Month: July 2020

One of the most frustrating symptoms of COVID-19 coronavirus is the loss of the sense of smell and scientists now say they think they understand why it happens. The experts writing in the journal Science Advances said the coronavirus infiltrates the cells that provide major structural support to sensory neurons — the neurons that detect odors and send those messages to the brain. Since the sense of smell is linked to the sense of taste, the coronavirus also affects the ability to taste food. Harvard Medical School researchers said 90% of recovering COVID-19 patients who lost their sense of smell and taste regained it.   “Once the infection clears, olfactory neurons don’t appear to need to be replaced or rebuilt from scratch,” neurobiology professor Dr. Sandeep Robert Datta writes in the Science Advances study. “But we need more data and a better understanding of the underlying mechanisms to confirm this conclusion.”  In separate studies, scientists are still trying to conclude whether it is possible to get COVID-19 twice. They say the particular coronavirus that causes COVID-19 is new and much is still unknown.Health-care workers prepare to test people with COVID-19 symptoms near the beach in Saint Jean de Luz, southwestern France, Monday, July 27, 2020.U.S. officials told The Associated Press that Russian military intelligence is using three different English language websites to spread disinformation about the coronavirus. Among the headlines that Russian agents spread, according to the officials, is one that suggests Russia has given the United States substantial amounts of aid to fight the coronavirus, and another saying Chinese authorities believe the coronavirus is a biological weapon. The U.S. officials told AP that about 150 different articles were published on the websites that both praise the U.S. response and tear it down as inadequate. It is unclear exactly why the Russian operatives may be spreading disinformation, but the U.S. officials said it may be an attempt to stir up confusion ahead of the November presidential election, although the stories do not appear to give an advantage to one candidate over the other.  McDonalds said Tuesday that it had missed its profit expectations because of a nearly 25% drop in same-store sales because of the coronavirus pandemic.  Nearly every McDonald’s dining room is closed, and the restaurants are open for drive-thru or curbside delivery service only.  McDonald’s shares lost more than 2.5% on Wall Street Tuesday. But the company said it expect July sales figures to be up, saying it has adjusted to a different way of doing business.  Elsewhere, Malta’s health ministry said Tuesday that 65 people out of a group of 94 migrants rescued at sea a day earlier tested positive for COVID-19. “Migrants arriving by boat are immediately quarantined for 14 days and tested. The migrants who are positive will continue to be isolated and the rest will remain in quarantine and followed up,” the ministry said. The nationalities of the migrants were not disclosed, but authorities believe their overcrowded boat had taken off from Libya.  And starting Saturday, the North Atlantic island of Madeira will become the first Portuguese territory to make it mandatory to wear face masks in public. Authorities on Madeira have reported only 105 COVID-19 cases and no new ones since last week.   “The use of the mask is exactly to show those who visit us the reason why we have these results,” the region’s general health secretary, Pedro Ramos, said. Masks on Madeira are already required in stores and on buses.  Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko, who has resisted measures such as lockdowns and social distancing, said Tuesday that he had been diagnosed with COVID-19 and recovered “on his feet.” “As I said, 97% of our population carry this infection asymptomatically,” he said.  Belarus has confirmed more than 67,000 cases and 543 deaths related to the coronavirus.  Lukashenko’s apparent indifference to the virus has been a part of recent protests against his authoritarian rule ahead of next month’s presidential election. Belarus’ refusal to put two major opposition leaders on the ballot all but assures him of another term. 
