Fatigue

 

The ageing health infrastructure to receive urgent attention

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The South African government has committed to upgrading and maintaining the ageing and dilapidated infrastructure at public healthcare facilities.

Speaking at the two-day Presidential Health Summit held in Boksburg, Deputy President David Mabuza said it was agreed that in the context of fiscal constraints, provinces will be expected to prioritise their financial resource allocations in a manner that ensures that the delivery of healthcare is not compromised.

“More importantly, this summit pointed out that we need to develop a sustainable financing model for our health system. We will commence with this task immediately.

“National Treasury will be seized with this task to ensure that this model is finalised within a short space of time.”

“We will seek to draw on this compact as we fast-track the licensing of all health facilities in readiness for implementation of the NHI. It has drawn together a remarkable cross section of South Africans – and many
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The Showdown at the UN: SA takes on the US for cheaper drugs

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When the US went to bat for Big Pharma in the fight against this killer disease, South Africa wasn’t having any of it. Here’s what happened next.

Graveyard cough, white plague, consumption. A killer by any name, TB has stalked the human race for aeons, lurking in crowded tenements or following miners deep underground, hanging in the air of our hospitals.

Always there, yet rarely spoken.

Today, it kills more people than HIV and malaria combined, the World Health Organisation (WHO) reports. In South Africa, Statistics South Africa’s latest data shows TB remains the leading cause of non-violent deaths.

Yet it took the United Nations 73 years to call a meeting on TB — and only because a very excitable South African health minister agitated enough for it.

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Why is alcohol withdrawal so hard on some people, the genes may hold the answer

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Some heavy drinkers suffer intense withdrawal symptoms when they try to stop drinking – some, less so. A new Yale-led international study of individuals with alcohol dependence has identified gene variants that may help explain why “detox” from alcohol is particularly difficult for some people.

The researchers reported their findings on 25 September in the journal Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research, the official journal of the Research Society on Alcoholism.

“Alcohol takes more lives in the United States and South Africa every year than opioids, but there are few effective treatments to help people who have an alcohol use disorder,” said Andrew H. Smith, lead author of the study and a research affiliate in the laboratory of senior author Joel Gelernter, Foundations Fund Professor of Psychiatry and Professor of Genetics and of Neuroscience. “For people who experience intense withdrawal symptoms, that’s one more barrier they have to face while
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Will artificial intelligence change the face of patient care? The question remains … How!!

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There is no doubt that artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning will change the way healthcare is managed and delivered, particularly in helping patients in tangible and life-saving ways.

A recent Price Waterhouse Coopers (PwC) report found that the potential for both AI and robotics in healthcare is vast and that they are increasingly becoming immersed in the modern healthcare system. They allow for more seamless treatments, better decision making for doctor and patient alike, more effective diagnoses and even early detection of diseases.

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Dispensing medication

“A superb example of how AI is changing the face of healthcare on the ground level is in the prescr
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Faking an Illness:- This is how doctors can spot it!

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It’s one thing to cough and sniff in front of your parents or boss, but you need to realise that it’s a completely different matter to fake an illness to an actual doctor.

Most of us have faked a cough and sniffle to get out of going to school or work for a day. However, it usually does not involve lying to a doctor and faking symptoms to legitimize your sick leave.

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Medical Implants:- Germs can grow on them, but can they make you sick?

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Contrary to belief, implants are not completely sterile. When you insert a foreign body into the human body, you create a new habitat for bacteria.

Bacteria and fungi grow on medical implants, such as hip and knee replacements, pacemakers and screws used to fix broken bones, researchers report.

In a new study, Danish investigators examined 106 implants of different types and the surrounding tissue in patients. The findings showed that 70% of the implants had been colonised by bacteria, fungi or both.

However, none of the patients with bacteria or fungi on implants showed signs of infection, according to the team at the University of Copenhagen, Denmark.

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Hospices close doors nationwide after funding cuts: Dying of the light

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Hospice isn’t just a place to die but funding cuts – and that perception – could be killing our chances of a kinder death as refuges close. The morning sun cuts through half-open blinds and filters into a deserted ward at HospiceWits, the Soweto branch.

Outside, the August wind chases dust around the property.

The rays illuminate a room with five single beds. Bright orange curtains — once drawn to give patients and their families privacy — are roughly knotted or draped over the rails around each bed.

Against the wall above a small porcelain basin, a frozen clock reads 12:40.

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It’s been like that for more than a year.

“We had to retrench more than 20 people,” she says
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Would you test for HIV in your living room?

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It starts with a swab but does it end with a diagnosis? Why the trickiest part of DIY HIV testing happens after the test

The trick, says Ann Moore as she pulls the small white stick from the plastic packaging, is not just to swab the gums but to scrape them.

The doctor sticks the rod under her lip and drags it first along one side of her gums, then the other.

“You don’t want saliva. You want the cells – the antibodies.”

She places the stick into a tube of clear liquid and waits. One line would mean she is HIV negative; two, HIV positive.

