Author: medicalviseAdmin

Sep 05

Heatwave to bring rare ‘blood rain’ to Ireland

Get the free Morning Headlines email for news from our reporters across the world Sign up to our free Morning Headlines email The ongoing heatwave in Ireland could lead to the occurrence of a weather event termed “blood rain”. Temperatures across the country have been soaring this week, with highs of 27C forecast in the warmest regions in the south and east. The hot weather will increase the likelihood of thunderstorms – and “blood rain” or rain mixed with dust, as a weather expert highlighted that a Saharan dust cloud has settled over Ireland. According to the Met Office, “blood rain” occurs when a large concentration of red-coloured dust gets mixed into the clouds, giving rain a reddish appearance as it falls. This rarely, however, happens in the UK where very small quantities of yellow or brown dust get caught with clouds. What you will notice instead is a thin film of dust left behind on your cars, after the rain has evaporated. Alan O’Reilly, who runs the Carlow Weather social media account, on Monday forecast that dusty rain was likely in the southwest of Ireland on Tuesday in a post on X (formerly Twitter). The Carlow Weather tweet read: “Dust will move over Ireland over coming days but larger stay above us unless you catch a shower that brings it down to the surface. Most likely in the Southwest tomorrow.” On Tuesday, Mr O’Reilly shared photos and videos of cars covered in dust, in places such as West Cork, on X. Alongside, he tweeted: “More reports from Southwest of the Saharan dust on cars and windows after showers overnight. “The dust will remain over us for the rest of the week but will only come down with showers.” As per his latest update, dusty rain will continue for “some in the south and west” but the clouds will move “fairly quick and break up” as the week progresses. On Monday, it was reported the Saharan dust clouds will pass over the UK over the next two days, as the Met Officwe said Britons could be treated to “picturesque sunsets” in a post on X.

Sep 05

Longer Anticoagulant Treatment Provides Greater Blood Clot Prevention in Patients With Cancer

Twelve months of treatment with an anticoagulant to contributed to a greater benefit than three months of treatment in patients with cancer and minor blood clots (distal deep vein thrombosis), according to results from a recent trial. Findings from this trial were recently presented at ESC Congress 2023. “This is the first and only randomized trial to show the superiority of longer duration over shorter duration of anticoagulation therapy for reducing thrombotic events in cancer patients with isolated distal (deep vein thrombosis),” Dr. Yugo Tamashita of Kyoto University in Japan, said in a press release. “We expect that the results will change practice and clinical guidelines in the cardio-oncology field.” According to the American Cancer Society, patients with cancer have an increased risk for blood clots due to the disease itself, and it may be due to the tissue damage associated with some cancers that may initiate the blood clotting process. The risk for blood clots may increase with certain cancers including lung and pancreatic cancers, in addition to the type of treatment a patient receives and other medications or conditions. Deep vein thrombosis is a condition that occurs when a blood clot forms in the deep vein and is typically seen in the thigh, lower leg or pelvis, although they can also be seen in the arm, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Advertisement In this trial, researchers aimed to compared 12 months of Lixiana (edoxaban) treatment with three months of treatment. Of note, Lixiana is an anticoagulant medication, meaning it decreases the body’s ability to clot blood, which can then prevent harmful blood clots. Researchers enrolled 604 patients (average age, 70.8 years; 72% women) with cancer who recently received a diagnosis of isolated distal (occurring in the lower leg) deep vein thrombosis. Patients in this trial were not previously taking anticoagulation therapy. The most common types of cancer in this trial included ovarian (14%), uterine (13%), lung (11%), colon (9%) and pancreatic cancers (8%). Other types included blood (5%), stomach (5%) and breast cancers (5%). Patients were randomly assigned either 12 months of Lixiana (296 patients) or three months of the anticoagulation therapy (305 patients). The main focus of the trial was symptomatic recurrent venous thromboembolism (blood clot forming in the vein) or death related to venous thromboembolism at 12 months. Other areas of focus included major bleeding events at 12 months. At 12 months, three patients in the 12-month group (1%) experienced a symptomatic recurrent venous thromboembolism compared with 22 patients (7.2%) in the three-month group. Rates of major bleeding events at 12 months were similar in the patients assigned 12 months of treatment compared with three months (9.5% versus 7.2%, respectively). “In cancer patients with isolated distal (deep vein thrombosis), 12 months of (Lixiana) treatment was superior to three months with respect to the composite outcome of symptomatic recurrent (venous thromboembolism) or (venous thromboembolism)-related death with no difference in the rate of major bleeding,” Tamashita said. For more news on cancer updates, research and education, don’t forget to subscribe to CURE®’s newsletters here.

