Thursday 26th January 2017- UNICEF UK: 4.7 Million Children In Vaccination Campaign Against Measles In Northeast Nigeria

‘In a major vaccination campaign concluding this week, 4.7 million children are being vaccinated in response to a measles outbreak in northeast Nigeria. The campaign is covering the three states most affected by the Boko Haram conflict – Adamawa, Borno and Yobe – where insecurity has limited vaccination efforts. In 2016, there were approximately 25,000 cases of measles among children in Nigeria; 97 per cent of the cases were in children under the age of ten and at least a hundred children died.

“Security has improved in some areas so we have acted quickly to access places we could not previously reach and protect children from the spread of a very dangerous disease”, said Mohamed Fall, Unicef Representative in Nigeria. “We are still extremely concerned about children living in large areas of Borno state that are not yet accessible.”

Measles infections tend to increase during the first half of the year because of higher temperatures. Measles vaccination coverage across Nigeria remains low, with a little over 50 per cent of children reached, but in areas affected by conflict, children are particularly vulnerable. The risks for malnourished children who have weakened immunity are further heightened. The conflict and resulting displacement have left more than 4.4 million children in Nigeria in need of humanitarian assistance, with an estimated 450,000 children likely to suffer from Severe Acute Malnutrition in 2017.

The vaccination campaign, conducted in partnership with the Nigerian government, WHO, and several non-governmental organizations, also includes a vitamin A supplement for children under five to boost their immunity as well as de-worming tablets. Most of the funding for the campaign was provided by the Measles and Rubella Initiative.’

Related Articles:

4.7 MILLION CHILDREN IN VACCINATION CAMPAIGN AGAINST MEASLES IN NORTHEAST NIGERIA

Millions of children to receive measles vaccine in north-eastern Nigeria- World Health Organisation

Tuesday 24th January 2017- World Health Organisation: 10 things you should know about the Syrian crisis

‘More than 10 million medical treatments were delivered throughout Syria in 2016, through both cross-line deliveries from Damascus and cross-border deliveries from Gaziantep (Turkey) and Amman (Jordan). More than one third of the supplies required for these treatments were delivered to hard-to-reach, opposition-controlled, and besieged areas.

Wounded and critically ill patients were successfully evacuated from besieged areas including east Aleppo, Foah and Madaya. WHO played a key role in the negotiations and in planning and overseeing the evacuations to parts of Syria and Turkey. During evacuations from east Aleppo, for example, the Organization ensured that 811 people safely reached hospitals. A further 31 500 health care consultations were provided to people fleeing east Aleppo through WHO-supported mobile clinics.

More than 16 000 health workers received training on a range of topics including health assessments, trauma care, case management for specific diseases, mental health, nutrition, immunization and other topics. When WHO could not enter besieged east Aleppo to provide training to first responders (eg. nurses and paramedics), the Organization instead delivered training via telephone and video conferencing. More than 300 Syrian doctors and nurses were also trained in Turkey to provide health care to Syrian refugees in Turkish camps.

Life-saving care was provided to people suffering from non-communicable diseases – like diabetes, kidney failure and mental illness. Thirteen-year- old Luma, for example, received haemodialysis treatment at a WHO-supported health centre in northern Aleppo. In just the third quarter of 2016 alone, WHO supported more than 11 500 dialysis sessions.

Millions of children across the country were vaccinated against deadly diseases including hepatitis B, measles, rubella and the flu. WHO trained over 6 000 people on immunization and, together with UNICEF, worked to vaccinate 2.6 million children against polio.’

See:

10 Things You Should Know About the Syrian Crisis

Saturday 19th November 2016- Al Jazeera: Battle for Aleppo: ‘All hospitals are destroyed’

 

‘All medical facilities in Syria’s rebel-held Aleppo have been destroyed, health officials and opposition activists have told Al Jazeera, as another day of ferocious government bombardment on the besieged city left dozens of people dead.

