Mexico about the occurrence of dengue fever and the effect of climate variables such as temperature, humidity and rainfall, as well as socioeconomic factors, such as population density and income, on the spread of the disease. They then used that data to model the infection rate in various regions of Europe over the next century. In some places, they predicted that rate of dengue fever cases will quintuple, to up to 10 cases per 100,000 inhabitants.

Almost all of the excess risk will fall on the coastal areas of the Mediterranean and Adriatic seas and the northeastern part of Italy, particularly the Po Valley, University of East Anglia medical school professor Paul Hunter said in a press release.

That comes after a 2013 study warned that people in the United States are also at risk from dengue due to climate change. Traditionally, America has only had a few hundred reported cases of dengue each year, usually involving international travelers. But the Natural Resources Defense Council says that the mosquito that transmits dengue now is found in 28 states.

Another 2014 study found that climate change may be increasing the spread of Lyme disease.

Source: discovery news

Quick guidelines: Treating fever in infants!

Being a parent is scary, especially if you are someone who is new to this challenging role. And yes, it’s heart-rending to see your little ones in any kind of discomfort.

Quick guidelines Treating fever in infants!

High temperatures have been one such common thing that is seen in infants causing fear and confusion among parents. But there’s no need to panic even if your baby has temperatures because most fevers are harmless and caused by a mild infection.

Here are a few quick tips to treat when your baby has a fever:

  • If your baby is less than 3 months old and has temperature of 100.4 F and above, call the doctor even if the child looks comfortable and doesn’t have any other signs and symptoms.
  • Consult the doctor before treating your child with medicines.
  • Make your baby drink plenty of fluids.
  • Do not allow your child to take too much fruit or apple juice (mix them with one half of water).
  • In children, between 3-6 months of age, if the temperature reads 102 F, medication is not required unless your baby develops some kind of unusual behaviour.
  • Try giving your baby a lukewarm bath or sponge bath as it may help cool the fever. But, never give your baby cold/ice baths as these may worsen the condition.
  • For babies under 6 months, doctors recommend giving acetaminophen. However, if the child is of 6 months or older, either acetaminophen or ibuprofen is often recommended.
  • Never give aspirin to your child if he/she is younger than 18 years of age.
  • Encourage your baby to have some sleep.
  • Take your child to the doctor if he/she has fevers that come on and off for a week or more even if the temperature is not that high.

Source: Zee news

Ebola scare: South African Airways takes steps to prevent virus spread

With Ebola virus scare on the rise, South African Airways on Wednesday said it had taken a series of steps, including installation of thermal scanners at airports in that country to detect affected passengers and regular fumigation of its aircraft to prevent its spread.

Ebola scare South African Airways takes steps to prevent virus spread

Thermal scanners, which detect high temperatures among passengers, have been installed at O R Tambo Airport in Johannesburg and affected travellers, when identified, were quarantined and assessed at medical facilities at the airport, the airline’s country manager Sajid Khan said in a statement.

He said regular fumigation and disinfection of South African Airways’ aircraft were also being carried out.

“Following the reported outbreak of the Ebola virus in West Africa, the South African National Department of Health is on high alert and would like to assure all tourists travelling to South Africa about all precautions being taken to prevent the EVD (Ebola Virus Disease).

“The department is working in close coordination with key organisations like the World Health Organisation and the United States Centres for Disease Control and Prevention, among others,” Khan said.

Apart from heightened surveillance by Port Health officials for travellers with EVD signs and symptoms, he said, “All foreign nationals who test positive and all citizens of affected nations were being denied entry in South Africa.”
Allaying fears, he said since South Africa does not share a land border with any of the affected countries, it falls under the category of ‘low risk countries’, like India, Europe and most other nations.

Source; The Indian Express

Radiation treatment of eye cancers using iodine-125

Generally, public believe that scientific and technological developments in the field of nuclear energy in India are mostly confined to the strategic area and to nuclear power generation. Medical, industrial and research uses of ionising radiation, which rose manifold over the past few decades have not got due recognition.

Radiation treatment of eye cancers using iodine-125

At any moment, hospitals in many parts of the country are carrying out radiation treatment in one form or other on many thousands of cancer patients. BARC-made ‘BARC I-125 Ocu-Prosta seed’ is an ideal choice to treat retinoblastoma and uveal tract melanoma, two forms of rare eye cancers.

Unlike conventional treatment which involves removal of eyes with the tumour to save the patient, successful radiation treatment saves the eye and retains vision.

