Child mortality rates are falling, but MDG is still far off

The number of children who die before their fifth birthday declined by nearly 50 percent between 1990 and 2012, from more than 12 million to 6.6 million, according to a new UNICEF report.

Despite the good news, the world is not on track to reach the United Nations’ Millennium Development Goal (MDG) to cut the 1990 child mortality rates by two-thirds by 2015. Unless the world more than quadruples the annual rate of reduction in child death, it won’t meet the MDG until 2028.

“These targets are ambitious,” said Geeta Rao Gupta, UNICEF deputy executive director, in a press conference Thursday. But, “dramatic progress is possible — even in the most resource constrained settings.”

Most of the 6.6 million children under 5 who died in 2012 died of preventable causes. Pneumonia killed 17 percent, diarrhea killed 9 percent, and malaria killed 7 percent, according to the report. Nearly half died in the first month of life, some from diarrhea and pneumonia, to which newborns are especially sensitive, and many from birth complications like asphyxia or infections.

While all the top killers have taken fewer and fewer children over the past two decades, the most marked progress has been against diarrhea, which killed 50 percent fewer children in 2012 than it did in 1990. The battle against pneumonia and malaria has been slower, dropping by a third between 1990 and 2012.

As the numbers of children who die from infectious disease has dropped, the proportion of children who die from birth-related complications and infections during the first month of life has ballooned. In 1990, just 10 percent of deaths occurred during the neonatal period. By 2012, infants represented 44 percent of deaths.

“One of the reasons we haven’t made as much progress as we’d hoped was that, until recently, there wasn’t enough attention on newborn mortality,” said Eric Swedberg, senior director of child health and nutrition at Save the Children.

He attributes the uneven success to logistics. He used diarrhea as an example. The key to saving a child from dying of diarrhea is preventing dehydration, which can be accomplished by administering an oral solution or giving a child a zinc supplement, he said. Though distribution of ORS and zinc still need to be ramped up in many parts of the world, the treatment is cost effective and straightforward.

By contrast, saving a baby who is not breathing after birth requires a trained health professional to be ready to act, Swedberg said.

Critics of the millennium development goals weren’t surprised that the goal is a long shot.

“We were destined to fall short from the beginning,” said Elizabeth Gibbons, a visiting scholar at the FXB Center for Health and Human Rights at the Harvard School of Public Health. “A two-thirds reduction across the board was an unrealistic goal.”

Gibbons holds that the MDG is a well-intentioned, but poorly designed policy that, in some ways, may have hampered progress in child health — particularly in Africa and Asia, where children are most likely to die. She’s hardly the only one to raise such a critique. Earlier this summer, for example, one of the UN’s own statisticians independently released a paper that essentially branded the MDG ineffective, claiming the improvements in child mortality rates we’ve observed since 1990 would have happened regardless of the campaign.

A recent report published by the Harvard School of Public Health found that the MDGs, including the goal for reducing child mortality, encourage narrow approaches that rely heavily on technological solutions, while neglecting the need for broader social change or the strengthening of national institutions. For example, according to the report, pre-MDG policies took a holistic approach to low birth weight babies and malnourished children that took into account a mother’s education and social voice. Under the MDGs, on the other hand, a solution might be to pass out nutritional supplements.

Furthermore, the report found, although birth complications, pneumonia, diarrhea and malaria have long been the most formidable foes in the battle for child survival, the way the MDGs were drafted may have pulled attention away from them.

Gibbons, who co-authored the Harvard study, said the MDGs championed interventions that were easy to count rather than setting up a game plan to tackle the most aggressive child killers. For example, although measles only accounted for 4 percent of child deaths in 1990, it was included as one of just three child mortality sub goals.

Over the course of the MDGs, UNICEF reported that measles, which accounted for just 1 percent of child deaths in 2012, has seen the biggest decline of any infectious disease — by far. Measles deaths have declined by 80 percent since 1990.

In the decade since the MDGs were minted, the global health community has course corrected, Gibbons said. Through the Countdown to 2015 initiative, launched in 2005, for example, the UN now monitors progress on a number of high-impact indicators.

“We’re figuring things out,” she said. “But did we lose time because there was a decrease in attention to the most high-impact diseases during the early part of the decade? I think it’s a valid question that deserves some attention as we’re making post-2015 plans.”