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Major League Baseball (MLB) has suspended all Miami Marlins games for the rest of the week after at least 15 players and coaches reportedly tested positive for the coronavirus.The team is in Philadelphia where the affected players are in quarantine. The Philadelphia Phillies, who hosted the Marlins earlier this week, will also be idle through Friday.New York Yankees’ Gleyber Torres (25) celebrates his solo home run with Luke Voit during the seventh inning of a game against Washington at Nationals Park, July 26, 2020.Some players with the New York Yankees, who were scheduled to play the Phillies this week, balked at using the same visitors’ clubhouse in Philadelphia’s Citizens Bank Park that the Marlins had used.MLB officials say they postponed the Yankees-Phillies games “out of an abundance of caution.”The source of the coronavirus outbreak among the Marlins is unclear. But reports say some players may have picked up the virus during a night out in Atlanta following a July 22 exhibition game against that city’s team. There are no reported cases among Atlanta’s team.The Marlins were scheduled to host the Washington Nationals in Miami this Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. But Nationals manager Dave Martinez said the team’s players voted not to go.“We all decided that it was probably unsafe to go there,” Marinez said. “It had nothing to do with the Miami Marlins. It was all about Miami and the state of Florida, this pandemic. They didn’t feel safe.”MLB is trying to have as normal a season as possible during the coronavirus pandemic. But the usual 162 games were slashed to just 60 and, to avoid a lot of traveling, no teams in the West will play teams in the East.Games are also off-limits to fans. Players have been hitting home runs into empty stands.As of now, there are no plans to give up on the entire 2020 season. But the country’s top infectious disease expert, Dr. Anthony Fauci, told ABC television network’s “Good Morning America” Tuesday that the situation with the Marlins could “put it in danger.””I don’t believe they need to stop, but we just need to follow this and see what happens with other teams on a day-by-day basis. Major League Baseball — the players, the owners, the managers — have put a lot of effort into getting together and putting protocols that we feel would work,” Fauci said.Milwaukee Brewers’ Ryan Braun stands on second base after driving in two runs with a double during the ninth inning of a game in Pittsburgh, July 27, 2020.Left fielder Ryan Braun of the Milwaukee Brewers said Tuesday it has been “very difficult to focus on baseball at all the last couple of days.”“It’s important that we are able to provide a source of entertainment and an outlet for people who are dealing with such a challenging time in their lives,” Braun said. “But at the same time, the health and safety should be the top priority for all of us at all times. You think about all the hotel employees, bus drivers, pilots, flight attendants, anybody else all the Marlins guys might have come into contact with, and it’s obviously scary.”Meanwhile, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo offered the ballparks in his state to any team that needs a place to play.The governor said Tuesday that New York now has one of the country’s lowest rates of CIOVID-19 infections, adding that a successful baseball season would be “good for the economy. I think it would be good for the psyche. I think it would be good for the nation’s soul.”New York City has two major league parks, and other cities across the state have well-equipped minor league parks.The Toronto Blue Jays are already playing their 2020 home games at the minor league stadium in Buffalo, New York after Canadian authorities shut them out of their home field. Canadian officials said they do not want U.S. players continually crossing the border while U.S. tourists are being turned away.Other professional North American sports leagues hope to restart their seasons shortly. The National Basketball Association and the National Hockey League (NHL) have opened training camps.All basketball games are being played in Orlando, Florida, and NHL games will be played in two Canadian cities, Toronto and Edmonton. Canadian authorities have granted exceptions to U.S. players to allow them to cross the border.The National Football League (NFL) is opening training camps this week but has canceled the usual four exhibition games each team plays in August.The football season is set to open Sept. 10. But Fauci has said because of the extremely close contact that NFL players have to each other on the field, he would not be surprised to also see a curtailed 2020 football season. 