Sep 05

Sickle Cell: Blood Fuels One Teen’s Drive

Thirteen-year-old Dreylan Holmes may not describe himself as very talkative, yet he’s got an abundance of energy that fuels his love of sports. But that energy quickly vanished when Dreylan became riddled with excruciating, life-threatening pain in the fall of 2021. His hemoglobin dropped and his platelet count plummeted. That’s when doctors raised the flag that he needed blood—immediately. But the one item that could help both reduce the pain and restore the bounce in his step was unavailable. His situation is reminiscent of what many patients are going through now, as the Red Cross has seen a concerning drop in blood donations in recent months. The impacts of an active disaster season, busy travel season and back-to-school have caused numerous canceled blood drives, resulting in tens of thousands of blood donations going uncollected. Uncertainty filled every minute. “Over the course of those two days [waiting for blood], he got progressively worse,” said his mother, Vesha Jamison, who works as a blood donor recruitment manager for the Red Cross and was keenly aware of the low national blood inventory levels. Dreylan is one of more than 100,000 people across the U.S. living with the disease, which distorts round, healthy red blood cells into crescent-shaped ones, making it difficult for them to flow through the bloodstream and carry oxygen to the body. This often leads to severe pain, tissue and organ damage, anemia and strokes. Finding compatible blood types for sickle cell patients like Dreylan isn’t easy. An estimated 62% of the U.S. population is eligible to donate blood, but only about 3% donate each year. One in three African American blood donors are a match for people with sickle cell disease, the most common genetic blood disorder in the country affecting mostly those of African descent. Dreylan’s chronic pain crises still continue today and sometimes require blood transfusions. He’s had more than a dozen so far in his lifetime. “Typically as moms, we put on our capes and we come to our children’s rescue. And this is the one thing that I cannot not fix,” Vesha recalled. Teenage Life, Interrupted September is Sickle Cell Awareness Month, a time to acknowledge and support those living with the disease who navigate its challenges year-round. For Dreylan, flare-ups of extreme pain—known as sickle cell crises—often keep him from participating in common activities that make up everyday teen life. He’s had to miss roughly half of the entire school year, relying on help from a homebound teacher’s aide. He lights up when playing basketball, but can’t always participate alongside his friends. “It’s like getting hit with a baseball bat,” he said of the pain that leaves him unable to get out of bed sometimes. Dreylan knows firsthand that misconceptions of sickle cell disease are abundant. “Sometimes, kids at school look at me funny, like they can catch it [sickle cell disease] or something,” he said. But the condition is genetic and can be inherited if both parents carry the sickle cell trait. Many people also remain unaware if they carry the trait, as sickle cell trait testing at birth was not widely provided in the U.S. until 2006. That’s exactly how Vesha found out about her son’s diagnosis. “It was heartbreaking,” Vesha said. “I felt very guilty . . . like I had given him the worst part of me. I knew all my life that I had the [sickle cell] trait, but not the full extent of what that meant. Hope at Last Eventually, after a harrowing two-day wait, blood finally arrived for Dreylan thanks to a generous blood donor. “I say a little prayer for whoever donated that blood when the bag is being hung by Dreylan’s bedside,” Vesha said, teary-eyed. “It’s my family today, but it could be yours tomorrow.” People with life-threatening conditions are relying on blood donors now more than ever. To schedule an appointment to give blood, visit RedCrossBlood.org/ OurBlood or call 1-800-RED-CROSS (1-800-733-2767). This month, the Red Cross is launching Joined By Blood and teaming up with partners in the Black community—such as 100 Black Men of America, Inc., Kier’s Hope Foundation, Inc. and others—to host blood drives and rally blood donors who are Black to support the blood transfusion needs of sickle cell patients. The initiative is a fall activation of the Red Cross Sickle Cell Initiative, representing the powerful connection between blood donors and patients.