Air raids, barrel bombs and artillery fire killed at least 56 people on Saturday, volunteers with the White Helmets group told Al Jazeera. The rescuers, who operate in rebel-held parts of Syria, said they had been pulling bodies, including those of children, out of the rubble.’

‘The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a UK-based group monitoring the war, reported a lower death toll of 27 civilians.

The latest deaths came as health officials said that every hospital in the rebel-held east is now out of service – a statement also confirmed by the World Health Organisation, according to Reuters news agency.

“They [health officials] say that they are specifically being targeted to make people give up. In the last few hours, two remaining hospitals have come under intense shelling by the regime,” Al Jazeera’s Osama bin Javaid, reporting from Gaziantep, on the Turkish side of the Syria-Turkey border, said.’

Related Articles:

Battle for Aleppo: ‘All hospitals are destroyed’

East Aleppo’s last hospital destroyed by airstrikes- The Guardian

Syria conflict: Aleppo hospitals ‘knocked out by bombardment’- BBC News

Saturday 19th November 2016- Al Jazeera: Syria war: Air raid hits children’s hospital in Aleppo

(This is video is a similar one from Al Jazeera (AIR RAID HITS CHILDREN’S HOSPITAL IN ALEPPO) but not the same as the video from this article. Please see the link below)

‘An air raid has hit a children’s hospital in Syria’s rebel-held east Aleppo, forcing medical staff to evacuate patients, including several newborn babies still in incubators.

The moment of the attack on Friday was captured by an Al Jazeera crew, including journalist Amro Halabi, who was reporting on survivors of previous Syrian and Russian bombing raids on rebel-held parts of the city.

Halabi was filming a man and his two children, who were suffered breathing problems from an earlier attack, when the room suddenly went dark immediately after a loud explosion.

Nurses and other medical staff were seen scrambling through the blackness, trying to rush the patients out of the badly damaged hospital as children cried out for help.

In another room, nurses grabbed babies from damaged incubators, with one staff member using a cloth to protect a visibly undernourished child before trying to console a weeping colleague, who was also carrying a newborn.

The nurses later moved the babies to another room, putting them on the floor next to each other and covering them with blankets. At least one of the infants still had medical tubes attached.

Staff told Al Jazeera that all of the babies survived the attack.’

Related Articles:

Syria war: Air raid hits children’s hospital in Aleppo

Aleppo’s children’s hospital bombed as it treats chlorine gas victims- The Guardian

Syria conflict: Children’s hospital hit in deadly Aleppo strikes- BBC News

Premature babies in Aleppo removed from incubators after air strikes hit city’s only children’s hospital- The Independent

Thursday 30th June 2016- The Guardian: Couple win legal battle against ruling on dead daughter’s eggs

‘A 60-year-old woman who wants to use her dead daughter’s frozen eggs to give birth to a grandchild has won a legal battle over what constitutes medical consent.

The court of appeal has ordered the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA) to reconsider the application, opening the way for fertility treatment in the United States.

The woman, whose daughter died of bowel cancer in 2011, had asked three judges to allow her to carry out the dying wishes of her “much-loved and only child”. The family have remained anonymous; the court identified the mother as Mrs M.

Her daughter, who was 28 when she died, spent most of the last five years of her life in hospital. She wanted to have IVF treatment but became too ill. At one stage, she suggested having her ovaries transplanted into her mother. Three eggs were eventually removed and stored.

The legal problem the HFEA confronted, the judgment explained, “was that while [the daughter] consented to treatment for egg removal and storage (including storage after her death) and also to the use (other than for research purposes) of her eggs after her death, she never completed any form giving details of the precise use that is now proposed”.

Lawyers for the mother and her husband, referred to only as Mr M, said that if they did not overturn the refusal for treatment, the eggs would be allowed to perish.

Giving judgment, Sir James Munby, who is president of the family division of the high court, Lady Justice Arden and Lord Justice Burnett granted the parents’ appeal. Neither Mr or Mrs M were in court for the ruling.’