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The U.S. government says it will use the Defense Production Act to help transform a legacy photographic film maker into a producer of pharmaceutical ingredients, including those for hydroxychloroquine, the anti-malarial President Donald Trump has touted as a treatment to ward off the coronavirus.President Donald Trump speaks during a news conference at the White House, July 28, 2020, in Washington.“Today I’m proud to announce one of the most important deals in the history of U.S. pharmaceutical industries,” Trump told reporters in the White House briefing room Tuesday afternoon.Kodak will receive a $765 million loan under the Defense Production Act to launch a pharmaceuticals company, creating hundreds of jobs, Trump said.It is not a done deal, however, according to the White House.A letter of intent has been signed and final negotiations continue under which the U.S. International Development Finance Corporation (DFC) will make the loan.The DFC is supposed to focus on loans for overseas projects as an alternative to China’s “Belt and Road” infrastructure initiative.Democratic Party members of Congress are questioning why the DFC is taking on a domestic role for which it was not intended.Once fully operational, Kodak is to have the capacity to produce 25% of the generic active pharmaceutical ingredients necessary for all nonbiologic and nonantibacterial pharmaceuticals used in the United States, according to the White House.Currently, 90% of all prescriptions written in the country are for generic drugs, which Trump said on Tuesday “can be just as good as the brand names but cost much less.”Less than 10% of the active pharmaceutical ingredients for such drugs sold in the United States are made domestically, with “more than 50% made in India and China,” the president said.Kodak, which declared bankruptcy in 2012, was once a household name in America and much of the world — having a virtual monopoly for much of the 20th century on photographic and motion picture film in North America and elsewhere.“It was one of the great brands in the world,” Trump said. “Then people went digital, and Kodak didn’t follow.”The 132-year-old company will work with the U.S. government and manufacturers to identify the products most needed to meet national security requirements, the White House said.”What we have with this project and Kodak may be one of the greatest second acts in American industrial history,” Peter Navarro, the White House trade adviser, said earlier in the day.“It’s a breakthrough in bringing pharmaceutical manufacturing back to the United States,” Trump said.Kodak’s stock price, which tripled during regular trading hours Tuesday, rose another 40% after Trump’s remarks.The White House said the support for Kodak’s new venture will be the 33rd time this administration has used the Defense Production Act, amounting to $3.2 billion, “to provide critical support for essential medical resources and our defense industrial base.”Kodak CEO Jim Continenza told the Democrat & Chronicle newspaper in the company’s hometown of Rochester, New York, that the firm has “a long, long history in chemical and advanced materials — well over 100 years” and its existing infrastructure will allow the new venture “to get up and running quickly.”FILE – New York Governor Andrew Cuomo speaks during a daily briefing amid the coronavirus pandemic, in New York City, July 13, 2020.Trump gave rare praise to New York’s Democratic governor, Andrew Cuomo, for supporting the initiative.The two politicians have feuded recently over responses to the coronavirus pandemic, with Cuomo commenting that if the Trump administration had done its job, the virus would not have come to New York.Cuomo released a statement Monday about the Kodak initiative, saying “that all too often we heard these materials were made in China or made in India. America could not provide for her own needs. That just cannot happen again.” 
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New study results are boosting hopes that there soon may be a simple, reliable way to help family doctors diagnose the most common form of dementia. Researchers say an experimental blood test was able to distinguish people with Alzheimer’s disease from those without it in several studies.
The accuracy ranged from 89% to 98%, though the test still needs more validation. Several companies are developing these tests, which measure a protein that damages the brains of people with the disease. The results were discussed at an Alzheimer’s conference Tuesday, and some were published in the Journal of the American Medical Association.
Developing such a test has been a long-sought goal, and scientists warn that the new approach still needs more validation and is not yet ready for wide use.
But Tuesday’s results suggest they’re on the right track. The testing identified people with Alzheimer’s vs. no dementia or other types of it with accuracy ranging from 89% to 98%.
“That’s pretty good. We’ve never seen that” much precision in previous efforts, said Maria Carrillo, the Alzheimer’s Association’s chief science officer.
Dr. Eliezer Masliah, neuroscience chief at the U.S. National Institute on Aging, agreed.
“The data looks very encouraging,” he said. The new testing “appears to be even more sensitive and more reliable” than earlier methods, but it needs to be tried in larger, more diverse populations, he said.Living a healthy lifestyle can reduce the risk of Alzheimer’s or other dementia, even if you have a genetic risk, a large study found.The institute had no role in these studies but financed earlier, basic research toward blood test development.
Results were discussed at the Alzheimer’s Association International Conference taking place online because of the coronavirus pandemic. Some results also were published in the Journal of the American Medical Association.
More than 5 million people in the United States and many more worldwide have Alzheimer’s. Current drugs only temporarily ease symptoms and do not slow mental decline.
The disease is usually diagnosed through tests of memory and thinking skills, but that’s very imprecise and usually involves a referral to a neurologist. More reliable methods such as spinal fluid tests and brain scans are invasive or expensive, so a simple blood test that could be done in a family doctor’s office would be a big advance.