Sep 05

HPV found in 30 percent of all men across the globe

When it comes to sexually transmitted infections (STIs), most people are aware of diseases like AIDS, herpes, syphilis, and gonorrhea. However, many people may be unaware of the risks associated with human papillomavirus (HPV), the most common STI affecting millions of humans annually. The US alone presently has 20 million HPV patients. While the infection is generally harmless in 90 percent of cases, resolving without any medical complications, the CDC cautions that if the infections persist for more than two years, it could cause severe health problems such as cancer. “HPV can cause cervical and other cancers, including cancer of the vulva, vagina, penis, or anus. It can also cause cancer in the back of the throat called oropharyngeal cancer,” the CDC notes.

Sep 05

CDC warns doctors to be on lookout for deadly flesh-eating bacteria

CDC warns doctors to be on lookout for deadly flesh-eating bacteria | The Hill Skip to content David Goldman, File/AP A sign marks the entrance to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (David Goldman, File/AP) The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is warning doctors to be on the lookout for deadly flesh-eating bacteria that may be in waters of the Gulf of Mexico and East Coast. The bacteria is known as Vibrio vulnificus or V. vulnificus. The CDC issued the health advisory last week to urge health care providers to consider it as the possible cause of infected wounds from people who have been in coastal waters. The advisory said that the bacteria naturally live in coastal waters, and that V. vulnificus is primarily transmitted through open-wound contact. It also been transmitted in 10 percent of cases through eating raw or undercooked shellfish. “V. vulnificus wound infections have a short incubation period and are characterized by necrotizing skin and soft tissue infection, with or without hemorrhagic bullae,” the CDC warned. “Many people with V. vulnificus wound infection require intensive care or surgical tissue removal.” The CDC said the heat wave and rising sea surface temperatures likely contributed to the growing range of infections and noted that fatal infections have been reported in New York, Connecticut and North Carolina. Amid increasing water temperatures and extreme weather events (such as heat waves, flooding, and severe storms) associated with climate change, people who are at increased risk for V. vulnificus infection should exercise caution when engaging in coastal water activities, the CDC said. Updated at 10:48 a.m. ET Tags bacteria CDC Copyright 2023 Nexstar Media Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

Sep 05

Are infections in animals key to COVID’s trajectory?

Share this Article You are free to share this article under the Attribution 4.0 International license. <!– Topic <!– –> Tracking viral transmissions between humans and animals could help identify successful COVID mutations, researchers report. The COVID-19 pandemic was probably caused by the transmission of the SARS-CoV-2 virus from animals to humans, and it has been reported anecdotally that the virus can pass from humans to different animal species, too. To find out how the transmission of the virus between humans and animals affects its ability to infect and cause disease in humans, researchers have begun tracking the rates of inter-species transmission. By doing so, the researchers hope to gain insight into the likely ongoing trajectory of the virus. Their goal was to discover both the rates of transmission, and whether there were specific viral mutations that occurred frequently enough to suggest they were helping the virus adapt to a particular animal. Transmission of the virus in different non-human animals, such as mink and deer, could put the virus on different evolutionary trajectories that could affect its ability to infect and cause disease in humans—either in a positive or negative way. The researchers carried out statistical analyses based on all the available viral genome sequence data from four different animal species. “We found that humans transmitted the virus to cats, dogs, minks, and deer dozens of times,” says Jesse Shapiro, an associate professor in McGill University’s microbiology and immunology department and the senior author of the paper published in eLife. “But transmission from these animals back to humans is rarely observed—except for minks, which transmitted the virus back to humans on dozens of separate occasions.” The researchers identified just three mutations, all in the viral spike protein, which are most likely to help the virus adapt to infecting and transmitting in mink. They also found several mutations, many of which had not been previously reported, that were significantly associated with SARS-CoV-2 infections in deer. “Other recent studies have found that SARS-CoV-2 evolves particularly rapidly in deer, consistent with our discovery of a relatively large number of deer-associated mutations,” says Sana Naderi, the paper’s first author and a graduate student at McGill. “While many of these mutations are likely to help the virus replicate in deer, it remains to be seen if they make the virus more or less likely to infect humans.” The researchers hope that their results will spur greater sampling of SARS-CoV-2 from different animal species—including more poorly sampled species such as cats and dogs, as well as further sampling from both deer and mink which could be important reservoirs of genetic diversity for the virus. They suggest that these mutations could also be studied in lab experiments to determine if, and under what conditions, they affect replication and transmission of the virus—and, importantly, if their adaptation to one animal species comes with a trade off in terms of reduced adaptation to humans (or not). Source: McGill University