‘The judges heard that the daughter, referred to only as A, was desperate to have children and asked her mother to “carry my babies”. Her parents launched legal action against the HFEA’s refusal in September 2014 to allow them to take their daughter’s eggs to a US fertility treatment clinic to be used with donor sperm.’

‘The court’s role, however, was not to decide whether it would have permitted the mother to undergo fertility treatment using her deceased daughter’s eggs and donated sperm.

Its task was to determine whether Mr Justice Ouseley erred in concluding that the HFEA’s statutory approvals committee acted lawfully and rationally in exercising its broad discretion to refuse to authorise export of the frozen eggs.

Giving the court’s ruling, Lady Justice Arden said the challenge succeeded at three levels: “First, there was on the face of it the misstatement of certain of the evidence about [the daughter’s] consent by the [HFEA] committee.

“Second, even if what the committee meant was that there was a lack of effective consent because the appellants could not show that [the daughter] received information on certain matters, the decision was flawed because the committee pointed to the lack of certain evidence without explaining why [she] needed to receive that information and give that consent.

“The third level is that the committee did not ask the prior question of what information the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act required to be given to [the daughter] in the circumstances of her case.”

The judge said the decision must be set aside and remitted to the statutory approvals committee of the HFEA for further consideration of the export application.’

Related Articles:

Couple win legal battle against ruling on dead daughter’s eggs- The Guardian

Woman wins appeal to use dead daughter’s eggs- BBC News

 

Tuesday 10th May 2016- The Independent: Cannabis arteritis: Australian man diagnosed with marijuana-related disease that can cause loss of limb

‘An Australian man who smokes up to a gram of cannabis per day has narrowly escaped amputation after becoming the first in the country to be diagnosed with a rare disease linked to cannabis use.

After an ulcer on his toe failed to heal, the man consulted Frankston Hospital in Melbourne, where he was diagnosed with cannabis arteritis, an extremely rare disease which causes a build-up of plaque around the arteries, thereby decreasing blood flow to the limbs.

The patient, who has not been identified, was treated with a balloon angioplasty, where a collapsed balloon, known as a balloon catheter, is placed in the area which is constricted in order to inflate it to a healthy size.’

‘He will also have to take aspirin, a blood thinner, for the rest of his life, according to reports in the Sunday Morning Herald.’

‘Cannabis arteritis occurs when the constriction of arteries reduces blood flow to the affected limbs, which can lead to death of cells, called necrosis. Severe cases of necrosis can lead to necessary amputation.’

‘Very similar symptoms can be seen in patients suffering from Bueger’s disease, which is strongly linked to tobacco use. ‘

‘Although fewer than 100 cases of the disease have ever been recorded, Dr Soon, of the Royal College of Australasian Surgeons, said medical professionals should still remain alert.

“Due to the increase in cannabis usage and the legalisation of medicinal cannabis, awareness of the condition is important and may become a growing problem in the future,” he told the Annual Scientific Congress.’

See:

Cannabis arteritis: Australian man diagnosed with marijuana-related disease that can cause loss of limb

Tuesday 10th May 2016- World Health Organisation: Human infection with avian influenza A(H5N6) virus – China

‘On 4 May 2016, the National Health and Family Planning Commission (NHFPC) of China notified WHO of an additional laboratory-confirmed case of human infection with avian influenza A(H5N6) virus.’

’65-year-old female living in Xuancheng City, Anhui province developed symptoms on 24 April. On 27 April, her condition worsened and she was admitted to a local hospital for treatment and is currently in critical condition. The patient’s clinical sample was confirmed to be A(H5N6) virus nucleic acid positive by the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention (China CDC) on 2 May. She had exposure to live poultry before symptom onset. This is the first A(H5N6) case reported from Anhui province, China.’

This makes 20 cases of avian influenze A in China reported by the World Health Organisation in May 2016, 5 of which are now deceased.