Since iodine -125 ( I-125) has a half life of about 60 days, scientists have enough time to transport the sources from its production site at BARC laboratories to the treatment centres at different parts of the country. Half life is the period in which radioactivity of a source reduces to half its original value.

Modelling the eye

Specialists model the affected eye of each patient by using computerised tomography (CT) or magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) procedures. They identify the orientation of tumour borders relative to the surrounding healthy structures such as the optic nerve, centre of the eye etc by using ultrasound.

Using the imaging data in a dedicated software programme, they arrive at the number of radioactive seeds, their activity and their placement on the plaque to produce the ideal dose distribution.

Physicians use this information to fix appropriate number of I-125 seeds on a plaque of suitable size using a tissue compatible auto-polymerising glue. By accurately positioning the plaque, they restrict irradiation to the tissue where it is needed.

I-125 which emits low energy gamma rays helps to spare healthy tissues; it reduces side effects and related morbidity. Generally, physicians carry out the treatment in 5 to 10 consecutive days. BARC scientists have independently measured the dose distribution around I-125 seeds.

It was truly a multidisciplinary programme. Radiopharmaceuticals Division, Laser Processing and Advanced Welding Section, Centre for Design and Manufacture, Radio metallurgy Division, Radiological Physics and Advisory Division and external agencies such as Hindustan Machine Tools Limited, Bangalore and Titan Industries Limited, Hosur, collaborated in many areas to prepare the seeds.

Batch process

BARC scientists produce Iodine 125 in a batch process by irradiating 4 gramme of xenon-124 gas in the Dhruva reactor for a period of 15 days. Xenon -125 produced by the neutron interaction decays into I-125.

After removing from the reactor, they keep each sample for 50 days to ensure that I-126, an unwanted radioisotope which is also produced during neutron irradiation decays to negligible values.

“The need for technically intense operations in the handling of gaseous targets in hostile radiation environments, the transformation of I-125 into a chemical form within acceptable radionuclide impurities, and adherence to radioactive concentrations of the final I-125 solution are some of the key technical challenges during the production of I-125,” BARC scientists wrote in Industrial & Engineering Chemistry Research (2012, 51, 8575-8582), a journal of the American Chemical Society. This paper vividly describes the marvellous engineering and design procedures and production processes.

BARC-produced I-125 seeds are available in 50 micrometre thick titanium (titanium is bio-compatible) capsules of diameter 0.8mm and length 4.75 mm. Scientists subject these tiny seeds to a variety of tests mandated by the Atomic Energy Regulatory Board to ensure safety.

In September 2003, BARC supplied the first batch of I-125 seeds to Sankara Nethralaya to treat a four-year-old child suffering from retinoblastoma.

As on May 31, 2014, BARC supplied 1124 seeds to treat 95 patients from India and neighbouring countries. Sankara Nethralaya, Chennai, PD Hinduja National Hospital, Shri Ramakrishna Institute of Oncology Research/Arvind Eye Hospital, Coimbatore are collaborating in the programme

The patients treated so far are too few to estimate cure rates, eye salvation rates etc, though some preliminary results amply demonstrate the potential value of this treatment modality.

I-125 seeds are also useful in treating prostate cancer. BARC supplied so far 370 I-125 seeds to PD Hinduja Hospital, Mumbai to treat five patients. For treating prostate cancer, physicians implant I-125 seeds permanently in patients.

BARC’s achievement

In spite of extensive demand for I-125 seeds worldwide, only a few companies produce I-125 seeds, as the manufacturing processes are too complicated. BARC has developed the technology from scratch. The Board of Radiation and Isotope Technology (BRIT) has plans to produce I-125 seeds commercially. It has great potential for internal use and hopefully for export.

Source: The Hindu

Pakistan running out of polio campaign funds

Pakistan’s health ministry has said that if new funds are not arranged for the delayed anti-polio campaign, it is likely to halt after two months, Dawn online reported on Thursday. An health official said that the ministry was running out of funds.

Pakistan running out of polio campaign funds

The Economic Coordination Council (ECC) was supposed to approve funds for the campaign in the second week of August, but it has not been allocated owing to a political crisis.

The Islamic Development Bank, Japan and other organisations were to provide a loan of $326 million, with the interest on the amount to be paid by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the official said.

“If the funds are not arranged in the next two months, the ministry would be left with no option but to halt the countrywide polio campaign,” the official added. In Nov, the World Health Organisation (WHO) will review the temporary travel restrictions it imposed on Pakistan in May, on the recommendation of the International Health Regulations, which made it mandatory for every person intending to travel abroad to produce a polio vaccination certificate at the airport.

