Reuters Health – A major weakness of asthma care is that many patients don’t know how to use inhalers to deliver life-saving medicine when they’re gasping for air. The fix may be as simple as taking more time to teach patients how the devices work, a U.S. stud... More »
LONDON As the world focuses on Zika’s rapid advance in the Americas, experts warn the virus that originated in Africa is just one of a growing number of continent-jumping diseases carried by mosquitoes threatening swathes of humanity. The battle against the in... More »
U.S. health regulators said a genetically engineered mosquito being used in the fight against Zika will not have a significant impact on the environment, possibly paving the way for the technique to be used in the country. The self-limiting strain of the Aedes... More »
Pregnant women should consider not traveling to the 2016 Olympic Games in Brazil due to the risk of Zika virus infection, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said on Friday. CDC also said women considering becoming pregnant, and their male part... More »
RIO DE JANEIRO Even as athletes grow increasingly concerned about the outbreak of the Zika virus in Brazil, the organizing committee for the August Olympics in Rio de Janeiro said it will charge national delegations to have mosquito screens on athletes’ rooms.... More »
U.S. health officials are investigating 14 reports of the Zika virus that may been transmitted through sex, including to several pregnant women, raising new questions about the role sexual transmission is playing in the growing outbreak. In two of the suspecte... More »
BRASILIA World Health Organization (WHO) Director General Margaret Chan said on Tuesday Brazil is doing a good job tackling the Zika virus and ensuring that the Olympic games it will host in August will be safe for athletes and visitors. Chan said Brazil’s gov... More »
The following timeline charts the origin and spread of the Zika virus from its discovery nearly 70 years ago: 1947 – Scientists researching yellow fever in Uganda’s Zika Forest identify the virus in a rhesus monkey 1948 – Virus recovered from Aedes africanus m... More »
NEW YORK The United States Olympic Committee told U.S. sports federations that athletes and staff concerned for their health over the Zika virus should consider not going to the Rio 2016 Olympic Games in August. The message was delivered in a conference call i... More »
PARIS Travelers coming back from any outbreak zones of the Zika virus will need to wait at least 28 days before giving blood to avoid any risk of transmission, French Health Minister Marisol Touraine said on Sunday. Zika, which is rapidly spreading through the... More »
MANCHESTER, N.H. Two Republican U.S. presidential hopefuls said on Saturday they would implement quarantines of travelers if necessary to stop the spread of the Zika virus. New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, who garnered international attention in 2014 when h... More »
RIO DE JANEIRO One major hurdle is thwarting efforts to measure the extent of the Zika epidemic and its suspected links to thousands of birth defects in Brazil: accurate diagnosis of a virus that still confounds blood tests. Genetic tests and clinical symptoms... More »
RECIFE, Brazil For scores of women in the epicenter of the Zika outbreak in Brazil, the joy of pregnancy has given way to fear. In the sprawling coastal city of Recife, panic has struck maternity wards since Zika – a mosquito-borne virus first detected in the ... More »
BOGOTA More than 2,100 pregnant Colombian women are infected with the mosquito-borne Zika virus, the country’s national health institute said on Saturday, as the disease continues its spread across the Americas. The virus has been linked to the devastating bir... More »
Rio de Janeiro Last January, long lines formed outside health clinics in Recife, a city in Brazil’s northeast hit hard in recent years by outbreaks of dengue, a painful tropical disease. Doctors were on guard because federal health officials and the World Heal... More »
WASHINGTON U.S. President Barack Obama spoke on Friday with Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff about the spread of the Zika virus in the Western Hemisphere, the White House said. “The leaders agreed on the importance of collaborative efforts to deepen our know... More »
RIO DE JANEIRO As Rio de Janeiro prepares to welcome hundreds of thousands of visitors for upcoming Carnival festivities and the Olympic Games in August, the city is scrambling to expel one unwelcome new arrival: the Zika virus. It will be an uphill battle. Zi... More »
DAKAR A one-month-old baby girl who was Guinea’s last reported Ebola case left hospital on Saturday, delighting medical staff and putting the country on course to be declared free of the deadly virus. Guinea will become officially Ebola-free after 42 days if n... More »
(Reuters Health) – Some doctors and midwives may underestimate the risk for postpartum diabetes among women who develop a version of the disease during pregnancy, a small British study suggests. Researchers focused on the risk of what’s known as type 2 diabete... More »
(Reuters Health) – U.S. states need better policies for transporting high-risk pregnant women and newborns to the specialized care they need – and then back to their local hospitals for continuing care, researchers say. Focusing on transportation policies as a... More »
(Reuters Health) – A therapeutic program of weight-bearing exercise reduces pain and improves joint function, at least for two to six months, for people with osteoarthritis, according to a review of previous trials. “We had a systematic review for Cochrane fro... More »
(Reuters Health) – People with long-term exposure to loud noise at work or in leisure activities may be at increased risk of heart disease, a U.S. study finds. Researchers found the strongest link in working-age people with high-frequency hearing loss, which i... More »
Switzerland’s Roche has a potential new multi-billion-dollar drug to help it diversify beyond cancer treatments following the success of ocrelizumab against a hard-to-treat type of multiple sclerosis. The injectable antibody medicine is the first product to sh... More »
(Reuters Health) – Even though most caregivers agree on the importance of safe infant sleep practices, many of them may not know what to do – or not do – to prevent sleep-related deaths from sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS), a U.S. study suggests. Researche... More »
(Reuters Health) – A pill meant to prevent HIV infections in high-risk individuals appears to be working, according to two new studies. In one study, conducted in the San Francisco area, there were no new HIV infections among 657 people who took the daily pill... More »
(Reuters Health) – Weight-loss surgery beats medication for controlling type 2 diabetes in obese people, according to the longest-term trial ever to compare the two approaches. Half of the patients treated with weight-loss surgery in the study were diabetes-fr... More »
WASHINGTON, August 3 Women’s health group Planned Parenthood, under attack by anti-abortionists posting hidden-camera videos online, will be the focus of a partisan showdown on Monday in the U.S. Senate, with any wider influence on voters from the charge still... More »