In 2013, the United Nations set the world an ambitious target of “90-90-90”: the idea was that, by 2020, 90% of all HIV-infected people would know their status, 90% of those diagnosed with HIV would be on antiretrovirals, and 90% of people receiving treatment would be virally suppressed.

Just three years away from the goal date, and with only 65% of South Africa’s 6.8-million people living with HIV diagn
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Outbreak of Klebsiella pneumonia in Vosloorus hospital

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The Gauteng Department of Health has confirmed the outbreak of Klebsiella pneumonia at the Thelle Mogoerane Regional Hospital, in Vosloorus.

The head of department (HOD), Professor Mkhululi Lukhele, paid a visit to the hospital to assess the situation following the outbreak and a recent protest by employees of the facility.

During the visit, Lukhele confirmed that the hospital’s neonatal unit identified seven cases of Klebsiella pneumonia outbreak in July 2018, which sadly resulted in the deaths of two babies.

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“Contrary to what has been reported in the media, there were five babies that were being treated and out of the five, one of the baby’s results was negative,” sa
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Google search adds medical quiz to help diagnose depression.

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Google has integrated a medially-certified quiz into its search results to help users determine whether they have depression.

Users in the United States who search Google for depression or clinical depression will now be greeted with a link labelled “Check if you are clinically depressed”.

The link opens an integrated PHQ-9 questionnaire, which helps to identify levels of depressive symptoms.

It is important to note that the PHQ-9 quiz is not meant to act as a standalone diagnostic tool, but it can help users to identify symptoms.

Google said users should consult a medical professional for an in-depth diagnosis to determine if they have clinical depression.

Take the test here!

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Let’s have a look at 5 things you shouldn’t do to heal a wound

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From applying wine and beer to a scratch to using ants to bite and seal a cut – humans have tried almost anything to accelerate the healing of wounds over the centuries.

We’ve come a long way since then, but we still don’t always get it right when it comes to caring for our wounds.

Most people still have a scar somewhere from a childhood fall or a soccer match gone wild, but the right treatment could have accelerated healing by up to 50% and reduced the risk of scarring, says Dr. Rainer Wolber from Beiersdorf AG’s Research & Development Centre.

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Here are 5 things not to do when taking care of a wound.

1. Don’t leave your wound to air-dry
If y
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Time to develop new malaria drugs before its too late

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It has been more than a century since Ronald Ross discovered that the female Anopheles mosquitoes transmit malaria. In the interim, the world has made unbelievable strides in the fight against malaria. But both the mosquito and the malaria parasite are wily foes with the ability to develop resistance against the tools we use against them.

A recent study, Malaria Futures for Africa (MalaFA), questioned malaria leaders in 14 African countries about their views on the fight against malaria. The report revealed that many of them are highly concerned about resistance to artemisinin combination therapies (ACTs) emerging. The early stages of resistance to ACTs, the current standard treatment recommended by the World Health Organisation (WHO) against malaria, have emerged in Southeast Asia and been observed in several countries there.

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Some common skin cancer can signal increased risk of other cancers

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Frequent skin cancers due to mutations in genes responsible for repairing DNA are linked to a threefold risk of unrelated cancers, according to a Stanford study. The finding could help identify people for more vigilant screening.

A new study from Stanford University School of Medicine shows that people who develop six or more basal cell carcinomas during a 10-year period are more likely to develop other, unrelated cancers such as, including blood, breast, colon and prostate cancers.

The increased susceptibility is likely caused by mutations in a panel of proteins responsible for repairing DNA damage, the researchers found.

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Microplastics:- We are guinea pigs in a worldwide experiment

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One of the main problems with plastics is that although we may only need them fleetingly – seconds in the case of microbeads in personal care products, or minutes as in plastic grocery bags – they stick around for hundreds of years. Unfortunately, much of this plastic ends up as environmental pollution.

We’ve all seen the gruesome images of a sea turtle killed by a plastic bag, or the array of bottle caps, toothbrush fragments, and other plastic items found in the stomach of an albatross carcass. But what about the tiny microplastics that aren’t as readily visible?

Much of the hundreds of millions of tons of plastic waste in our oceans is made up of microplastics. These are defined as plastic beads, fibers or fragments with a diameter of less than five thousand micrometers (μm), equal to one-half centimeter. Nanoplastics are thousands of times tinier, with a diameter of less than 0.1 μm, and are also likely to be widely present. By comparison, a human hair ran
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New gene editing technique could treat ALS and Huntington’s.

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A team of researchers from the University of California San Diego School of Medicine have developed a new RNA-oriented gene editing technique which could treat hereditary diseases such as ALS and Huntington’s.

The team used a method called RNA-targeting CAS9 (RCas9) to track RNA in live cells and correct “molecular mistakes” which lead to diseases.

The new technique eliminated over 95% of the RNA markers linked to a type of ALS and Huntington’s disease.

Professor of cellular and molecular medicine Gen Yeo said that while this study provides evidence the technique works in a laboratory, there is still a long way to go before it can be tested on patients.

“Before this could be tested in humans, we would need to test it in animal models, determine potential toxicities, and evaluate long-term exposure,” he said.

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