Last year, scientists reported encouraging results from experimental blood tests that measure abnormal versions of amyloid, one of two proteins that build up and damage Alzheimer’s patients’ brains. The new work focuses on the other protein — tau — and finds that one form of it called p-tau217 is a more reliable indicator. Several companies and universities have developed experimental p-tau217 tests.
Dr. Oskar Hansson of Lund University in Sweden led a study of Eli Lilly’s test on more than 1,400 people already enrolled in dementia studies in Sweden, Arizona and Colombia. They included people with no impairment, mild impairment, Alzheimer’s and other neurological diseases.
The p-tau217 test outperformed a host of other measures for indicating which patients had Alzheimer’s as verified by brain scans. It also was comparable to the brain scans and some spinal tests in accuracy.
The Arizona portion of the study included 81 people who had donated their brains upon death, so researchers were able to show that blood testing while they were alive closely matched evidence of disease later.
The Colombia part of the study included people with a rare gene that virtually destines them to develop Alzheimer’s at a young age, typically in their 40s. In those with the gene, p-tau217 blood levels started to rise “around 20 years before symptoms,” Hansson said.
The study’s sponsors include the U.S. National Institutes of Health, Swedish government health groups, the Alzheimer’s Association, many foundations and several companies. Some study leaders work for Lilly or consult for the company.
Two other research groups independently reported evidence for p-tau217 testing at the conference.
Scientists at the University of California, San Francisco, found it helped distinguish people with Alzheimer’s from those with another neurological disease — frontotemporal lobar degeneration — with 96% accuracy in a study of 617 people.
Dr. Suzanne Schindler of Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri, also found p-tau217 better than some other indicators for revealing which patients had plaques in the brain — the hallmark of Alzheimer’s.
“When patients come to me with changes in their memory and thinking, one of the major questions is, what’s the cause? Is it Alzheimer’s disease or is it something else?” she said. If tau testing bears out, “it would help us diagnose people earlier and more accurately.”
Schindler has already launched a larger study in a diverse population in St. Louis. Researchers have done the same in Sweden.
If benefits are confirmed, Masliah, Carrillo and others say they hope a commercial test would be ready for wide use in about two years.  
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Is it possible to get the coronavirus more than once?  Scientists don’t know for sure yet, but they believe it’s unlikely.  Health experts think people who had COVID-19 will have some immunity against a repeat infection. But they don’t know how much protection or how long it would last.  There have been reports of people testing positive for the virus weeks after they were believed to have recovered, leading some to think they may have been reinfected. More likely, experts say, people were suffering from the same illness or the tests detected remnants of the original infection. There’s also the chance that tests could have been false positives.  Scientists say there has been no documented instance of a patient spreading the virus to others after retesting positive.  With similar viruses, studies have shown that people could fall sick again three months to a year after their first infections. It’s still too early to know whether that’s also possible with the coronavirus.  “It’s very much emerging science,” said Dr. Philip Landrigan, director of the global public health program at Boston College.  A small U.S. study published last week also found the antibodies that fight the coronavirus may last only a few months in people with mild illness, suggesting people could become susceptible again. But antibodies aren’t the only defense against a virus, and the other parts of the immune system could also help provide protection.  Settling the question of whether reinfection is possible is important. If it can occur, that could undermine the idea of “immunity passports” for returning back to workplaces. And it would not bode well for hopes of getting a long-lasting vaccine. 
