No amount of alcohol consumption is healthy and any slight health benefits of drinking alcohol are clearly offset by the risks, according to a major new study in the United States.

The study by the University of Washington’s Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation looked at levels of alcohol use and its health effects in 195 countries, including the US, between 1990 and 2016.

The researchers built a database of more than a thousand alcohol studies and data sources. The goal was to estimate how alcohol affects the risk of 23 health problems. The number that came out, in the end, was zero. Anything more than that was associated with health risks.

“Our results show that the safest level of drinking is none,” researchers explain in the study published in The Lancet. “This level is in conflict with most health guidelines, which espouse health benefits associated with consuming up to two drinks per day.”

“What has been underappreciated, what’s surprising, is that no amount of drinking is good for you,” said Emmanuela Gakidou, a professor of global health at the University of Washington and the senior author of the report.

“People should no longer think that a drink or two a day is good for you. What’s best for you is to not drink at all,” she said.

This new data concludes that “consuming zero standard drinks daily minimizes the overall risk to health,” and recommends that countries with high rates of drinking do more to prevent a troubling rise in the use of alcohol.

Prior studies have suggested that moderate drinking can help prevent some kinds of heart disease and diabetes, among other medical conditions. But the new study found that many other health risks offset and overwhelm the health benefits.

The top 10 countries for drinking are all in Europe, according to the study, which also identifies men as most likely to abuse alcohol around the world. The countries with the least alcohol consumption were predominantly Muslim. Drinking alcohol is prohibited in Islam.

The report found that 2.8 million people across the globe died in 2016 of alcohol-related causes. Those deaths include alcohol-related cancer and cardiovascular diseases, infectious diseases such as tuberculosis, intentional injury such as violence and self-harm, and traffic accidents and other unintentional injuries such as drowning and fires.

The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) estimates that 88,000 US residents die of alcohol-related causes each year.

US health officials have highlighted the problem of binge drinking and have said that lawmakers should consider a variety of actions, including alcohol taxes and limits on the density of alcohol retailers.

Source: Presstv

Medical staff are fleeing hospitals in Cameroon’s troubled English-speaking regions after attacks this month left several nurses dead and many others wounded. Medics say they are stuck between a military that accuses them of aiding armed separatists and rebel fighters who say hospitals betray them to the army.

Elvis Ndansi, of the Cameroon trade union of nurses, says the killings and abuse provoked outrage in the medical corps.

“The military comes, chase them out of the hospital, brutalize them, beat them. As medical personnel, we all stand to condemn these acts and say they are very wrong. Medical personnel are supposed to be protected in times of war. They are there to take care of all casualties, be they from the military, be they from the Ambazonians or secessionists. Their role is to save lives,” Ndansi said.

Governor Bernard Okalia Bilai of the English-speaking southwest region denies the military is responsible for the attacks, saying the separatists seeking an English-speaking state in Cameroon are the ones to blame. He says he has instructed the military to protect hospitals from armed gangs.

Despite the danger of traveling in the region, hundreds of medics showed up Wednesday for a funeral to honor Nancy Azah and her husband Njong Padisco. The couple, both nurses, were shot dead last week, reportedly by Cameroonian troops.

Nurse Arrey Rose says the association of nurses called on the medical community to show solidarity by attending the funeral service.

“We have mobilized to let the world know that doctors, nurses, laboratory technicians and pharmacists are tortured and killed just for saving lives,” Rose said. “God spared mine when I was pulled out of hospital and beaten just because I was accused of hiding terrorists. Many are dead, many are wounded.”

The violence has led patients and medical staff to desert hospitals in both the northwest and southwest.

Eighteen-year-old Mundi Ernestine says that when she took her younger brother to Bamenda regional hospital, there was no one to treat him.

“God has been sustaining him,” Ernestine said. “We were not attended to in the hospital for a week because the staff was absent. We had to carry him on our back through the bush to Bamenda, which is a bit calm. He is recovering, but my fear is that many are dying in the bushes just because there is no nurse to help.”

The Cameroon Medical Council says, due to the ongoing conflict, the exact number of medical staff who have fled the two volatile regions is unknown.

Governor Bilai is calling on them to return. He says all political leaders and civil society groups should educate runaway staff to go back to their work, especially now that the military is protecting medical facilities.

