5000 Daily HIV Screening For Calabar Carnival

The United Nations Population Fund, UNPF, has put plans in place to screen 5,000 persons daily for HIV/AIDS, during the Calabar Carnival. The Programme Officer of UNPF in Nigeria, Mr. Araoyinbo Idowu, disclosed this to newsmen at the  weekend. Idowu said that UNPF will conduct the tests in collaboration with an NGO, Excellence Community Education Welfare Scheme, ECEWS. He said the fund will organise an awareness campaign tagged Wise Up Cross River, on a daily basis throughout the one month carnival. 
According to Idowu, “there are going to be some demonstrations by youths and various stakeholders during the HIV/AIDS awareness campaign. In the course of the campaign, there will be various activities including one-on-one counselling, music, graphic designs, tattoo inscription and games. Also, many young volunteers and other stakeholders will be on stage to entertain people each day at the condom zone.” 
The Programme Officer said that the campaign was aimed at sensitizing youths on the dangers of HIV/AIDS and the need for safe sex. He said the programme will also bring together commercial sex workers, student organisations and those already living with the virus, to exchange knowledge on the disease. According to him, the organisation would mobilise youths from the 18 local government areas in the state to participate in the programme. 
Idowu also said that condoms would be distributed free during the month-long campaign. He added that UNPF decided to bring the campaign to the carnival because of its popularity and mass participation.

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Electric implant could end agony of Arthritis

A tiny electronic implant could end the agony of rheumatoid arthritis (RA) for hundreds of thousands of sufferers. According to findings of a new study which was published in the ‘New England Journal of Medicine’, the pacemaker-like micro-regulator device, which is fitted under the skin near the collarbone, sends electrical pulses to a key nerve that helps block the pain of inflamed joints. Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is an autoimmune disease in which the body’s immune system – which normally protects its health by attacking foreign substances like bacteria and viruses – mistakenly attacks the joints.
That inflammation from RA causes redness, warmth, swelling, and pain within the joint and affects joints on both sides of the body, such as both hands, both wrists, or both knees. The mailonline reported that the development of this device, lends hope to millions globally who suffer from RA.
The debilitating disease is caused by the body’s own immune system attacking joint tissue, causing inflammation, stiffness, and fatigue. If left untreated, joints can lose shape and alignment and nearby cartilage and bone can be damaged, leading to permanent disability. Currently, patients typically take a cocktail of powerful drugs to dampen the immune system.
People who use them are more likely to become ill from infections such as pneumonia. But experts have found that using electrical pulses to stimulate the vagus nerve can have a similar effect without the side effects. The vagus sends signals from the brain to key organs such as the spleen, triggering a decrease in the production of proteins called cytokines that help control the immune system and can cause inflammation. Scientists said that resulted in reduced swelling in joints and a decrease in joint pain and damage in people with rheumatoid arthritis.
Scientists behind the device, now being tested in the Netherlands, hope it would be available in the United Kingdom (UK) by 2020. One patient who took part in a pilot study said it was so successful it felt as if she did not have the disease any more. She said: “I have my life back, like before I got arthritis.”

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Immunotherapy Can Help HIV Patients

Immunotherapy has been considered potentially promising for many different kinds of cancers, and now there is fresh hope that the same method could be used to treat or functionally cure HIV.
These are the findings of a study published in the ‘New England Journal of Medicine’. Immunotherapy, also called biologic therapy, is a type of cancer treatment designed to boost the body’s natural defences to fight cancer. It uses substances either made by the body or in a laboratory to improve or restore immune system function.
They said during the clinical, The United States, U.S., researchers said they examined a total of 24 chronically HIVinfected participants in clinical trials conducted at the University of Pennsylvania (Penn), the University of Alabama at Birmingham, and the U.S. National Institutes of Health.
Reacting to the development, Senior Author, Pablo Tebas, who is director of the AIDS Clinical Trials Unit at Penn, said they found injections of one broadly neutralising HIV antibody (bNAb), known as VRC01, were safe.
He said it generated high levels of the antibody and modestly delayed the time of HIV viral rebound, but suppression did not surpass eight weeks in the majority of participants. Tebas said the study only looked at one antibody and they believe combinations of more potent bNAbs may help successfully control the AIDS virus.
“As a result, this method marks a first step toward the ultimate goal of durable suppression of HIV in the absence of antiretroviral therapy. For the near future, it is unlikely that we will be able to fully eradicate HIV once a person has been infected. But a functional cure is a reasonable intermediate goal,” he said.
Tebas said a functional HIV cure means that while the virus would still exist in a person’s body in extremely small amounts, virus replication would be durably suppressed, disease progression drastically slowed, and symptoms of infection stopped all without the need for daily medications.
He stressed that the goal of immunotherapy is to eliminate the need to take a pill every single day while simultaneously chipping away at the latent reservoir of virusinfected cells.
He, however, stressed that scientists are still years away from that goal. “If a person is able to be functionally cured of HIV, long-term follow-up will be essential to ensure that the virus doesn’t return to high levels.’’ Tebas said it was noted that many participants were also found to have