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Inspired by the pandemic-induced need for durable, clean face masks and other personal protection equipment to prevent the spread of COVID-19, researchers may have developed a biosynthetic polymer material that repairs itself by synthesizing a protein found in squids.A study published Monday in the science journal Nature Materials reports on an international team of researchers from Germany, Turkey, and Penn State University in the United States. It describes how they were able to transform unique proteins found in squid teeth into a soft, biodegradable material that could be used to develop so-called “soft robots” and tear-resistant personal protective equipment (PPE).Self-repairing materials are not a new thing, but researchers say the existing materials can take up to 24-hours to “heal” and when they do, they tend to not be as strong as the original. But the lead author of this latest study, Abdon Pena-Francesch, said they were able to reduce “a typical 24-hour healing period to one second.”He said, “In nature, self-healing takes a long time. In this sense, our technology outsmarts nature.” The researchers say their material also reproduces itsself back to 100 percent of its original strength.Co-author of the study Melik Demirel says the materials regenerative properties have to be activated by adding water or pressure, but they envision the process could be activated using light.Along with PPE, researchers say their material has applications in any product that puts materials under continual repetitive motion that might develop tiny tears and cracks and eventually break. This might include industrial robotic arms or prosthetic legs.  Demirel says the material not only provides performance, but it also is biodegradable, meaning it quickly and cleanly dissolves in nature. That means, he says, the future of masks and ventilators could be green as well. 
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Twitter has limited Donald Trump Jr.’s account and deleted one of his tweets for violating Twitter’s COVID-19 misinformation policies.  The tweet, posted on Monday, had what Twitter termed a misleading video on the anti-malarial drug hydroxychloroquine.  An adviser to Trump Jr., Andrew Surabian, tweeted an angry response, in which he said that Trump Jr.’s account had been suspended, adding that “big tech is the biggest threat to free expression in America.”  He added in a statement to Business Insider that Twitter’s action is evidence that “the company is committing election interference to stifle Republican votes.”BREAKING: @Twitter & @jack have suspended @DonaldJTrumpJr for posting a viral video of medical doctors talking about Hydroxychloroquine.Big Tech is the biggest threat to free expression in America today & they’re continuing to engage in open election interference – full stop. pic.twitter.com/7dJbauq43O— Andrew Surabian (@Surabees) July 28, 2020A Twitter spokesman said that the account was not suspended, and instead “Twitter required the tweet to be deleted because it violated our rules” and they merely limited “some account functionality for 12 hours.”  Under limited account functionality, Trump Jr.’s account remains visible and he is able to browse Twitter, but during the 12 hours he is not able to tweet, retweet, or like anything on the micro-blogging platform.
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The World Health Organization warns that the COVID-19 pandemic is threatening gains made in eliminating Hepatitis B and C, which cause liver damage and liver cancer.  In observance of World Hepatitis Day Tuesday, the WHO is calling for action to stop transmission of viral hepatitis from mother-to-child. Around 325 million people globally live with hepatitis B or C and an estimated one-point-three million people die of this viral disease each year.  The World Health Organization reports the proportion of children under age five chronically infected with hepatitis B has dropped from five percent to under one percent since the 1980s.  This, thanks to the availability of a safe and effective vaccine.WHO Director-General, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus considers this a big achievement.  He says progress toward the elimination of the disease is being made in Asia where childhood hepatitis B immunization coverage is high.“However, progress is being hampered by low coverage of hepatitis B vaccine in some regions, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa, where many children still miss out on the all-important vaccine dose at birth,” Tedros said. “One of the most significant challenges we face in eliminating hepatitis B is mother-to-children transmission.” 
 FILE – Director-General of the World Health Organization (WHO) Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus speaks during a news conference in Geneva, Switzerland.Tedros says inoculating children at birth is the most important strategy for controlling the disease and saving lives.   He says children who are immunized against the virus will protect future generations from becoming sick and dying from liver damage and liver cancer.To mark World Hepatitis Day, the WHO is issuing new guidelines for the prevention of mother-to-child transmission of hepatitis B.  Tedros sees the implementation of the new guidelines as an important stepping-stone on the road to hepatitis elimination.  But, he warns, that road has been made harder by COVID-19.“Services for prevention, testing and treatment have been disrupted, supply chains are being interrupted, limited financial and human resources are being diverted and the political focus has shifted to containing the pandemic and economic recovery,” Tedros said. “All of which means there is a real risk we could lose the gains we have made.” The WHO warns high levels of disruptions of both the birth dose and childhood hepatitis B immunization would likely result in five-point-three million additional chronic infections among children born in the next decade, leading to a million related deaths.  Health officials are urging governments to act now to ensure young children receive this life-saving vaccine to prevent new long-lasting hepatitis B infections.