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The following details are regarding the first 17 cases (which includes 5 deaths):

‘Onset dates range from 21 February to 20 March. Cases range in age from 26 to 86 years, with a median age of 60 years. Of these 17 cases, 11 (65%) are male. The majority (15 cases, 88%) reported exposure to live poultry, slaughtered poultry, or live poultry markets. The exposure history of one (1) case is unknown. One (1) case is linked to a cluster of two (2) cases reported earlier to WHO (see below).

Cases were reported from 6 provinces and municipalities: Anhui (4), Jiangsu (4), Fujian (3), Guangdong (3), Zhejiang (2) and Hubei (1).’

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The following details are regarding 2 additional cases discovered in April 2016:

‘Between 21 and 26 April 2016, the National Health and Family Planning Commission (NHFPC) of China notified WHO of 2 additional laboratory-confirmed cases of human infection with avian influenza A(H5N6) virus.’

• ‘A 35-year-old male living in [the]… Hubei Province… was admitted to hospital for treatment on 12 April and is currently in critical condition. The patient’s clinical sample was confirmed to be A(H5N6) virus nucleic acid positive by the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention (China CDC) on 21 April. He had exposure to a live poultry market before symptom onset.’
• ‘An 11-year-old female living in Zhuzhou City, Hunan Province developed fever and cough on 11 April. As her symptoms worsened on 12 April, the patient was admitted to hospital for treatment. She is currently in stable condition. The patient’s clinical sample was confirmed to be A(H5N6) virus nucleic acid positive by the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention (China CDC) on 24 April. She was exposed to live poultry before onset of the disease.’

Related Articles:

Human infection with avian influenza A(H5N6) virus – China

Human infection with avian influenza A(H5N6) virus – China [6th May 2016]

Human infection with avian influenza A(H7N9) virus – China [3rd May 2016]

Monday 9th May 2016- The Independent: Hundreds of passengers on UK cruise ship fall ill with norovirus

‘Hundreds of passengers on board a British cruise ship have fallen in with norovirus, health officials have confirmed.

At least 252 [of 919] passengers and eight [out of 502] members of staff on board the Balmoral’s “Old England to New England” cruise have fallen ill with the stomach virus since leaving Southampton last month.

Now on its way to the Canadian province of New Brunswick, the ship has undergone inspections by the US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), according to the ship’s owners, Fred. Olsen Cruise Lines.

The company said in a statement: “Balmoral has now left the US and is due to arrive in Saint John, New Brunswick later today [9th May 2016]. At no point has Balmoral been quarantined in any port on this cruise, and is continuing as planned.”

“Fred. Olsen has been undertaking extensive sanitisation measures and cleaning of the ship, following the company’s strict illness containment and prevention plan.”’

‘Evidence of the norovirus was confirmed on board while the ship was docked in Baltimore last week, where experts from the CDC carried out an environmental health assessment to evaluate the outbreak.

Despite the CDC proposing action including increased cleaning and disinfection procedures, the number of incidences later soared to more than a quarter of those on board.’

 

‘On Monday [May 9], a Fred Olsen spokesperson said the number of guests who have been confined to their cabins with the virus had reduced to just 15 out of a total of 1,434 guests and crew members on board, but the figure is yet to be confirmed by health experts.’

‘In 2010, at least 310 people on board the Balmoral were reported to be suffering from a vomiting virus when the ship docked in Los Angeles.

A confirmed outbreak of the winter vomiting virus hit more than 100 people on the same ship during a cruise of Scotland in 2009.

The..[CDC]… has reported 10 outbreaks on ships docked in the US so far this year, compared with 12 for the entirety of 2015.

Fred. Olsen said it was “co-operating fully with all the necessary maritime agencies and authorities, and will continue to make every effort possible to ensure the safety and well-being of all its guests and crew on board, which is of paramount ‎importance”.’