Families with a child with food allergies know keeping their kids safe can be costly, especially when it comes to medical treatment and missed work in the event of an incident.

A new study puts a number on those costs across the United States: $25 billion a year.

Researchers report in the Sept. 16 issue of JAMA Pediatrics that the U.S. health care system and families are hit with a heavy tab when it comes to medical care, purchasing allergy-free foods and other out-of-pocket expenses for these children.

“In summary, childhood food allergy in the United States places a considerable economic burden on families and society,” concluded the study’s authors.

For the study, Chicago researchers surveyed more than 1,600 caregivers of a child with a food allergy, looking specifically at the economic impact of care. Caregivers were asked how much they spent on doctor’s visits, trips to the emergency room and how much they spent on special foods and treatments.

The researchers calculated about $4,180 in costs per child each year. Breaking down the $24.8 billion overall total, $4.3 billion went to direct medical costs from going to the doctor or ER, and $770 million went to family-related costs like time off work. $5.5 billion was spent on other out-of-pocket expenses — 31 percent of which was spent on special foods alone, more than $750 per family per year — and $14.2 billion was racked up for lost opportunity, meaning a caregiver had to leave or change jobs due to the food allergy.

Parents “end up having to spend extra on foods to make sure they are safe,” study author Dr. Ruchi Gupta, an associate professor of pediatrics and primary care at Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago, said to USA Today. That often means shopping at more expensive grocery stores, she added.

About 8 percent of U.S. kids have food allergies, rates which have been increasing in recent decades. More than 30 percent of those kids are allergic to multiple foods, the American Academy of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology notes, and nearly 40 percent of food allergic children have a history of severe reactions that can lead to medical care.

Food allergies occur when a disease-fighting antibody in the immune system reacts to a specific food, treating it as if it was a foreign-invading disease. That can cause a reaction ranging from mild to severe, inflaming tissues throughout the body, leading to symptoms like itching or swelling in the mouth, hives, tightening of the throat, breathing difficulties, drops in blood pressure, and gastrointestinal issues like vomiting, diarrhea and abdominal pain.

A severe, whole-body allergic reaction called anaphylaxis may also occur, which requires emergency medical attention.

One of the most common and severe food allergies is to peanuts, affecting about 0.6 percent of Americans, the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases notes. While children may outgrow some allergies to foods including milk, eggs, soy and wheat, the NIAID points out they’re far less likely to outgrow allergies to nuts.

The researchers called on more grocery stores to carry more items for food allergic children, and schools to have sufficient plans in place to prevent allergic reactions or get kids treated faster, as ways to curb costs.

“Given these findings, research to develop an effective food allergy treatment and cure is critically needed,” they added.

In July, the House of Representatives passed legislation that would grant preferences to states that come up with policies to make epinephrine, or EpiPens, available in schools to treat potentially deadly anaphylaxis stemming from a reaction.

Earlier that month, a Sacramento 13-year-old died after eating a Rice Krispies treat containing peanut butter at a local summer camp for families.

Source: Globalspot.com

Drug-resistant bacteria are common killers: a report says

For the first time, the government is estimating how many people die from drug-resistant bacteria each year — more than 23,000, or about as many as those killed annually by flu.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released the number Monday to spotlight the growing threat of germs that are hard to treat because they’ve become resistant to drugs.

Finally estimating the problem sends “a very powerful message,” said Dr. Helen Boucher, a Tufts University expert and spokeswoman for the Infectious Diseases Society of America. “We’re facing a catastrophe.”

Antibiotics like penicillin and streptomycin first became widely available in the 1940s, and today dozens are used to kill or suppress the bacteria behind illnesses ranging from strep throat to the plague. The drugs are considered one of the greatest advances in the history of medicine, and have saved countless lives.

But as decades passed, some antibiotics stopped working against the bugs they previously vanquished. Experts say their overuse and misuse have helped make them less effective.

In a new report, the CDC tallied the toll of the 17 most worrisome drug-resistant bacteria. The result: Each year, more than 2 million people develop serious infections and at least 23,000 die.

Of those, the staph infection MRSA, or methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, kills about 11,000, and a new superbug kills about 600. That bacteria withstand treatment with antibiotics called carbapenems — considered one of the last lines of defense against hard-to-treat bugs.

Germs like those have prompted health officials to warn that if the situation gets much worse, it could make doctors reluctant to do surgery or treat cancer patients if antibiotics won’t protect their patients from getting infections.