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Turkey is poised to introduce drastic measures to control social media platforms.  The proposed legislation is drawing growing international criticism with social media remaining one of the few venues for dissent.  FILE – Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan delivers a speech at the Bestepe National Congress and Culture Center in Ankara, July 21, 2020.Infuriated by tweets mocking his son in law and daughter, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, declared this month, the “immoral [social media] platforms” would be “completely banned or controlled.” Under new legislation set to pass before Eid holidays later this week, the likes of Facebook, Twitter, and Tik Tok will be compelled to open offices in Turkey by requiring them to assign representatives who would be subject to Turkish laws, including tax regulations. “It builds upon and expands upon the current regime of controls,” said Professor Yaman Akdeniz, co-founder of the Freedom of Expression Society, an advocacy group in Istanbul. Until now, the social media giants have resisted Ankara’s demands to open offices in Turkey. But in an innovative approach, proposed legislation uses the threat of ending net neutrality to force compliance. New attempt to control Social media platforms that fail to comply face cuts of up to 95% of their Internet bandwidth, making them unusable. “This is well thought out legislation on the government’s part,” said Akdeniz. Previous attempts by Erdogan to tame social media have failed. Despite over 400,000 web pages banned and thousands of people prosecuted for social media postings, the Internet remains a powerful venue for dissent and independent news.Internet tools like Virtual Private Networks, VPN, and proxies are widely used in Turkey to circumvent website bans. A three-year ban on Wikipedia was so widely flouted the government capitulated and lifted the restrictions. But controlling bandwidth could be more effective than blocking websites. “This will be a very serious restriction which may not be easy to bypass with alternative ways,” said Akdeniz. “Turkey’s attempt to restrict access to social media platforms should not be underestimated.” Turkish authorities usually temporarily cut bandwidth to curtail social media use, in the aftermath of major terror attacks.  In what appears to be a new coordinated approach, the government’s Internet regulators have been stepping up their efforts to curtail the use of VPN and proxies. “A considerable number of VPN services are already blocked from Turkey, and more will be blocked,” said Akdeniz. Devlet Bahceli, leader of the far-right Nationalist Movement Party, MHP, the parliamentary coalition partner of Erdogan’s Justice and Development Party, AKP, called for efforts to be stepped up to end the use of VPN and proxies.  Using tax laws The president’s director of communications, Fahrettin Altun, says the new legislation is about holding the social media giants financially accountable, accusing them of “uncontrollably making profits in our country and continue their operations immune to any tax obligations.” The European Union is also calling on social media companies to be more financially accountable. In a statement released this month, the EU commission unveiled plans “that extends EU tax transparency rules to digital platforms.” But there is growing international concern over Ankara’s plans. “If passed the new law will enable the government to control social media, to get content removed at will, and to arbitrarily target individual users,” said Tom Porteous, deputy program director at the New York-based Human Rights Watch. “Social media is a lifeline for many people who use it to access news, so this law signals a new dark era of online censorship.” Until now, social media platforms have walked a tightrope by complying with some — but not all — Turkish regulatory authority demands to remove sites and ban users. But under the proposed reforms, failure to comply would result in substantial fines that they would be obliged to pay if they open an office in Turkey. “If the social media platforms decide to establish offices in Turkey,” said Akdeniz, “then they will be compelled to remove the content as well as close down accounts subject to blocking and removal decisions involving defamation as well as other so-called personal rights violations.” Twitter, Facebook, or Tik Tok  have so far commented on the proposed legislation, but analysts believe the companies have plenty of reason to oppose it.  Lucrative market Turkey’s young net-savvy population is seen as a lucrative market for the social media giants. FILE – People wearing face masks to protect against the spread of coronavirus, walk a in popular shopping street, in Ankara, Turkey, June 27, 2020.The growing popularity of social media as an alternative to mainstream media, most of which is under government control, is seen as Erdogan’s primary motivation behind the pending legislation. “Even members of the AKP and MHP constituencies consider social media as their primary source of information,” said analyst Atilla Yesilada of Global Source Partners.  “One of the main reasons Erdogan could make so many mistakes and still stay in power is because he controls the flow of information reaching his entire voting segment, now he realizes those days have gone. People have moved to an alternative medium which he has no control,” added Yesilada. With the Turkish economy hit by the COVID 19 pandemic, recent opinion polls suggest Erdogan’s AKP’s popularity is at historic lows, even though it remains the most popular party with Turkey’s fractured opposition.  The proposed law opens the door to revamping Erdogan’s and his party’s image. “News websites, as well as social media platforms, will be compelled to remove content from their servers and news archives,” said Akdeniz. “The idea behind this is to cleanse AKP’s and the government’s past injustices, corruption, and irregularity allegations.” Yesilada warns that even if the latest reforms succeed, the Turkish leader could yet pay a high price. “We have ample survey evidence that the young generation are hooked to social media, and they already have a poor view of Mr. Erdogan and his politics. Controlling social media will completely turn them off the AKP and Mr. Erdogan.” 