More than 300 civilians and security forces have been killed in Cameroon’s English-speaking regions since 2016, when separatists launched their drive for an independent state they call Ambazonia.

The United Nations says at least 200,000 people have been internally displaced in the conflict and tens of thousands have fled to neighboring Nigeria.

Source: VOA

The Israeli company NUFiltration (NUF) that specializes in water purification and filtration systems is implementing its unique patent to help fight a cholera epidemic that is affecting Cameroon. The water systems will be supplied under the auspices of the Israeli Agency for International Development Cooperation (MASHAV) and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Israel.

In Cameroon there is currently a major crisis due to the spread of cholera that is affecting many water sources and turning them into sources of the disease. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Israel through MASHAV and the ambassador of Israel in Cameroon, Ran Gidor, decided to take the initiative to help Cameroon in the current crisis.

For this, they contacted the Israeli company NUFiltration, which developed innovative special water purification systems. Through its system, the purification is done manually and without the need for a source of electrical energy or special chemicals. The system can work anywhere and can supply 8 liters of high-quality drinking water in a minute, managing to meet the needs of about 500 people in one day.

The NUF water purification system is registered as an original worldwide patent in which the water is purified through a medical filter used in the dialysis process.

In recent months, NUF technology has even been used by UN agencies to be used in two UN camps in Congo and Mali.

The technology used in NUF was invented by Prof. Yoram Lass, former Director General of the Ministry of Health of Israel and former congressman of the Israeli Labour Party. Mino Negrin, an entrepreneur and entrepreneur who has been active in the area of water purification for years, bought the patent and founded the company NUFiltration to develop the product and take it to different parts of the world.

Source: Jerusalemonline

Nine people were killed and 16 injured in a blaze that broke out early Monday at a hospice for the terminally ill near Taipei, fire officials said.

All 36 people, including three staff, were evacuated after the fire started in the hospice which is located on the seventh floor of a nine-storey hospital in New Taipei city.

The fire broke out at 4.36 a.m. and was put out at 5.37 a.m., after 76 vehicles and 208 firemen were dispatched to the scene.

Sixteen had cardiac arrests and seven were revived.

The other nine died with the cause of death given as smoke inhalation, according to the local fire department.

New Taipei fire department chief Huang Te-ching said the cause of the fire was still being investigated and denied reports that the sprinkler system had malfunctioned.

“The sprinkler device was on but there’s some distance between its location and where the fire started so the fire couldn’t be immediately put out,” he told reporters.

CCTV footage on local media showed staff rushing through the hospice corridors, carrying patients out in their arms or in wheelchairs to evacuate them after the fire broke out.

Local media said 10 of the 16 are in serious condition. Some were rushed to several nearby hospitals.

Local media quoted some patients’ relatives saying they heard a blast and suspected that an oxygen tank might have exploded, causing the fire.

Premier William Lai apologised to the public and expressed condolences over the tragedy.

“We will review the cause of the incident to prevent a similar situation from happening again,” he said.

The fire was believed to have started in Ward 7A23, where four patients and one migrant worker were staying.

A hospital bed’s faulty motor is believed to have caused a short circuit which started the fire, reported local media.

(Source: AFP)

U.N. officials warn the deadly Ebola virus could be spread by refugees leaving the Democratic Republic of Congo’s North Kivu province. Officials are urging neighboring countries to increase surveillance at border crossings.

The number of confirmed cases in Congo’s new outbreak of the virus has risen to 13, including three deaths, the nation’s health ministry said late Saturday.

This latest outbreak was announced Wednesday with four confirmed cases, a week after the previous outbreak in DRC’s northwest had been declared over, having killed 33 people. It was not clear whether the new outbreak, more than 2,500 kilometers (1,553 miles) away, was related.

More than 100 armed groups are involved in long-standing conflicts in DRC’s North Kivu province. Ongoing fighting and instability in the region are adding layers of complexity and difficulty to international efforts to combat an Ebola outbreak in the region.

At least two decades of conflict has displaced more than 1 million of the province’s 8 million inhabitants. Peter Salama, World Health Organization emergency response chief, told VOA an additional threat was posed by refugees. He warned that some of those fleeing into neighboring Uganda, Tanzania and Burundi might be taking the infection with them.