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"We Live With Rats and Snakes" - Nigerian IDPs

The internally displaced persons, IDPs, in Taraba State have raised alarm that they are living and sleeping with dangerous snakes, rats and other animals in the camp located at Mutum-Biu, headquarters of Gasol Local Government Area of the state. They disclosed this when an NGO, Marry&Prolific Entertainment, visited the camp to donate food items to them.
The NGO visited the camp with food items, including bags of rice, tubers of yams, cartons of noodles, assorted soft drinks and cash to aid the people. Briefing the visitors on their challenges in the camp, those who spoke claimed they had been finding it very difficult to cope with the situations, lamenting that many of them had lost their loved ones to lack of food and medical facilities in the three years they had lived in the camp. 
Malliam Watki, a 78-year-old woman, who was displaced by the Wukari crisis, told the media: “Recently, we have been living with dangerous snakes in our rooms here. We also live in the same rooms with rats and other animals. The recent snake we found in my room was a big python. We struggled to kill the snake for nine days. It would run and hide in places where we could not find it. It was very difficult before outsiders came and helped us to kill it.”
The coordinator of the IDPs camp, Mallam Inusa Bala, while receiving the items, lamented that the displaced persons in the camp were going through hardship due to various sicknesses, hunger and starvation. He said: “At the time we came to the camp, we were up to 9,000. Some of us particularly children, died from different deceases, hunger and starvation. Some left to seek for means of survival, while others were fortunate to get back to their homes. We are now about 4,000 persons.”

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Sleep Deprivation Could Affect Your Waistline

In order to increase awareness on the negative impact of poor sleep on health, scientists have alerted the global community that too little sleep may contribute to a larger waistline.
These findings are published in the ‘European Journal of Clinical Nutrition’ on November 2. According to the researchers, sleep deprivation didn’t have a significant effect on how many calories people burned.
That means those with sleep deprivation had a net gain of 385 calories a day, the researchers said. However, people with too little sleep had higher fat and lower protein intake than those who got enough sleep, but both groups had similar carbohydrate intake.
Sleep plays an important role in the physical health of humans. For example, sleep is involved in healing and repair of the heart and blood vessels. Ongoing sleep deficiency is linked to an increased risk of heart disease, kidney disease, high blood pressure, diabetes, and stroke.
Similarly, studies show that a good night’s sleep improves learning. Whether one is learning mathematics, how to play the piano, how to perfect golf swing, or how to drive a car, sleep helps enhance learning and problem-solving skills.
Sleep also helps individuals to pay attention, make decisions, and be creative. The new research included 11 studies with a total of 172 participants. Compared to those who got enough sleep, those who were sleep-deprived consumed an average of 385 more calories a day.
That’s equal to the calories in about four and a half slices of bread. Reacting to the development, Senior Study Author, Gerda Pot, who is with the Diabetes and Nutritional Sciences Division at King’s College London and Vrije University in Amsterdam, said:
“The main cause of obesity is an imbalance between calorie intake and expenditure and this study adds to accumulating evidence that sleep deprivation could contribute to this imbalance. So, there may be some truth in the saying ‘early to bed, early to rise, makes a man healthy and wise.”