“If we’re not careful, the medicine chest will be empty” when doctors need infection-fighting drugs, said CDC Director Dr. Tom Frieden.

It’s not clear that the problem is uniformly growing worse for all bugs. Some research suggests, for example, that MRSA rates may have plateaued and a separate CDC report released Monday in JAMA Internal Medicine found that serious MRSA infections declined 30 percent between 2005 and 2011.

MRSA bacteria have been the target of many hospital infection control efforts. These germs often live without symptoms on the skin, but also can cause skin or tissue infections, and become more dangerous when they enter the bloodstream.

Serious, invasive MRSA declined in all settings for a total of 80,461 infections in 2011, the journal report found. Most were linked with health care in people who’d recently been hospitalized or received other medical treatment. But for the first time, the more than 16,000 infections picked up in community settings outnumbered the 14,000 infections that began in the hospital.

A 2005-2010 study in the same journal suggests that pig manure might be a cause of some mostly less serious MRSA infections in people living near fertilized farm fields.

The study is based on patients from Danville, Pa.-based Geisinger Health System. It offers only circumstantial evidence, but the authors said the MRSA link is plausible because antibiotics are widely used on pig farms and other livestock operations to enhance animal growth, and the drugs are found in pig manure.

The study involved nearly 3,000 MRSA cases, about half of them not linked with health-care. The authors estimated that living near pig manure-fertilized fields may have accounted for about 11 percent of MRSA not linked with health care.

But how the germs might spread from pig manure to people with no close animal contact is uncertain, the study authors said. Close contact with an infected person or sharing personal items used by an infected person is the usual way MRSA spreads.

Dr. William Schaffner, a Vanderbilt University infectious disease specialist, called the report “very provocative” but inconclusive.

Asked generally about antibiotic use in farm animals, the CDC’s Frieden said it’s an important problem, but he added, “Right now the most acute problem is in hospitals and the most resistant organisms are in hospitals.

Source: Yahoo news

Food allergies cost U.S. $25 billion a year

Families with a child with food allergies know keeping their kids safe can be costly, especially when it comes to medical treatment and missed work in the event of an incident.

A new study puts a number on those costs across the United States: $25 billion a year.

Researchers report in the Sept. 16 issue of JAMA Pediatrics that the U.S. health care system and families are hit with a heavy tab when it comes to medical care, purchasing allergy-free foods and other out-of-pocket expenses for these children.

“In summary, childhood food allergy in the United States places a considerable economic burden on families and society,” concluded the study’s authors.

For the study, Chicago researchers surveyed more than 1,600 caregivers of a child with a food allergy, looking specifically at the economic impact of care. Caregivers were asked how much they spent on doctor’s visits, trips to the emergency room and how much they spent on special foods and treatments.

The researchers calculated about $4,180 in costs per child each year. Breaking down the $24.8 billion overall total, $4.3 billion went to direct medical costs from going to the doctor or ER, and $770 million went to family-related costs like time off work. $5.5 billion was spent on other out-of-pocket expenses — 31 percent of which was spent on special foods alone, more than $750 per family per year — and $14.2 billion was racked up for lost opportunity, meaning a caregiver had to leave or change jobs due to the food allergy.

Parents “end up having to spend extra on foods to make sure they are safe,” study author Dr. Ruchi Gupta, an associate professor of pediatrics and primary care at Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago, said to USA Today. That often means shopping at more expensive grocery stores, she added.

About 8 percent of U.S. kids have food allergies, rates which have been increasing in recent decades. More than 30 percent of those kids are allergic to multiple foods, the American Academy of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology notes, and nearly 40 percent of food allergic children have a history of severe reactions that can lead to medical care.

Food allergies occur when a disease-fighting antibody in the immune system reacts to a specific food, treating it as if it was a foreign-invading disease. That can cause a reaction ranging from mild to severe, inflaming tissues throughout the body, leading to symptoms like itching or swelling in the mouth, hives, tightening of the throat, breathing difficulties, drops in blood pressure, and gastrointestinal issues like vomiting, diarrhea and abdominal pain.

A severe, whole-body allergic reaction called anaphylaxis may also occur, which requires emergency medical attention.

One of the most common and severe food allergies is to peanuts, affecting about 0.6 percent of Americans, the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases notes. While children may outgrow some allergies to foods including milk, eggs, soy and wheat, the NIAID points out they’re far less likely to outgrow allergies to nuts.