“So, not only do you have the problem of tracking that internal displacement, but then you have the potential exportation of infection across borders,” Salama said. “And, that is why we are already working with the government of Uganda, particularly, but also Rwanda, which shares a border as well with northern Kivu, to be fully prepared for any eventualities across the border.”

The U.N. refugee agency is lending its expertise to this situation. It is preparing shelters for at least 1,000 vulnerable internally displaced persons and other extremely vulnerable people in the Ebola-affected Beni area. It also is undertaking protection and monitoring activities.

UNHCR spokesman Andrej Mahecic said his agency’s staff in Uganda, Rwanda and Tanzania were on Ebola alert.

“Specifically, in Uganda, we have a continuous influx from the DRC. Our operation has intensified the awareness-raising among the refugee and host communities. We have also increased the infection control and outbreak preparedness measures,” Mahecic said. “And, we also are preparing for entry screening. That could be the temperature checks for arriving Congolese refugees at the borders.”

Mahecic said around 92,000 Congolese refugees have fled to Uganda so far this year. He said they are continuing to arrive at an average rate of between 100 and 200 a day.

Source: VOA

It may be impossible to use a vaccine to tackle Democratic Republic of Congo’s new Ebola outbreak, which has spread over 10s of kilometres and may have begun in May, a senior World Health Organization official said on Thursday.

Officials have not yet confirmed the strain of Ebola that has killed 20 people and sickened four more, including two health workers, and it could be the Zaire, Sudan or Bundibugyo strain, WHO’s emergency response chief Peter Salama said.

If it is the Zaire strain, the Merck vaccine used in the last outbreak may be an option, otherwise the situation will be much more complex “and we may not have any vaccine options”, he told Reuters at WHO’s headquarters in Geneva.

(Source: Reuters)

A world AIDS assembly opens in Amsterdam on Monday hoping to harness the star power of activists Elton John and Prince Harry to bolster the battle against an epidemic experts warn may yet spiral out of control. Thousands of delegates — researchers, campaigners, activists and people living with the killer virus — will attend the 22nd International AIDS Conference amid warnings that “dangerous complacency” may cause an unstoppable resurgence.

In recent days, experts have alerted that new HIV infections, while down overall, have surged in some parts of the world as global attention has waned and funding has levelled off.

And they lamented that too sharp a focus on virus-suppressing treatment may have diverted attention from basic prevention programmes such as condom distribution, with the result that the AIDS-causing virus is still spreading easily among vulnerable groups.

“The encouraging reductions in new HIV infections that occurred for about a decade has emboldened some to declare that we are within reach of ending AIDS,” Peter Piot, virus researcher and founder of the UNAIDS agency, said last week.

However, “there is absolutely no evidence to support this conclusion,” he insisted, and warned: “The language on ending AIDS has bred a dangerous complacency.”

A UNAIDS report warned of a long and difficult road ahead even as it reported a drop in new infections and AIDS deaths, and a record number of people on life-saving antiretroviral therapy (ART).

These hard-fought gains could be reversed, experts said Sunday as the finishing touches were put on the venue that will host some 15,000 delegates — also including celebrities Charlize Theron and Conchita — for five days.

An alarming rate of new infections coupled with an exploding young population in hard-hit countries could spell “a crisis of epic proportions,” said Mark Dybul, a veteran American AIDS researcher and diplomat.

“Bad things will happen if we don’t have more money,” he told a pre-conference, saying the world was “probably at the highest risk ever of losing control of this epidemic.”

‘No’ to war on drugs

Dybul and colleagues said donor and domestic funding has dropped significantly and would likely continue to decline, from about 20.6 billion euros ($24.1 billion) last year — most of it financed from the domestic budgets of nations with the heaviest AIDS burden.

According to UNAIDS, the funding gap is almost $7 billion per year.

Under Donald Trump, the US administration has proposed massive spending cuts, though these have so far failed to pass through Congress.

The United States is by far the biggest funder of the global AIDS response.

The immune system-attacking HIV virus has infected nearly 80 million people since the early 1980s. More than 35 million have died.

Today, data show the infection rate is rising in about 50 countries, and has more than doubled in eastern Europe and central Asia.

Experts regret that the focus on prevention has faded.

Last year’s 1.8 million new infections showed that “unless we did something completely drastic, we will not get anywhere near” the target of no more than 500,000 in 2020, said Nduku Kilonzo of Kenya’s National AIDS Control Council.

