1. Healthcare

WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 28, 2015
H E A LT H & S C I E N C E
For the 15th consecutive
year, GCI kick starts
Arab Health 2015
DUBAI: UAE’s leading source of medical
education, Arab Health 2015 begins
today. With medical as well as hospitality
professionals congregating at the fair to
check out on the latest devices and procedures that can revolutionize the world
of healthcare, the fair provides an opportunity for exhibitors from around the
world to showcase their technologically
advanced products. A common ground
for medical experts as well as business
head honchos, this fair is one of the
largest shows in the Middle East.
This year’s congress is set to be bigger
than ever and will host 40 country pavilions, taking everything from the range of
hospital equipment, medical equipment,
and medical devices to medical technology on display at Arab Health to the next
level. The new pavilions for 2015 are
Bahrain, Indonesia, Russia and Thailand.
Gulf Care International (GCI) is the
premiere provider of global patient services. It is also the Gulf region’s premier
gateway to access the very best medical
service providers in the US.
GCI facilitates two-way benefits helping patients in the Gulf region
receive world-class medical interventions
in the US, while also helping institutions
in Chicago gain access to the ever-growing global market of healthcare consumers. GCI’s success is built on its extensive collaborations with globally
renowned partners. Gulf Care
International pioneered a fully managed
international patient program called
Global Health Link. Using Global Health
Link, GCI has assisted countless international patients seeking healthcare services in the United States.
“GCI’s has constantly endeavoured to
give its patients and clients the best of
both worlds, by blending its in-depth
understanding of the Gulf market with its
unsurpassed partnerships in the US”, said
Khalid Alagel, President and founder of
GCI. “The 2015 edition of Arab Health is
the largest medical congress in the
Middle East and the second largest in the
world. And we’re excited to represent our
clients and GCI and exchanging best
practices with the world’s finest at this
prestigious event”, he added.
GCI’s participation this year will represent many of their clients including the
Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago (RIC).
Since 1953, RIC has been a pioneer in
medical care for some of the most difficult patient conditions. Some of the
finest minds in the fields of rehabilitation
medicine, biomedical engineering, neuroscience, and outcomes research can be
found at RIC today. Another client being
represented at the meet is Lurie
Children’s Hospital of Chicago, formerly
Children’s Memorial Hospital.
The hospital provides superior paediatric care in a setting that offers the latest
benefits and innovations in medical technology, research and family-friendly
design. Lurie Children’s Hospital is also
known to be the largest paediatric
provider in the world with a 130 year
legacy of excellence. Another partnering
client being represented at Arab Health
2015 is Edward Hospital, a full-service,
regional healthcare provider offering
access to complex medical specialties
and innovative programming. The hospital is the most preferred hospital in its
region
E-cigarettes would be banned in
public places under California bill
CALIFORNIA: California would ban the use of
electronic cigarettes in public places and ramp up
enforcement against selling them to minors
under a bill introduced in the legislature on
Monday. There is growing concern about the
health risks from e-cigarettes, also known as
vapor cigarettes or vapes, which are not lit or
smoked like their old-fashioned counterparts, but
do generally release nicotine in a heated liquid.
“Whether you get people hooked on e-cigarettes or regular cigarettes, it’s nicotine addiction
and it kills,” Democratic state Senator Mark Leno,
who introduced the bill, said in a telephone interview. “We’re going to see hundreds of thousands
of family members and friends die from e-cigarette use just like we did from traditional tobacco
use.”
The bill would add e-cigarettes to the list of
tobacco products regulated in the state, which
already forbids smoking in workplaces, restaurants, bars and other places. It would also ramp
up penalties for selling e-cigarettes, which come
in such flavors as bubble gum and chocolate, to
minors.
California would be the fourth US state to treat
them like regular cigarettes, and the 23rd to regulate e-cigarettes in some way. In California, the
most populous US state, 122 cities and counties
have banned the use of e-cigarettes in certain
public places.
Second-hand e-cigarette emissions contain
cancer-causing chemicals, and could put children
and others at risk if they are in proximity to users,
said Kimberly Amazeen, vice president of public
policy and advocacy for the American Lung
Association in California. The bill was criticized
Plague cases rise
in Madagascar
Canada resident tests positive
for H7N9 avian flu virus
VANCOUVER: A Vancouver area resident has
tested positive for the H7N9 avian flu virus in
the first documented case of the infection in
a human in North America, the Canadian
government said on Monday. The woman,
who is in her 50s, had returned to Canada
from China and is recovering from the illness
in self-isolation, the Public Health Agency of
Canada said in a statement. “I want to emphasize that the risk to Canadians is very low
because there is no evidence of sustained
human-to-human transmission of H7N9,”
Gregory Taylor, Canada’s Chief Public Health
Officer, said at a news conference in Ottawa.