The researchers called on more grocery stores to carry more items for food allergic children, and schools to have sufficient plans in place to prevent allergic reactions or get kids treated faster, as ways to curb costs.

“Given these findings, research to develop an effective food allergy treatment and cure is critically needed,” they added.

In July, the House of Representatives passed legislation that would grant preferences to states that come up with policies to make epinephrine, or EpiPens, available in schools to treat potentially deadly anaphylaxis stemming from a reaction.

Earlier that month, a Sacramento 13-year-old died after eating a Rice Krispies treat containing peanut butter at a local summer camp for families.

Source: Cbs news

How Physical Fitness May Promote School Success

How Physical Fitness May Promote School Success

Children who are physically fit absorb and retain new information more effectively than children who are out of shape, a new study finds, raising timely questions about the wisdom of slashing physical education programs at schools.

Parents and exercise scientists (who, not infrequently, are the same people) have known for a long time that physical activity helps young people to settle and pay attention in school or at home, with salutary effects on academic performance. A representative study, presented in May at the American College of Sports Medicine, found that fourth- and fifth-grade students who ran around and otherwise exercised vigorously for at least 10 minutes before a math test scored higher than children who had sat quietly before the exam.

More generally, in a large-scale study of almost 12,000 Nebraska schoolchildren published in August in The Journal of Pediatrics, researchers compiled each child’s physical fitness, as measured by a timed run, body mass index and academic achievement in English and math, based on the state’s standardized test scores. Better fitness proved to be linked to significantly higher achievement scores, while, interestingly, body size had almost no role. Students who were overweight but relatively fit had higher test scores than lighter, less-fit children.

To date, however, no study specifically had examined whether and in what ways physical fitness might affect how children learn. So researchers at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign recently stepped into that breach, recruiting a group of local 9- and 10-year-old boys and girls, testing their aerobic fitness on a treadmill, and then asking 24 of the most fit and 24 of the least fit to come into the exercise physiology lab and work on some difficult memorization tasks.

Learning is, of course, a complex process, involving not only the taking in and storing of new information in the form of memories, a process known as encoding, but also recalling that information later. Information that cannot be recalled has not really been learned.

Earlier studies of children’s learning styles have shown that most learn more readily if they are tested on material while they are in the process of learning it. In effect, if they are quizzed while memorizing, they remember more easily. Straight memorization, without intermittent reinforcement during the process, is tougher, although it is also how most children study.

In this case, the researchers opted to use both approaches to learning, by providing their young volunteers with iPads onto which several maps of imaginary lands had been loaded. The maps were demarcated into regions, each with a four-letter name. During one learning session, the children were shown these names in place for six seconds. The names then appeared on the map in their correct position six additional times while children stared at and tried to memorize them.

In a separate learning session, region names appeared on a different map in their proper location, then moved to the margins of the map. The children were asked to tap on a name and match it with the correct region, providing in-session testing as they memorized.

A day later, all of the children returned to the lab and were asked to correctly label the various maps’ region

Read More: New York times

5 ways to protect your child in flu season

To help prevent your child from having to seek care for influenza or a similar illness, here are some tips to keep in mind:

1. Make sure your child gets this season’s flu vaccine.

While the vaccine cannot completely prevent children from getting the flu (it’s about 62% effective, according to the latest numbers from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention), it can shorten the illness if they do get sick and keep symptoms milder.

2. Practice good cough etiquette and social distancing.

Flu germs can spread up to 6 feet through coughs and sneezes, so teach children to cover their mouth and nose with a tissue and to throw away the tissue. Make sure to clean their hands afterward!

Also, keep your kids home if they are sick (and discourage sick kids from visiting). This may mean canceling play dates or postponing birthday parties. If possible, ask teachers to keep desks in the classroom separated rather than pushing them together to form larger tables.

Keep sick children in their own room, or if the rest of the family is already sick, “quarantine” children without symptoms to keep them away from the flu virus.

If flu is hitting your community hard, consider avoiding large crowds (such as going to movies or out to dinner) until things settle down.

3. Keep hands and shared objects/surfaces clean.

This is the most important time of year for hand-washing. Teach kids to their wash hands for at least 20 seconds — or about the time it takes to sing the “Happy Birthday” song.