Sep 05

Sun Prairie American Legion and Auxiliary announce Sept. 13 Blood Drive

This month, the American Legion and Auxiliary will sponsor their final 2023 American Red Cross Community Blood Drive on Tuesday, Sept. 13, from 1-6 p.m., in Fellowship Hall at Sun Prairie United Methodist Church, 702 North St. The American Red Cross will be collecting whole blood and power red cells. Race to give blood this September × This page requires Javascript. Javascript is required for you to be able to read premium content. Please enable it in your browser settings. Featured Local Savings

Sep 05

10 years in prison for habitual drunk driver whose blood alcohol content was nearly 4 times the legal limit

KENDALL COUNTY, Texas – A San Antonio-area woman whose blood alcohol content was nearly four times the legal limit when taken into custody on a sixth DWI charge has been sentenced to 10 years in prison, court records obtained by KSAT Investigates show. Karon Shouse, 58, was sentenced last month in Kendall County District Court, nearly two years after investigators said she drove the wrong way down a street, nearly struck a man with her vehicle and then refused to stop for a Fair Oaks Ranch police officer who attempted to pull her over. Separate breath specimens provided by Shouse came back with blood alcohol content (BAC) levels of .315 and .308, nearly four times the legal limit to drive in Texas, Kendall County records showed. Shouse’s arrest occurred while she was on probation for felony DWI in Comal County, records show. Shouse, who was required to have an ignition interlock device installed on any vehicle she operated as part of the 2019 DWI plea agreement in Comal County, was driving a vehicle without one on the night of her arrest in Kendall County. Shouse, as part of an Aug. 16 guilty plea in Kendall County, was ordered to pay a $5,000 fine, $445 in court costs and was given credit for 183 days of time served. Shouse, who was in the process of being transferred to the Texas Department of Criminal Justice this week, will serve her sentence in a “therapeutic community,” court records show. A Therapeutic Community program provides treatment for inmates with a history of substance abuse, according to TDCJ’s website. “The sentence speaks for itself. The judge gave the maximum sentence allowed by law,” Shouse’s attorney, Mark Stevens, said via telephone Tuesday. History of DWI started in Bexar County For Shouse, her Kendall County arrest was her sixth time being charged with DWI since 2006, according to records compiled by KSAT Investigates from four area counties. Shouse racked up three DWI charges in a five-month period in Bexar County, misdemeanor court records obtained by KSAT show. Shouse was first charged with DWI in Bexar County in February 2006, while under investigation for a separate November 2004 drunk driving incident, according to court records. Shouse was eventually charged in the initial 2004 case, in April 2006, 17 months after San Antonio police said her vehicle struck a guardrail while driving along Loop 1604 North, according to charging paperwork. Shouse, who failed a standard field sobriety test and provided a breath specimen with a BAC over .08, suffered a cut to her head during the crash. Magistrate officials refused to accept her for booking after her arrest and instead sent her to a hospital to be treated, causing the misdemeanor case to be filed against her more than a year later, records show. Shouse was then charged with DWI-open container and driving while license invalid in July 2006, after officers said a cup of wine was found in her possession while she was driving drunk, court records show. Shouse was found guilty in April 2007 as part of a negotiated plea that called for the February 2006 charge to be dismissed and for her to plead no contest in the July 2006 case, records show. Months before signing the plea agreement, however, in January 2007, Shouse was found to have violated the conditions of her pretrial release, after an ignition interlock device determined Shouse had alcohol present on her breath while her vehicle was running. Shouse was eventually sentenced to 14 months of probation and ordered to pay fines and court costs, records show. Trouble elsewhere Two years later, in June 2009, Shouse was booked for felony DWI in Hays County. Shouse pleaded guilty in January 2010 and was ordered to serve 90 days in jail as part of a work-release program, court records show. The program, which called for Shouse to be released from jail on weekday mornings and to return at night, was later shortened to 66 days from the original 90, records show. In August 2018 Shouse was again arrested for felony DWI, this time in Comal County. In exchange for pleading guilty in September 2019, a ten-year prison sentence was set aside and Shouse was instead given ten years of probation, ordered to serve 960 hours of community service and serve 10 days in the county jail, a copy of the plea agreement shows. After Shouse’s most recent arrest in Kendall County, she was booked back into the Comal County Jail in November 2021, Comal County officials previously said. Shouse was transferred from the Comal County Jail to the East Texas Treatment Facility in January 2022, court records show.