Taylor said the woman returned to
Canada on Jan 12 after visiting numerous
locations in China and began to feel ill two
days later on Jan 14. “All evidence is indicating that it is likely the individual was infected
following exposure in China,” he said. “We
don’t know at this time how the individual
contracted the virus.” The woman’s male travel partner, also in his 50s, has symptoms and
was likely infected at the same time, although
the second case has not been confirmed,
health officials said.
The H7N9 virus passes between birds, but
experts say there is not enough evidence to
prove it passes between humans. Most cases
report contact with poultry, usually in live
poultry markets, the Canadian health agency
said.
The virus first infected three people in
China in March 2013. In 2014, it infected 453
people, killing 175 of them, according to the
World Health Organization. Two people
reportedly died of the H7N9 virus in China’s
coastal Fujian province earlier this month,
and recent human cases have been reported
in the Jiangxi and Zhejiang provinces, and
Shanghai. The H7N9 virus has not been
detected in birds in Canada. — Reuters
GENEVA: Plague has killed 57 people out of
213 known cases in Madagascar and more
deaths are feared after recent flooding
forced tens of thousands of people from
their homes and set rats on the run, the
World Health Organization said yesterday.
The UN agency’s first update since late
November, when there were 119 cases
including 40 deaths, was based on new figures from the Health Ministry. The outbreak
began in August on the Indian Ocean island,
one of the world’s poorest countries, where
the disease is endemic. The bacterial disease
is mainly spread from one rodent to another
by fleas. Humans bitten by an infected flea
usually develop a bubonic form of plague,
which swells the lymph node and can be
treated with antibiotics, according to the
WHO.
However, if the bacteria reach the lungs,
the patient develops pneumonia (pneumonic plague), which is transmissible from person to person through infected droplets
spread by coughing. It is one of the most
deadly infectious diseases and can kill people within 24 hours. “Plague established a
foothold in the capital city, affecting densely
populated slums. This is alarming, as around
8 percent of cases progress to the lethal
pneumonic form,” WHO director-general
Margaret Chan said.
She said flooding from a tropical storm
and a cyclone last week displaced tens of
thousands of people and untold numbers of
rats, “raising the risk of more rodent-borne
epidemics”. Adding to the danger, the fleas
that transmit the disease from rats to
humans have developed resistance to the
first-line insecticide, Chan told the WHO
Executive Board on Monday.
Madagascar’s president announced the
replacement of eight ministers late on
Sunday, including a new finance minister,
after the government was dissolved earlier
this month amid mounting public frustration
over power cuts and social woes. — Reuters
Monday by a group calling itself the American
Vaping Association, which said it would harm
smokers who are trying to quit by switching to ecigarettes, which are marketed as a safer alternative to the combustible kind because they do not
flood the lungs with smoke.
“California smokers deserve truthful information about smoke-free alternatives, not hype and
conjecture designed to scare them away from
attempting to quit with these innovative technology products,” Gregory Conley, president of the
American Vaping Association, said in a press
release. But Leno, whose bill is backed by the
American Cancer Society, the American Heart
Association and the American Lung Association,
said the vapor released by the e-cigarettes contains carcinogens, and the nicotine in them is
addictive. — Reuters
Mexico City swaps
squats for subway rides
MEXICO CITY: There may be no such thing as a free lunch,
but the overweight in Mexico City will be glad to hear
there is such a thing as a free subway ride. Concerned
health officials in the Mexican capital hope to get residents
in shape by offering free journeys in return for them burning a few extra calories. From Monday, dozens of stations in
the city’s metro system have been equipped with special
machines that, in exchange for 10 squats, will tell passengers how many calories they burned and give them a
token for a free ride.
The so-called “health stations” are a novel way for health
chiefs to draw attention to Mexico’s dismal obesity levels.
According to official figures, 70 percent of adults and nearly a third of children are overweight or obese, surpassing
even the United States. “Levels of excess weight and obesity concern us greatly. For me, it’s the number one public
health problem,” the capital’s health secretary Jose
Armando Ahued Ortega said as he introduced the project,
devised by leftist mayor Miguel Angel Mancera.
Thirty squat-counting machines have been installed
across the city, which will also hand out pedometers to the
first 80,000 users to help them track their energy output.
With more than five million daily users, the subway is a vital
means of transport in the megalopolis. Metro tickets in
December 2013 went up from three to five pesos ($0.20 to
$0.34), generating fierce criticism from commuters in a
country where the minimum wage is 70 pesos a day. —AFP