Microsoft founder Bill Gates and his wife Melinda have said they will donate £10bn (£6.2bn) over the next 10 years to develop and deliver new vaccines.
Mr Gates, speaking at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, said the aim was to see 90% of children in developing countries immunised
Wow!
Doug
CDIstaffing.com
The needles are used to access ports implanted under the skin of chronically ill patients for repeated access to veins.
The Food and Drug Administration said October 2009 inspections of Nipro facilities in Japan found problems with the companies’ needles that could allow pieces of the port’s silicone core to become dislodged.
The inspections found 60 percent to 72 percent of Nipro’s needles tested had that problem, the FDA said.
Doug
CDIstaffing.com
Area health officials are bracing for another outbreak of flu as the peak of the season arrives next month.
With two strains of flu – seasonal and H1N1 or swine flu – circulating this year, health experts say area residents should still consider getting a flu vaccine from health departments, hospitals, pharmacies or physicians’ offices. Many are hosting vaccine clinics at their facilities or area retailers such as shopping malls in the coming weeks, and the H1N1 vaccine is free at many places.
“Although it’s less activity than we had in October, the threat is still there. There is a significant possibility that H1N1 will return in [a] third wave and potentially return at the same time as seasonal flu, which peaks for us in South Carolina in February and March,” said Joan Carroza, spokeswoman for Grand Strand Regional Medical Center. “We’re still encouraging people in high-risk groups to get the H1N1 vaccine. There’s plenty available.”
Doug
CDIstaffing.com
The U.S. health regulator approved Thoratec Corp’s (THOR.O) new heart pump for heart failure patients who are not acceptable candidates for transplantation, but asked the company to conduct a post-approval study.
Thoratec said it would start rollout of the device, HeartMate II, immediately for the new indication and that it has enough inventory to meet the expected rise in demand.
Thoratec has agreed to the post-approval study of 247 patients who will be followed until outcome or two years, whichever occurs first.
Two experimental pills for multiple sclerosis proved effective in clinical trials, raising the possibility for the first time that oral treatments might become available alongside the more cumbersome injections and infusions used to treat MS today.
Some patients taking the drugs—made by Switzerland’s Novartis AG and Germany’s Merck KGaA—experienced adverse events that researchers said need to be carefully weighed against the drugs’ benefits. The adverse events included herpes infections, a small number of cancer cases and a type of eye disease that can lead to blindness, according to the results of the clinical trials, which were published Wednesday by the New England Journal of Medicine.
Regulators including the U.S. Food and Drug Administration are deciding whether to approve the drugs for sale.
Oral drugs would mark a notable advancement in MS treatment. The main treatments used today—Copaxone or a group of drugs called interferons—usually need to be injected several times a week, which many patients find burdensome. The drugs are moderately effective in some patients and have few side effects but don’t work well in everyone.
A more potent drug called Tysabri is given by monthly infusion, and works well in many patients, but is associated with a serious side effect—a rare but potentially lethal brain infection.
“MS is still an area where there are few options, so we have to be grateful for any entering the arena,” said Mike Boggild, a neurologist who treats MS patients at the Walton Centre in Liverpool, England. “An oral agent is something patients have been asking for for many years
Doug
CDIstaffing.com
In addition to this, the company is to pump millions into an ‘Open Lab’ for independent research teams.
The company has 13,500 molecules which have been tested against the parasite which causes malaria.
One expert said more sharing of data could trigger advances like those that came from the human genome project.
The way in which pharmaceutical firms guard the secrets of their drugs and research has long been cited as an obstacle to disease research.
Doug
CDIstaffing.com
Two months ago it was the main topic of conversation, but now many have placed thoughts of the H1N1
virus on the back-burner.
However, health officials warn this isn’t the time to just shrug off the idea of getting swine flu.
H1N1 clinics are still in full force, but the turnout of those getting vaccinated is low.
Hundreds lined the streets of Parkersburg in October when the vaccination was only available for pregnant women and small children.
The vaccine is now available to everyone, but Mid-Ohio Valley Health Department’s executive director, Richard Wittberg says many stopped worrying about the virus after the first of the year.
“It’s not over. Because the vaccine is readily available and because it takes ten days to two weeks to become effective, now’s a great time to get it,” Wittberg said.
He says the next round of swine flu could come at any time within the next month or so. It isn’t expected to be quite as dramatic as the first, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t take precautions.
Doug
CDIstaffing.com
An exciting new advancement in the treatment of late stage breast cancer was recently reported at the University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center. Dr. William Dooley, director of surgical oncology at OU, stated that, “This therapy is a major advancement for women with later-stage breast cancer.”
A recent nationwide study concluded that heating up the breast tissue with microwaves helps to shrink tumors and increases the effectiveness of chemotherapy. In the past, most woman who were in the latter stages of breast cancer were forced to go through a mastectomy. With this new technology these women will have a much better chance of surviving cancer, without losing their breasts. Figures from the initial study show that the need for a mastectomy may be reduced up to 90%.
Dr. Dooley could not yet explain the exact cause for their success, but it seems as if the cancer cells are incredibly sensitive to the heat that is generated by the microwaves. Dr . Dooley also believed that there was no reason to think this treatment would not work on other forms of cancer.
Finding breast cancer treatments that do not require a mastectomy is one of the top goals that researchers have. Body image and self confidence go a long way in fully healing a patient who must go through this terrible ordeal.
Doug
CDIstaffing.com
The Food and Drug Administration wrapped up a safety review of the lung drug Spiriva HandiHaler, saying the product wasn’t associated with an increased risk of stroke or other cardiovascular problems.
Spiriva is approved to treat chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, which includes chronic bronchitis and emphysema. The product is a maintenance therapy designed to keep airways open.
In 2008, the agency started a safety review of Spiriva, co-marketed by Boehringer Ingelheim GmbH and Pfizer Inc. after receiving information from clinical studies that suggested the product might be associated with a higher risk of stroke. The agency was also looking at whether the drug caused an increase in heart attacks and deaths from cardiovascular causes.
“FDA has now completed its review and believes the available data do not support an association between the use of Spiriva HandiHaler and an increase risk for these serious adverse events,” the agency said in a statement posted to its Web site Thursday.
Doug
CDIstaffing.com
The world’s first artificial pancreas is on the way, potentially freeing millions of diabetes patients from insulin injections and blood sugar checks.
The Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation (JDRF) and Johnson & Johnson subsidiary Animas are working on a fully automated system to dispense insulin to patients based on real-time changes in blood sugar levels. They aim to have a first-generation system ready for regulatory review within the next four years.
Type 1 diabetes, which can affect anybody, is an autoimmune disease in which the immune system attacks and kills off the cells in the pancreas that produce insulin, a hormone that enables people to convert food into energy.
People with the disease need to measure their blood sugar many times throughout the day, typically by pricking a finger for a drop of blood, and inject themselves with insulin or use an insulin pump to keep blood sugar within a healthy range. This routine goes on for life.
“Ultimately, an artificial pancreas will deliver insulin as needed, minute-by-minute, throughout the day to maintain blood sugars within a target range,” said Alan Lewis, president and chief executive officer of JDRF.
“But even this early system could bring dramatic changes in the quality of life for the three million people in the US with type 1 diabetes, beginning to free kids and adults from testing, calculating and treating themselves throughout the day.”
The first-generation system will be partially automated. A continuous glucose monitor (CGM) will continuously read glucose levels through a sensor with a hair-thin sensor wire inserted just below the skin, typically on the abdomen.
Doug