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How Music Prolongs Life

IF you love listening to music, you’re in good company. Charles Darwin once remarked: “If I had my life to live over again, I would have made a rule to read some poetry and listen to some music at least once every week.” Albert Einstein declared: “If I were not a physicist, I would probably be a musician.” Jimi Hendrix called music his “religion.”
Music is said to be food for the soul and, according to Joshua Bolarinwa, a medical doctor at the University Teaching Hospital, Ilorin (UITH),  in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN), listening to it often is good for one’s health.
“Listening to music is a good antidote for reducing stress, which  is responsible for over 60 per cent of the diseases common to most patients,” he said.
Music works on the autonomic nervous system, the part of the nervous system responsible for controlling blood pressure, heartbeat and brain function – and also the limbic system – the part of the brain that controls feelings and emotions. According to one piece of research, these systems react sensitively to music.
When slow rhythms are played, blood pressure and heartbeat slow down which helps to breathe more slowly, thus reducing muscle tension in the neck, shoulders, stomach and back. Experts say apart from physical tension, music also reduces psychological tension in the mind.
In other words, when one feels pain, frightening, frustration and anger tense up hundreds of muscles in the back. Listening to music on a regular basis helps the body to, however, relax physically and mentally and thus prevent back pain.
Experts say listening to music during exercise can give one better workout in several ways. Scientists claim it can increase endurance, boost mood and  distract from any discomfort experienced during the workout.
Dr Robert Herdegen of America’s Hampden-Sydney College in Virginia looked at the effects of 12 men riding a bicycle for 10 minutes while listening to music one day. He compared it to the same men riding bicycles without music for 10 minutes the following day.
On the days the men exercised listening to music, they travelled 11 per cent further, compared to the days they did not listen to music.
Researchers also found that men’s levels of exertion were at their lowest when listening to music. Other studies show that listening to music releases endorphins – natural ‘feel good’ hormones that lift mood and give  motivation to carry on longer with exercise.
For many people suffering from memory loss, the spoken language has become meaningless. Music can help patients remember tunes or songs and get in touch with their history. This is because the part of the brain which processes music is located next to memory. Research shows that people with memory loss respond best to music of their choice.
Music can also make one happy. “I don’t sing because I’m happy; I’m happy because I sing,” says William James. Research proves that when one listens to music of choice, the brain releases dopamine, a “feel-good” neurotransmitter. Valorie Salimpoor, a neuroscientist at McGill University, injected eight music-lovers with a radioactive substance that binds to dopamine receptors after they listened to their favorite music. A PET scan showed that large amounts of dopamine were released, which biologically caused the participants to feel emotions like happiness, excitement, and joy. So the next time you need an emotional boost, listen to your favourite tunes for 15 minutes. That’s all it takes to get a natural high. “I think music in itself is healing. It’s an explosive expression of humanity. It’s something we are all touched by. No matter what culture we’re from,” says Billy Joel.
Listening to music one enjoys decreases levels of the stress hormone cortisol in the body, which counteracts the effects of chronic stress.

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Eating date fruit could increase sexual performance

Two health experts yesterday in Lagos advised men to eat dates fruit, saying its consumption would enhance their sexual performance and increase their libido.
They told the News Ancy of Nigeria (NAN) that dates fruit, when taken appropriately by men would also improve health conditions in many other ways especially from shame of inability to satisfy their sexual partners.
Dr Aminu Kazeem, a sexual health therapist who works at Energy for Sex Clinic in Lagos said men who had performance problems should incorporate dates in their diet.
He said: “A date fruit is a one-seeded fruit of the date palm tree, which is botanically known as Phoenix dactylifera and belongs to the family of Palmae (Arecaceae) plant.
“The common English names are dried dates, dates, date palm, etc; usually oblong, with varying sizes, shapes, colours, consistencies and quality. Eating dates will promote sperm quality and quantity as it is one of the best natural fruits used for male fertility. It also increases the size of testes in men and the size of breast in womenge.
“Consuming the fruit can help to treat sexual disorders because it is a natural aphrodisiac.” He explained that dates contained high levels of estradiol and flavonoid which aid sperm motility and increase sperm count.
He also urged men who want to improve their masculinity to eat the fruit, stressing that “sexual health is important for both husband and wife for a good and everlasting relationship.”
A nutritionist, Mrs Toyin Adeola, also said that eating dates could treat sexual impotence, help to improve sexual activities and increase the production of sex hormones.
She added that the fruit was good for the health of both males and female. She said “date contains many vitamins and minerals which are essential to boost sexual power even in older persons.
“The fruit is packed with amino acids for sexual stamina, as well as a good dose of fruity sugars which make them sweet.” The nutritionist, who described the best way it could be taken to achieve best result, however, advised diabetic patients to seek doctor’s advice before consuming dates.
She said: “It is advisable to remove the seed and grind seven or eight pieces of dates and soak in water for about 2-3 hours. Add one glass of milk and one teaspoon of honey and drink at least once a day to boost sexual power.”
She also advised both men and women to eat natural foods that could enhance sexual stamina than taking pills made with chemicals which may harm sexual health.
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Fresh Alert On Killer Germs At Airports

A new study published yesterday in medical journal Clinical Microbiology and Infection has alerted that toilet doors at some airports could be harbouring killer superbug, Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA).
The study revealed that the superbug could be transferred between tourists on airport toilet door handles and then spread to different destinations across the world and investigated how easily drug-resistant bacteria could hitch a ride with travellers as they jet across the world.
According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), resistance to first-line drugs to treat infections caused by Staphlylococcus aureus- a common cause of severe infections in health facilities and the community- is widespread. People with MRSA are estimated to be 64 per cent more likely to die than people with a non-resistant form of the infection.