For now, it is obligatory on the government to vaccinate each person going out of the country, the official said. A total of 115 polio cases has been registered in Pakistan this year. According to the National Institute of Health (NIH), only 39 polio cases were registered last year. Of the 115 cases registered this year, 84 are from federally administered tribal areas, 19 from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, 10 from Sindh and one each from Punjab and Balochistan provinces.

Source: One India News

Normal-Weight Teens Can Have Eating Disorders

Teenagers do not need to be rail thin to be practicing the dangerous eating behaviors associated with anorexia, a new study suggests.

Normal-Weight Teens Can Have Eating Disorders

Rather, the true measure of trouble may be significant weight loss, and the Australian researchers noted that a drastic drop in weight carries the same risk for life-threatening medical problems even if the patient is a normal weight.

Even more concerning, the scientists saw a nearly sixfold increase in this type of patient during the six-year study period.

Anorexia nervosa is a mental illness characterized by excessive weight loss and psychological symptoms that include a distorted self-image and fear of weight gain. In some patients, this can also include depression and anxiety. Those who have these symptoms but are not underweight enough to qualify for the definition of anorexia fall under a different diagnosis, known as Eating Disorder Not Otherwise Specified (EDNOS-Wt).

“Emaciated bodies are the typical image portrayed in the media of patients with restricting eating disorders such as anorexia nervosa,” said lead researcher Melissa Whitelaw, a clinical specialist dietitian at The Royal Children’s Hospital in Melbourne, Australia. “This paper highlights that it is not so much about the weight but the weight loss that can lead to a serious eating disorder. The complications of malnutrition can occur at any weight.”

In her study, which included 99 teens aged 12 to 19, Whitelaw found only 8 percent of the patients had EDNOS-Wt in 2005, but more than 47 percent of the patients had it in 2009.

“I was surprised to see how much it increased,” Whitelaw said. “I was also surprised at how similar they were not only physically but also psychologically. Everything about them was anorexia except that they don’t look really skinny.” Both groups had even lost a similar amount of weight: a median 28 pounds for those with anorexia and 29 pounds for those with EDNOS-Wt.

Other experts noted that it can be difficult to spot this less obvious eating disorder.

“We are conditioned to think that the key feature of anorexia nervosa is low body mass index [BMI],” said Cynthia Bulik, director of the Center of Excellence for Eating Disorders at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. BMI measures whether a person is a healthy weight for their height.

“In fact, we miss a lot of eating disorders when focusing primarily on weight,” Bulik added.

Leslie Sim, an assistant professor of psychology at Mayo Clinic Children’s Center in Rochester, Minn., said, “People are calling it atypical anorexia, but we see it every day. We see people who have all the psychological, behavioral, cognitive and physical symptoms of anorexia nervosa, but the only difference is their weight.”

Source: web md

Surgeons use 4-year-old’s rib to rebuild his throat

A 4-year-old boy will have his throat rebuilt using part of his own rib by doctors at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Wednesday, according to a press release.

Surgeons use 4-year-old’s rib to rebuild his throat

Emmett Rauch suffered severe injuries after he swallowed a button battery from a remote control on his first birthday. The quarter-sized battery became lodged in his throat, burning a hole in his esophagus which left him unable to breathe, eat or speak on his own.

“This will be a major step in helping little Emmett be a normal boy,” Dr. Alessandro de Alarcon, director of the Center for Pediatric Voice Disorders at Cincinnati Children’s said in a press release. “If all goes well, the trach tube will be removed within the next year. He wants to play soccer, so we think he’ll be able to do that and play other sports if he wants, which is important for his childhood development.”

Surgeons are hoping this will be the last major surgery for Emmett, who uses a tracheostomy to help him breathe. Emmett regained the ability to eat through his mouth again after undergoing a procedure two years ago in which Cincinnati Children’s doctors used part of his colon to repair the hole in his esophagus.

“He’s undergone extensive swallow therapy to learn how to eat,” Emmett’s mother, Karla Rauch said in a press release. “He is a champ now. The esophagus surgery changed his and our lives.”

Now, the rib-graft procedure will be used to restore function to the vocal cords by spreading them apart to create an airway passage. “The airway surgery will be preparing him to go to mainstream school next year – kindergarten,” said Karla. “He will start voice therapy where he will learn to adapt to his newly repaired vocal cords. It will also give him a safe and secure airway.”

Alarcon said that Emmett will still deal with many life-long issues as a result of his injury since his rebuilt throat will not function as effectively as a normal esophagus.

In the meantime, Karla Rauch launched the website EmmettsFight.com to raise awareness about the dangers of button batteries.

Source: fox news