Day: May 23, 2017

State authorities in South Sudan closed part of their border with the Democratic Republic of the Congo last week in an effort to prevent the spread of the deadly Ebola outbreak, declared by the World Health Organization in a remote, northern part of the DRC two weeks ago.

The WHO has confirmed that four people have died from the disease in the DRC. Lino Utu, deputy governor of Tambura state, said the movement of people and goods between the two countries at the border town of Ezo had been restricted until further notice.

“We closed the border temporarily because of Ebola,” Utu said. “We have been told it has been found in DR-Congo. If we leave the border open, it can trickle down to Tambura state.”

He said the area along the border with the DRC had been teeming with activity, “because it is where the people from the Democratic Republic of the Congo bring in their goods, and also the people from Tambura state bring in their goods. It’s a big market.”

Uto said doctors have confirmed that Ebola can be found in bushmeat, so state officials have temporarily banned the sale of all bushmeat in the markets.

“We cannot allow bushmeat to be sold any longer because people can easily contract Ebola from meat,” Utu said.

The minister of health was informed about Tambura’s move to close the border at Ezo on Tuesday.

Utu said international health workers, including those with the WHO, are partnering with local officials to educate the public about how Ebola is spread. “This is awareness that has been going on and on and on,” he added.

Utu is appealing to the WHO to send experts to Tambura to screen people for the deadly virus “and advise us in other areas as far as how Ebola is contracted and how we can prevent the spread of Ebola,” he said, adding, “I really need them to come to us on the ground in Tambura state.”

Authorities in Gbudue state, which also runs along the DRC, have banned the sale of bushmeat in Yambio markets, but have kept border crossing points open. The Gbudue state minister for information, Gibson Bullen Wande, said wildlife officials are creating awareness about the dangers of eating bushmeat. He said state officials and nongovernmental organization health partners have trained and deployed health workers along the border to monitor movement of traders. “We have also left some medical workers along those areas to let them monitor,” he said.

Bullen said as far as he is concerned, it is the responsibility of the national government to decide whether to close the border between the two countries.

On Tuesday, the state director of wildlife went on the air to warn people against eating bushmeat.

“We are going to ban the sale of all bushmeat or any trading of the bushmeat [because] those are the things that people get Ebola from,” Bullen said.
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Ethiopian official Tedros Adhanom Gheybreysus has been elected director-general of the World Health Organization. Tedros won the post in two rounds of balloting Tuesday, defeating Dr. David Nabarro of Britain and Dr. Sania Nishtar, a Pakistani cardiologist. The vote by 185 member states took place by secret ballot after the candidates made last minute pitches.

The candidates have been campaigning for this fiercely contested post for the past year-and-a-half.  As they approached the final stretch, each in turn presented his or her most persuasive arguments for becoming the new director-general of the World Health Organization.

Tedros, a former Ethiopian health minister, told the assembly that he has dedicated his whole life to improving health, reducing inequalities, and helping people everywhere to lead more productive lives.

He noted that while the WHO has never had a director-general from Africa, no one should elect him just because he’s from Africa.

“But, there is a real value in electing a leader who has worked in one of the toughest health environments and transformed the health system.  I bring a fresh perspective, an angle with which the world has never seen before,” Tedros said.

Others in the running

Not to be outdone, the second candidate, David Nabarro of Britain, put in a vigorous performance.  He touted his long experience in global health and described the work he has done in tackling infectious outbreaks and emergencies, such as the Ebola epidemic in West Africa.  He said he was the best person to lead the fight against newly emerging diseases and ongoing old diseases, including tuberculosis, malaria and AIDS.

“Governments and other investors rightly expect value for money in everything that WHO does.  As director-general, I will make sure that the organization’s goals are results-focused, transparent and measurable.  All staff, myself included, will be held to account for delivering,” said Nabarro.   

The third candidate, Pakistani physician Sania Nishtar, said she had a proven record of dealing with hard issues and would make constructive changes to the WHO if elected.

“I promise to run WHO in the same manner in which I ran my campaign – cost-effectively, with full transparency, with a global outlook, with integrity, and respect for all .… I have the ability to accelerate the reforms that you have championed.”  

Ethiopia’s Tedros takes over as new WHO director-general, on July 1.
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One of the largest cancer prevention studies of its kind to date reached a sobering conclusion.  Just one alcoholic drink per day can increase the risk of breast cancer in women.  But researchers also concluded there are things women can do to decrease their risk of breast cancer.  

The study by the American Institute for Cancer Research was a review of 119 prior studies involving 12 million women, 260,000 of who had developed breast cancer.  

Lead author Anne McTiernan is a cancer prevention expert at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle, Washington.

In 10 of the studies involving 4,000 women of childbearing age who developed breast cancer, McTiernan said investigators uncovered a connection between alcohol consumption and increased risk of breast cancer.

“We found that those women who drank an average of just 10 grams of alcohol a day had a five percent increased risk of breast cancer.  So, five percent is a small amount but it was statistically significant so it gives us more confidence that it’s probably real,” said McTiernan.  She noted, “Ten grams of alcohol is like a small glass of wine.”

In another subset of studies involving 35,000 post-menopausal women who developed breast cancer, McTiernan said alcohol was found to be a greater risk factor.

According to McTiernan, “We found that there was a nine percent increased risk of drinking that same amount of alcohol, drinking 10 grams per day of alcohol.  Again, small glass of wine, eight ounce of beer, one ounce of hard liquor.”

McTiernan said the World Health Organization considers alcohol a carcinogen, or cancer-causing agent.  It contains a metabolite called acetaldehyde that is damaging to DNA, according to McTiernan.

