Alzheimer's sufferers receive drug boost

Wednesday 9 October 2013

Islamabad, Oct 10 (Newswire): Alzheimer's sufferers who display 'mild' symptoms will be eligible to receive drug treatment from the NHS after a U-turn by the health watchdog.

Hundreds of thousands of patients will now have access to the Aricept, Exelon and Reminyl drugs after the government's health rationing body, The National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (Nice) lifted restrictions imposed in 2007.

The drugs -- which cost £2.80 a day per patient -- are currently only available to sufferers with a moderate form of the disease but will soon be available to all patients after a three year campaign by doctors, patients and the Alzheimer's Society.

"This is a momentous day for people with Alzheimer's disease and their carers," said Ruth Sunderland, the society's interim chief executive.

The drugs do not cure the disease but patients have reported an easing of symptoms including memory loss, anxiety and depression.

Nice have also recommended the prescription of Ebixa (memantine) -- which is only available as part of clinical trials at the moment -- to patients suffering more severe symptoms.

Nice's chief executive, Sir Andrew Dillon said: "Since we published our guidance in September 2007 clinical trials have continued to show the positive effects of these drugs and, in the case of memantine, have reduced the uncertainty about its clinical effectiveness.

"In addition, we now have more information about the costs of living with and treating this very distressing disease, as it progresses through its mild, moderate and severe stages," he added.

Patients across England and Wales should be able to access the drugs from next spring.

There are around 465,000 diagnosed cases of the disease in the UK, with 62,000 new cases every year, a figure which is set to rise with an ageing population.

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Dengue fever spreading in Asia

New Delhi, Oct 10 (Newswire): Dengue fever, a mosquito-borne disease with no known treatment, is spreading in Asia, with cases in India at a 20-year high as the country hosts the Commonwealth Games.

The World Health Organisation (WHO) has warned that 2.5 billion people are at risk from one of the world's fastest-emerging infections, which has "grown dramatically in recent decades."

Officials at the WHO say Asia, home to 70 percent of the at-risk population, has seen a rise in dengue mainly because of higher temperatures due to climate change, rising populations and greater international travel.

The organisation says "a rapid rise in urban mosquito populations" is also bringing ever greater numbers of people into contact with the virus.

According to data collected by the UN body, the highest number of reported cases in Asia this year to August are in Indonesia (80,065) followed by Thailand (57,948) and Sri Lanka (27,142).

Dengue, transmitted to humans by the female Aedes mosquitoes, causes a severe flu-like illness for most victims that lasts about a week. There are four strains, one of which is a potentially lethal haemorrhagic type.

"The disease has spread fast. Dengue is appearing in new areas," said Yogesh Choudhri, an expert at the WHO on the Asia region, who said the disease had crossed new international borders and spread within countries.

It was found in the Himalayan countries of Bhutan and Nepal for the first time in 2004, and is endemic in most of Southeast and South Asia as well as Indonesia and East Timor.

In India, government hospitals in New Delhi are overflowing with dengue victims as the city hosts 7,000 foreign athletes and officials for the Commonwealth Games, which finish next Thursday.

A.C. Dhariwal, director of India's National Vector-Borne Disease Control Programme said that cases in India were at a 20-year high with 50 people dead and 12,000 reported infections.

The number of actual infections is likely to be far higher.

He blamed the delayed construction work for the Commonwealth Games for part of the problem in New Delhi, where monsoon rains have been at their strongest in years.

"Delays in Games construction and urban improvement projects are to blame for the severe dengue outbreak since mounds of rubble and puddles are strewn across the city," he said.

Last week an official with the Indian lawn bowls squad contracted dengue, the first person associated with the Games to do so.

There is no known treatment for dengue, but several preventative steps can be taken.

The most important is to ensure there is no standing water near residential areas where mosquitoes breed.

Spraying insecticide, an approach taken by many city authorities, can also help, as does applying mosquito repellent and wearing long sleeves and trousers.

In Thailand, the government is worried about a South Korean-inspired fashion craze for black leggings which could be putting teenagers at risk.

"I'm worried about how people dress, especially teenagers," said Deputy Public Health Minister Phansiri Kulanartsiri, noting that the mosquitoes which transmit the disease are attracted by dark colours.

"The mosquitoes can bite through the leggings' thin fabric, so those who wear them are at greater risk of being infected with dengue."

In Sri Lanka, authorities have introduced heavy fines for people with standing water in their homes, and troops have been deployed to clean up public places.

Malaysia has reported a 53-percent rise in dengue-related deaths this year, but backed away from a controversial trial of releasing genetically modified mosquitoes to wipe out the disease.

In the first experiment of its kind in Asia, 2,000-3,000 modified male Aedes aegypti mosquitoes were to have been released in two Malaysian states in October or November.

The offspring of the mosquitoes would have died quickly, curbing the growth of the population in a technique researchers hope could eventually eradicate the dengue mosquito altogether.

But the government scrapped the idea after complaints from environmentalists.

Health authorities in Bangladesh said dengue prevalence was on the rise but fatalities were down.

Surveys conducted by the health ministry indicate that the dengue prevalence rate was 3.4 percent in 2006, rising to 5.25 percent in 2007, and by 2009 to 9.1 percent.

The number of dengue fever patients in South Korea and Japan remains small but is rising as more travel overseas, especially to Southeast Asia and Latin America.

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Traffic pollution ups breast cancer risk

Islamabad, Oct 10 (Newswire): As per new research, air pollution may raise the chances of women of getting breast cancer.

Air pollution, which has already been associated to various health troubles,

A ground breaking new study suggests pollution from traffic is associated with the risk of breast cancer.

The research has been carried out by scientists from McGill University (Drs. Goldberg, Dan Crouse and Nancy Ross), The Research Institute of the MUHC (RI MUHC; Dr. Mark Goldberg) and Universite de Montréal (Dr. France Labreche).

According to the study's co-author Dr. Mark Goldberg, a researcher at The RI MUHC, "We've been watching breast cancer rates go up for some time. Nobody really knows why, and only about one third of cases are attributable to known risk factors. Since no-one had studied the connection between air pollution and breast cancer using detailed air pollution maps, we decided to investigate it."

Dr. Goldberg and his fellow workers drew near to the problem by merging facts from different researches.

Initially, they utilized the results of their 2005-2006 research to set up two air pollution "maps" depiction NO2 levels in various regions of Montreal in the year 1996 and 10 years earlier in 1986.

After that, they graphed the home addresses of females having breast cancer in a 1996-97 research onto the air pollution maps.

Their discoveries were surprising. The breast cancer rate was clearly higher in regions having high air pollution levels.

Dr. Goldberg said, "We found a link between post-menopausal breast cancer and exposure to nitrogen dioxide (NO2), which is a ''marker'' for traffic-related air pollution."

"Across Montreal, levels of NO2 varied between 5 ppb to over 30 ppb. We found that risk increased by about 25 per cent with every increase of NO2 of five parts per billion.

Another way of saying this is that women living in the areas with the highest levels of pollution were almost twice as likely to develop breast cancer as those living in the least polluted areas," Dr. Goldberg added.

He also said that these alarming outcomes must be interpreted with great caution.

The results of the research have been released in the prestigious journal Environmental Health Perspectives.

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