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Healthcare workers in Cameroon are marking World Hepatitis Day (July 28), to raise awareness of the virus, which causes inflammation of the liver and kills about 300 people per day in Sub-Saharan Africa.  While global coverage of a birth dose vaccine for Hepatitis B is 43%, according to the World Health Organization, only 6% receive it in the WHO’s African Region, which does not include Egypt, Eritrea, Libya, Somalia, or Sudan.  In Cameroon, health officials have begun dispatching healthcare workers to find hep B patients who are avoiding treatment and getting the vaccine for their newborns.Farmer Valerie Mbappe, 52, said she was diagnosed with hepatitis in April.But she was reluctant to go to a doctor because her uncle told her she should be treated by a traditional healer.After going to the healer, Mbappe’s abdominal pain, fatigue and fever have gotten worse.She said now that she knows that she can be treated at the hospital, her advice is that people should not be reluctant to visit health facilities for their hepatitis screening.  She said she was told by the nurse that she should stop drinking and smoking heavily because it may lead to complications during her treatment.Mbappe was brought to the General Hospital in Yaoundé by members of SOS Hepatitis, a charity group that helps patients seek treatment.Spokesman for the group Samuel Yamissi said the efforts are part of this year’s World Hepatitis Day activities, marked annually on July 28.He said their main target is the majority of patients who refuse to go to hospitals and prefer traditional treatments.Everyone who tests positive for hepatitis can get help from his group and the government, said Yamissi.  He said those who test negative will be given their first dose of the hepatitis vaccine. People who take the first dose of the vaccine should come for the second dose after three months and the last dose after six months, said Yamissi, to be free of the disease.In 2019 Cameroon reported 12,000 new cases of hepatitis B, up from 9,600 in 2018.But Cameroon’s Ministry of Health says 13 percent of people are living with hepatitis B in the country of 25 million.Despite the high rate of infection, the ministry says less than 1,500 Cameroonians are receiving treatment.The Ministry of Health’s Dr. Simon Eyong treats hepatitis B patients.He said to encourage patients to go to hospitals, the government reduced the cost of treatment from $250 per month to less than $50.”Since it is a slow killer disease, which symptoms only appear when it has already reached its climax, get tested, get vaccinated.  Keep away from unprescribed medications like anti-inflammatories like Paracetamol,” said Eyong.Cameroon’s 360 government hospitals this year for the first-time dispatched health workers to track patients and ensure they get their treatments and vaccines.The health ministry’s Dr. Abdoulaye Sajo said the government also targets birth dose hepatitis vaccines for newborns.He spoke via telephone from the northern town of Garoua.Sajo said the government has given firm instructions that all newly born babies, all mothers, and all pregnant women should be screened and vaccinated against hepatitis B. He said the government has also given instructions that everyone tested positive should be treated immediately.  The only challenge they have, said Sajo, is meeting the so many mothers who never visit hospitals and prefer to deliver at home.Only 35 percent of Cameroon’s 25 million people visit hospitals.Others rely on traditional healers and only go to hospitals when their health becomes critical. 
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