Related Articles:

Hundreds of passengers on UK cruise ship fall ill with norovirus

Balmoral cruise ship: Hundreds on board come down with norovirus- BBC News

Hundreds of UK cruise passengers fall ill in possible norovirus outbreak- The Guardian

Monday 9th May 2016- The Guardian: London HIV clinic fined £180,000 for revealing service users’ names

‘An NHS clinic in London has been fined £180,000 for a serious breach of the privacy of more than 700 users of an HIV service.

Patients and service users who were on the HIV clinic email list of 56 Dean Street, a Soho-based sexual health clinic, said at the time of the breach they were terrified it could leave them open to blackmail or public outing.

A staff error meant anyone receiving the September newsletter from the service could see the email addresses of all the other recipients.

Addresses had been wrongly entered into the “to” field instead of the “bcc” field, and 730 of the 781 email addresses contained recipients’ full names. Most of the recipients were HIV positive though a small number were not.

Chelsea and Westminster hospital NHS foundation trust, which runs the clinic, has been fined £180,000 after the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) found there had been a serious breach of the Data Protection Act, likely to have caused substantial distress.

The information commissioner, Christopher Graham, said it was “clear that this breach caused a great deal of upset to the people affected”.

Graham said the investigation revealed many people recognised other names on the list of recipients, because the clinic served a small area of London, and feared their own name would be recognised too.

The ICO investigation found the trust had previously made a similar error in March 2010, when a member of staff in the pharmacy department sent a questionnaire to 17 patients in relation to their HIV treatment. After the mistake, extra measures were put in place but no specialist training was implemented, the ICO found.

“The trust was quick to apologise for their mistake, and has undertaken substantial remedial work since the breach,” Graham said. “Nevertheless, it is crucial that the senior managers at NHS trusts understand the requirements of data protection law, and the serious consequences that follow when that law is broken.”’

Related Articles:

London HIV clinic fined £180,000 for revealing service users’ names

NHS trust fined for 56 Dean Street HIV status leak- BBC News

Monday 9th May 2016- The British Medical Association: BMA re-enters contract talks

‘The BMA will today re-enter talks with the Government over the junior doctors’ contract.

It comes after the Academy of Medical Royal Colleges called on both sides in the dispute to return to the table — with negotiations chaired by a third party.

Five days of ‘intensive talks’ from Monday to Friday are planned and ACAS chair Sir Brendan Barber will lead the negotiations.

BMA junior doctors committee chair Johann Malawana… said he hoped ‘real progress can be made’.

He said: ‘The BMA has agreed to re-enter talks with the Government on outstanding issues in this dispute, which include, but are not limited to, unsocial hours.

‘Junior doctors’ concerns extend far beyond pay, and our principle in talks will be to deliver a fair contract that does not discriminate against women or any other group, one which addresses the recruitment and retention crisis in the NHS and which provides the basis for delivering a world-class health service.

‘The BMA will also call for any contract offer — agreed or not — to be put to a referendum of junior doctors, as is usual following a contract negotiation.

‘We hope that with both parties back around the negotiating table, real progress can be made to end this dispute through talks.’’

The Telegraph:

‘Doctors are due to be moved onto the new contract over an 18-month period starting in August.

As it currently stands the new contract offers an average basic salary increase of 13.5 per cent and a 19% increase in the basic starting salary.

Those who work one in four Saturdays or more will receive a pay premium of 30 percent for all Saturday hours, however the BMA has demanded that any Saturday working, regardless of minimum number of days, attracts the premium rate.

Four strikes took place between January and early April, but they only affected routine and non-urgent care.

Last week’s two-day strike, however, was the first in the history of the NHS to affect all forms of care, including Accident & Emergency departments, intensive care and maternity units.’

Related Articles:

BMA re-enters contract talks

Junior doctors prepare for fresh talks over contracts- The Guardian

BMA agrees to re-enter talks over disputed junior doctor contracts- The Telegraph

British Medical Association to reopen contract talks with Jeremy Hunt- The Guardian

Junior doctors’ contracts: Fresh talks under way- BBC News