Several studies have shown that without effective antimicrobials for prevention and treatment of infections, medical procedures such as organ transplantation, cancer chemotherapy, diabetes management and major surgery (for example, caesarean sections or hip replacements) become very high risk. It has also been shown that antimicrobial resistance increases the cost of health care with lengthier stays in hospitals and more intensive care required.
Also, health officials have confirmed 13 cases of a sometimes deadly and often drug-resistant fungal infection, Candida auris, which has been reported in the United States (U.S.) for the first time.
The infection, which often spreads in hospitals and other health care settings, was identified by the U.S. Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in June 2016 as an emerging global threat.
In Nigeria, the issue is further compounded by lack of maintenance culture in her airport facilities.ytyuThe deplorable service-delivery at these airports, including the international airports in Lagos, Kano, Port Harcourt and Abuja calls for serious interrogation and introspection.
In the last one year, the deteriorating state of infrastructure and services at the nation’s Aviation sector has again called to question, the readiness of relevant authorities in securing the country’s navigational space.
Recently, it was reported that power supply was disrupted for over 24 hours in one of the country’s major airports. Although power outage is not a new phenomenon in the country, it is embarrassing for that to be experienced at an airport of international stature.
Beyond that incident of blackout, which is not the first at an airport in the country, most facilities are in a state of disrepair. The result is that there has been poor service delivery to the airport users.
With this recent threat announced by the WHO, concerned users of Nigerian airport say Government has to step up his game to ensure that people flying into the country do not bring the killer germs with them.

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How Cigarette Smoking Causes 150 Lung Mutations

In order to highlight the danger inherent in cigarette, scientists in the United States, U.S. have revealed that people who smoke one pack of cigarette a day develop an average of 150 extra mutations in their lungs every year.
According to findings of a new study released in Washington yesterday, smokers have higher risk of developing lung cancer. The study published in the U.S. ‘Science Journal’, revealed that cigarettes contain more than 7,000 chemicals, including over 70 known to cause cancer.
Tobacco, a product prepared from the leaves of the tobacco plant by curing them, contains the alkaloid nicotine, which is a stimulant. Tobacco products are products made entirely or partly of leaf tobacco as raw material, which are intended to be smoked, sucked, chewed or snuffed.
All contain the highly addictive psychoactive ingredient, nicotine. Tobacco use is a risk factor for many diseases, especially those affecting the heart, liver, and lungs, as well as many cancers. In 2008, the World Health Organisation, WHO, named tobacco as the world’s single greatest cause of preventable death.
The WHO estimates that smoking claims the lives of at least six million people every year. Reacting to the new study, Ludmil Alexandrov who is from Los Alamos National Laboratory and co- author of the report, said apart from the lungs, other organs were also affected by smoking.
According to a NAN report, the study showed that a pack of cigarette a day led to an estimated average of 97 mutations in each cell in the larynx, 39 for the pharynx, 23 for the mouth, 18 for the bladder, and six in every cell of the liver, each year.
Alexandrov said: “Before now, we had a large body of epidemiological evidence linking smoking with cancer, but now we can actually observe and quantify the molecular changes in the DNA due to cigarette smoking.’’
He said previous studies had associated cigarette smoking with increased risk for 17 different types of cancer, including cancer in tissue not directly exposed to smoke; it has remained unclear how smoking causes cancers.
Alexandrov said for this study, researchers looked at over 5,000 tumours, comparing cancers from smokers with cancers from people who had never smoked.
“They found particular molecular fingerprints of DNA damage called mutational signatures in the smokers’ DNA, and they counted the number of these particular mutations in different tumours.”

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Excessive Energy Drinks Can Cause Hepatisis

In order to check rising global hepatitis, scientists have found a link between the consumption of energy drink and acute hepatitis. This is the findings of the study, ‘Rare cause of acute hepatitis: a common energy drink’ published in the BMJ of November 2, 2016. In the research, Jennifer Nicole Harb, M.D., from the University of Florida, College of Medicine in Gainesville and colleagues described the case of a 50-year-old previously healthy man who presented with malaise, anorexia, abdominal pain, nausea, vomiting, jaundice, scleral icterus, and dark urine.
The patient had reported drinking four to five energy drinks per day for the three weeks preceding admission. Other doctors from the University of Florida, College of Medicine in Gainesville, who participated in the study are Zachary A Taylor, Vikas Khullar and Maryam Sattari.
The Health Day reported that the researchers identified jaundice and right upper quadrant abdominal tenderness on physical examination. Laboratory studies showed transaminitis and evidence of chronic hepatitis C infection. Echogenic liver and diffuse gallbladder wall thickening were revealed in ultrasound scan. “In liver biopsy, severe acute hepatitis was seen with bridging necrosis and marked cholestasis. Supportive treatment was provided until complete symptom resolution and marked improvement in laboratory abnormalities occurred.
“The development of acute hepatitis in this patient was likely secondary to excessive energy drink consumption,” the authors wrote. “Energy drinks as well as other over the-counter supplements should be considered by clinicians in the work-up of patients with acute hepatitis, particularly once other etiologies have been excluded.”

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