Lowering risk

On the positive side, investigators found that vigorous exercise, such running or bicycling fast, decreased the risk of breast cancer in young women by 17 percent and 10 percent in post-menopausal women.  

Moderate activity, such as walking and gardening frequently, was found to reduce the risk of breast cancer by 13 percent in the most active women compared to the least active.

There was also evidence too that eating a non-starchy, plant-based diet is beneficial.

“That does not mean becoming a vegetarian,” said McTiernan.  “It just means eating a lot of fresh vegetables and fruit.  Making sure most of the vegetables are non-starchy, not potatoes.  Eating dairy products because they are high in calcium and they have some benefit on their own.”

To the extent that being overweight has been found to increase an older woman’s breast cancer risk, McTiernan said eating a diet full of fruits and vegetables can help women keep their weight down.

According to the American Institute for Cancer Research, an organization concerned with cancer prevention, one in three breast cancer cases in the United States could be prevented if women did not drink alcohol, stayed physically active and maintained a healthy weight.

McTiernan said the evidence of “this comprehensive and up-to-date report … is clear: Having a physically active lifestyle, maintaining a healthy weight throughout life and limiting alcohol, these are all steps women can take to lower their risk” of breast cancer.

The American Institute for Cancer Research is part of the World Cancer Research Fund, which collects and analyzes data from around the world on cancer prevention, drawing conclusions on how attention to weight, diet and exercise can reduce the risk of developing cancer. 
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A botulism outbreak linked to contaminated nacho-cheese dip sold at a Northern California gas station has killed one man and left at least nine other people hospitalized, health officials said.

The San Francisco County coroner’s office identified the dead man as Martin Galindo-Larios Jr., 37.

On Monday, Matt Conens, a spokesman for the California Department of Public Health, declined to release further information on the death, the condition of the other victims, or the status and extent of the investigation into the weeks-old outbreak.

Family members of Galindo-Larios did not immediately respond to an email seeking comment. An online fundraising page said the man had been married and the father of two small children.

Tests have confirmed the botulism toxin was present in nacho-cheese dip sold at a gas station in the Sacramento suburb of Walnut Grove, the state health agency said Monday in a statement.

The agency said last week the container and cheese dip were removed May 5, and that authorities believe the contamination posed no further risk to the public.

Wisconsin-based food distributor Gehl Foods said in a statement that it had been notified by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration that the company’s nacho cheese was among the products that inspectors seized at the gas station.

“We immediately retested samples from the relevant lot of cheese, and it remains clear of any contamination,” the company said. The manufacturer said an independent lab also found no sign of the toxin in the samples tested there.

There is no recall of the nacho cheese product, the company said.

Botulism, a comparatively rare kind of food poisoning, can lead to paralysis, breathing difficulty and sometimes death. Survivors often are forced to spend weeks or months on ventilators to help them breathe.

A major outbreak of food-borne botulism stemmed from a church potluck in Ohio in 2015, when at least 29 people fell ill. Authorities blamed potato salad made from potatoes that had been canned improperly at home.

 
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A piece of space memorabilia once bought for less than $1,000 is expected to fetch between $2 million and $4 million at an upcoming auction.

The moon-rock bag, which also contains moon dust, is from the first manned mission to the moon, Apollo 11, and could have belonged to the first man on the moon, Neil Armstrong. Sotheby’s also touts the bag as “the only such artifact in private hands.”

Sotheby’s will auction the bag in New York City on July 20, the 48th anniversary of Armstrong’s “giant leap for mankind.”

“This seemingly modest bag … played a crucial role in the most important scientific task of the Apollo 11 mission — to bring back the first sample of lunar material ever collected. To be able to see such an object in person is a once in a lifetime opportunity,” said Cassandra Hatton, vice president and senior specialist in charge of the space exploration sale at Sotheby’s.

“It is one thing to read about going to the moon; it is quite another to hold in one’s hands an object that was actually there and still carries traces of that faraway place,” Hatton added.

The bag was involved in a lot of drama before ending up at Sotheby’s.

It’s unclear how NASA lost the bag, but it eventually ended up in a private museum called the Cosmosphere in Hutchinson, Kansas. The owner of the museum was later convicted of stealing and selling space memorabilia.

In 2015, the U.S. Marshals Service mistakenly put the bag up for bidding, but it took three auctions to finally sell for just $995.

The highest bidder, Nancy Lee Carlson of Illinois, decided to send the bag back to NASA to test its authenticity.

“Scientific tests revealed the dust in the bag to be moon dust, specifically from the Apollo 11 landing site and a part number printed inside of the bag matched up to that of the ‘Contingency Lunar Sample Return Decontamination Bag’ listed in the Apollo 11 stowage list,” Sotheby’s stated.

NASA did not have any records of having released the bag and decided not to return the bag to Carlson. It did offer to reimburse her the $995.

Carlson sued, and in December of 2016, judges ordered the bag returned to her. She took possession on Feb. 27 and consigned the bag for auction at Sotheby’s.

While the bag appears to be a rare case of Apollo memorabilia in private hands, there are other souvenirs from the missions, including patches and medals, most of which were carried by astronauts specifically as souvenirs.

According to Space.com, the highest price paid for an Apollo souvenir was $1.625 million for a Bulova watch worn on the moon in 1971 by Apollo 15 astronaut David Scott.

Sotheby’s said Carlson will give some of the proceeds from the moon-rock bag auction to various charities.
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The positive impact of exercise is old news. There really is no downside, mentally or physically, to getting up and moving around in any form from taking walks to lifting weights. But what if a pill could give you all those benefits. VOA’s Kevin Enochs reports.
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