Flu viruses can live up to 8 hours on surfaces, so try to remove germs from toys, handles, counters, tables, phones, TV remotes, etc. using hot soapy water or a cleaning product that removes influenza. The EPA has a list of disinfectants that are effective against the flu.

4. Stay healthy.

The usual good health practices still apply during cold and flu season; good nutrition, moderate exercise and adequate rest help optimize the immune system.

Offer your child a well-balanced diet including fruits, vegetables, milk and water. Make sure your child gets plenty of sleep (at least 10 hours for school-age children and 12 hours for toddlers). Encourage at least one hour of physical activity on most days of the week.

5. For kids with flu, treat the symptoms and keep them comfortable.

Home remedies should include rest and plenty of fluids. Offer your child honey for the cough (for kids over 1 year, it’s a good cough suppressant without potential side effects), medicated chest rubs for cough/congestion, a humidifier/vaporizer, and saline nose drops.

Fever reducers such as acetaminophen (Tylenol) or ibuprofen (Advil and Motrin) can help, but remember to avoid aspirin, which can cause a serious illness called Reye Syndrome in children with a viral illness.

An antiviral medicine like Tamiflu or Relenza may be prescribed for certain patients within the first 48 hours of the illness; the medication can shorten the symptoms and severity of the flu as well as the child’s contagiousness.

Most healthy kids over 2 years old get better within a few days without any antiviral medicine. Just be sure to watch out for worsening fever or cough, as this may be a sign of a complication such as pneumonia.

Source: cnn news

NSW offers $7.5m incentive to add fluoride to water

Health minister hopes to persuade 15 local authorities to change their minds on fluoridation, but won’t force them

The New South Wales government is offering a $7.5m incentive that it hopes will persuade recalcitrant councils to fluoridate their drinking water.

But the state health minister, Jillian Skinner, said the government would not support a Labor bill that would give state authorities power to force local councils to put the tooth-strengthening chemical in their drinking water.

The government wanted to support councils in making their own decisions, rather than take a “big stick” approach.

“It is for this reason we are boosting our infrastructure support for councils who have avoided fluoridation to encourage them to deliver this vital service to the community,” Skinner said.

The minister says the funds are aimed at encouraging those councils to reverse their decisions.

Last week, Lismore council overturned a ban on fluoride after seven years of lobbying by local health professionals. However, there are still 15 council areas across the state that don’t fluoridate their water, the government says.

Councils can currently choose not to add the dental health booster to their water supplies, with several recent attempts by councils to block fluoridation.

A bill introduced into NSW parliament this month by opposition health spokesman Andrew McDonald would give the government power to mandate fluoridation in council public water supplies.

Skinner on Wednesday said the government wouldn’t support the proposed legislation.

“Recent outcomes have shown that with education and information, local councils are able to make informed decisions about fluoridation,” she said in a statement.

Source: The guardian.com

Indian gets top post in WHO after 44 years

India’s Dr Poonam Khetrapal Singh was elected the regional director of the WHO’s Southeast Asian region on Thursday.

An Indian has regained the post after a gap of 44 years. The post was last occupied by an Indian in 1968.

The present incumbent Dr Samlee Plianbangchang is from Thailand and has served for 10 years now.

Dr Khetrapal Singh was elected here during the ongoing meeting of the health ministers of the Southeast Asian countries, an official release said.

The election of the regional director is an opportunity to strengthen India’s commitment to perform its role in health and development with the WHO as a key partner, Health and Family Welfare Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad said.

He said: “Poonam Khetrapal Singh is an acknowledged public health specialist and administrator with vast experience and recognition in the UN system. She would be able to contribute to regional as well as global initiatives.”

Dr Khetrapal Singh has experience at global level in the WHO as executive director sustainable development and healthy environments and member of the cabinet of the director general in Geneva.

At the national level she has been the advisor, international health, in the health ministry.

Prior to joining WHO, Dr Poonam Singh was a career member of the Indian Administrative Service (IAS) since 1975. In that capacity she held several important portfolios with the Punjab government, including secretary, health, family welfare and medical education. She also worked as a specialist in population, health and nutrition in the World Bank.

Dr Poonam Khetrapal Singh has a PhD in Public Health and is a Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians (FRCP), Edinburgh.

The Southeast Asian region of the WHO comprises of 11 countries — India, Nepal, Bhutan, Bangladesh, Myanmar, Thailand, Indonesia, Sri Lanka, Maldives, Timor-Leste and Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.

SEARO is headed by a Regional Director (RD) who is elected by the members of the SEARO countries. The RD has a term of five years and, though elections are held, customarily, the RD gets a second term.

Persons who have held this post in the past are Dr C Mani (1948-68; India), Dr V T H Gunaratne (1968-81; Sri Lanka), Dr U KoKo (1981-94; Myanmar) and Dr Uton Muchtar Rafei (1994-2004; Indonesia). [IANS]

Source: Medicine net

 

 

Why Ear Infections Are So Common?

It’s not your imagination. Kids can get a lot of ear infections. In fact, 2 out of 3 times, when kids get colds, they also wind up with infections in their ears. The main reasons are that their immune systems are immature and that their little ears don’t drain as well as adults’ ears do.

Swimmer’s Ear

An infection in the outer ear is often called Swimmer’s Ear. It usually happens when the ear stays wet long enough to breed germs. But even if your kid hasn’t been swimming, a scratch from something like a cotton swab (or who knows what kids stick in there?) can cause trouble. Watch out if your child’s ear gets itchy or hurts when touched. The answer is usually just medicated ear drops and keeping ears dry.

Diagnosing an Ear Infection

The only way to know for sure if your child has an ear infection is for a doctor to check inside her ear with a device called an otoscope. This is basically just a tiny flashlight with a magnifying lens for the doctor to look through. A healthy eardrum looks sort of clear and pinkish-gray. An infected eardrum looks red and swollen.

Inside Your Ear

The Eustachian tube is a canal that connects your middle ear to your throat. It keeps fluid and air pressure from building up inside your ear. Colds, flu, and allergies can all irritate the Eustachian tube and cause it to swell up.

Bursting an Eardrum

If too much fluid or pressure builds up inside your child’s middle ear, her eardrum can actually burst (shown here). If that happens, you may see yellow, brown, or white fluid draining from her ear. Although this sounds scary, the eardrum usually heals itself in a couple of weeks. Unless it happens a lot, your child’s hearing should be fine. The good news is that the pain may suddenly disappear because the hole lets the pressure go.

Ear Infection Symptoms

The main warning sign of infection is sharp ear pain. Your child may be especially uncomfortable lying down, so he might have a hard time sleeping. Other problems to look for:

  • Trouble hearing
  • Fever
  • Fluid oozing from ears
  • Dizziness
  • Stuffy nose

Ear Infection Symptoms: Babies

With babies or children who are too young to tell you what hurts, ear infections can be sneaky. A lot of times they’ll start tugging or pulling on an ear. Little

kids can also just get cranky, have trouble sleeping, or no  well. Babies may push their bottles away because pressure in their ears makes it hurt to swallow.t eat

Home Care for Ear Infections

While the immune system fights the infection, there are things you can do to fight your child’s pain. Applying a warm washcloth on the outside of the ear can be soothing. Ear drops can give quick relief, but check with your doctor before using them. Non-prescription painkillers and fever reducers, such as ibuprofen and acetaminophen, are also an option. DO NOT give aspirin to children.

Antibiotics for Ear Infections

Ear infections often go away on their own, so don’t be surprised if your doctor suggests a “wait and see” approach. The more we use antibiotics, the less effective they become. That’s because bacteria learn to fight back against common medicines. Also, some ear infections are caused by a virus, and antibiotics only work on bacteria. Yes, antibiotics can help, but your doctor will know best when to use them.

Complications of Ear infections

If your child’s ear infections keep coming back, they can scar his eardrums and lead to hearing loss, speech problems, or even meningitis. If he has lots of them, you might want to have his hearing tested just in case.

Tonsils Can Be the Cause

Sometimes a child’s tonsils get so swollen that they put pressure on the Eustachian tubes connecting her middle ear to her throat — which then causes infections. If that keeps happening, she may need to have her tonsils taken out.

Preventing Ear Infections

The biggest cause of middle ear infections is the common cold, so avoiding cold viruses is good for ears, too. The best way to stop germs is to make sure your child washes her hands well and often. Other ways to prevent ear infections include keeping your child away from secondhand smoke, getting annual flu shots, and breastfeeding your baby for at least 6 months to boost her immune system.

Source: Webmd

Body on a chip’ uses 3D printed organs to test vaccines

Miniature human organs developed with a modified 3D printer are being used to test new vaccines in a lab in the US.

The “body on a chip” project replicates human cells to print structures which mimic the functions of the heart, liver, lung and blood vessels.

The organs are then placed on a microchip and connected with a blood substitute, allowing scientists to closely monitor specific treatments.

The US Department of Defense has backed the new technology with $24m (£15m).

Bioprinting, a form of 3D printing which, in effect, creates human tissue, is not new. Nor is the idea of culturing 3D human tissue on a microchip.

It works better than testing on animals”

Dr Anthony Atala Wake Forest Institute for Regenerative Medicine

But the tests being carried out at the Wake Forest Institute for Regenerative Medicine in North Carolina are the first to combine several organs on the same device, which then model the human response to chemical toxins or biologic agents

Printing organs

The modified 3D printers, developed at Wake Forest, print human cells in hydrogel-based scaffolds.

The lab-engineered organs are then placed on a 2in (5cm) chip and linked together with a circulating blood substitute, similar to the type used in trauma surgery.

The blood substitute keeps the cells alive and can be used to introduce chemical or biologic agents, as well as potential therapies, into the system.

Sensors which measure real-time temperature, oxygen levels, pH and other factors feed back information on how the organs react and – crucially – how they interact with each other.

Dr Anthony Atala, institute director at Wake Forest and lead investigator on the project, said the technology would be used both to “predict the effects of chemical and biologic agents and to test the effectiveness of potential treatments”.

“You are actually testing human tissue,” he explained.

“It works better than testing on animals.”

Anti-terrorism

A group of experts from around the US is involved in putting together the technology, which will carry out toxicity testing and identification.

The funding for the project was awarded by the Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA), a division of the US government which combats nuclear, chemical and biological weapons.

The tests being carried out at Wake Forest “would significantly decrease the time and cost needed to develop medical countermeasures” for bioterrorism attacks, said Dr Clint Florence, acting branch chief of vaccines within the Translational Medical Division at DTRA.

Wake Forest said it was able to test for antidotes to sarin gas, recently used against civilians in Syria.

Printed house

Dr Atala, whose field is regenerative medicine, said the bioprinting technology was first used at Wake Forest for building tissues and organs for replacement in patients.

His team had managed to replicate flat organs, such as skin, tubular organs such as blood vessels, and even hollow non-tubular organs like the bladder and the stomach, which have more complex structures and functions.

But building solid organs like the heart and the liver is the hardest challenge yet.

It takes about 30 minutes just to print a miniature kidney or heart, which is the size of a small biscuit.

“There are so many cells per centimetre that making a big organ is quite complex,” Dr Atala told the BBC.

But the bioprinting of full size solid organs might not be far away.

“We are working on creating solid organ implants,” said Dr Atala.

Source: BBC News

Airtel Ghana funds ultra-modern medical teaching facility

Ghana President John Dramani Mahama has complimented Indian-owned mobile telecom provider Airtel Ghana for financing an ultra-modern teaching facility and clinical centre for the School of Medical Science of the University of Cape Coast that has also enabled the upgradation of the Central Regional Hospital here into a teaching facility.

The project was started two years ago after a joint sod cutting by the late president John Evans Atta Mills and the CEO (international) and joint managing director of Bharti Airtel, Manoj Kohli. The company, however, declined to state how much it had spent on the project, which it had undertaken as part of its corporate social responsibility (CSR) initiative.

President Mahama commended Airtel Ghana for funding the construction of the facility, adding that the company had been consistent with its contribution towards enhancement of education in the country.

The school runs courses in surgery, internal medicine, paediatrics and child health, and obstetrics/gynaecology. These disciplines have sub-specialties such as ENT, ophthalmology, dermatology, medical imaging, anaesthesia and pain management, psychiatry and orthopaedics.

School dean Dr Harold S Amonoo-Kuofi said the facilities funded by Airtel, together with the two-storey Diagnostics Centre, greatly helped in the decision to upgrade the Central Regional Hospital to a teaching hospital.

He also urged other corporates to follow the Airtel example and support the university in its drive to provide the human resource necessary to address the shortfall of doctors in the country, especially in the rural communities.

Airtel Ghana managing director Philip Sowah said the company decided to fund the project to fulfil one of its core values of creating a positive impact among the communities in which it operates.

“It has been our dream to be part of helping to develop the country’s human resource,” Sowah added. [IANS]

Source: India Medical Times