“We have a crisis and it is a prevention crisis,” she said.

At high risk are sex workers, gay men and people who inject drugs — many of whom are forced onto society’s fringes by repressive laws in their countries.

At the conference, NGOs will launch a liberalisation campaign titled: “Just say no to the war on drugs,” a direct challenge to the 1980s Reagan administration’s “Just say no” message at the height of America’s “war on drugs”.

The programme’s criminalisation of drug use has compounded the stigma and discrimination experienced by users.

(AFP)

Some senior staff working for Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) in Africa have allegedly used “very young” local prostitutes, the BBC reported on Thursday, citing former staff members of the renowned charity. The not-for-profit group said it took the allegations seriously – which according to the BBC involved logistical staff, and not doctors or nurses – but said it had so far been unable to confirm the claims and urged anyone with information to come forward.

The aid industry has been shaken by reports of sexual wrongdoing since it emerged in February that Oxfam staff paid for sex in Haiti during a relief mission after a 2010 earthquake. A former employee based in MSF’s London office told the BBC she had seen a senior staff member bring girls back to MSF accommodation while posted in Kenya.

“The girls were very young and rumoured to be prostitutes,” she said, adding that it was “implicit” that they were there for sex. She said some of the older, long-standing male aid workers took advantage of their positions.

“I felt that, with some of the older guys, there was definitely an abuse of power,” she said. “They’d been there for a long time and took advantage of their exalted status as a Western aid worker.”

She questioned what the charity knew, saying: “There’s definitely a feeling that certain predatory men were seen as too big to fail.”  “It is quite breathtaking,” former aid worker Shaista Aziz says on claims MSF staff used local prostitutes.

Another female employee who worked with HIV patients in central Africa said the use of local sex workers was widespread. “There was this older colleague, who actually moved a woman into the (charity) compound. It was pretty obvious that she was a prostitute but he’d call her his girlfriend,” she said.

A third whistleblower described how a senior colleague boasted of trading medication for sex with girls in Ebola-hit Liberia.

“He said, ‘Oh it’s so easy. It’s so easy to barter medication with these easy girls in Liberia’,” she told the programme. “He was suggesting lots of the young girls who had lost their parents to the Ebola crisis, that they would do anything sexual in return for medication.”

The BBC said it had not been able to verify that particular allegation. In an email to FRANCE 24, the head of press for MSF UK stringently denied the claim that medicines have been traded for sex, a practice she said would be “completely abhorrent”.

In all, eight female ex-MSF workers came forward in the BBC report, saying the charity, which employs 42,000 people worldwide, has a “toxic” culture. In a statement, the agency said, “We do not tolerate abuse, harassment or exploitation within MSF.”

“We are sorry for any instances where people have been subjected to harassment, abuse or otherwise mistreated and/or felt that it was not adequately dealt with.” “We know that MSF is not immune to these issues and we take any reports seriously,” the charity’s statement added.

But it said that “based on the information provided, we have been unable to confirm the specific allegations”. “We would urge anyone with any concerns to report them via MSF’s confidential whistleblowing mechanisms so that we can take action,” it said. MSF said 20 people were sacked in 2017 for sexual abuse or harassment, and 10 people the year before.

(FRANCE 24 with AP, AFP, REUTERS)

A team of AIDS researchers in Hong Kong says its new research, tested on mice, indicates a functional cure for HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, eventually leading to a new antibody that could be used for both prevention and treatment.

The findings, published in the Journal of Clinical Investigation, come as China faces a growing epidemic among high-risk groups, such as sex workers and men who have sex with men.

The UN-supported AIDS Data Hub says about 850,000 people in China are infected with HIV, which disables the immune system and makes people far more vulnerable to infections and disease.

A team led by Professor Chen Zhiwei at Hong Kong University’s AIDS Institute says its discovery, tested on mice, shows the new antibody can help control the virus and eliminate infected cells.

The antibody would be able to treat all varieties of HIV – a first, Chen said – as there is no one vaccine to treat the many different types of HIV viruses.

“For our newly discovered bispecific antibody, it works for all of them, so that’s the major difference,” Chen told Reuters.

Chen and his team say they aim to bring the antibody into clinical trials within a timeframe of three to five years.

Chen said a “functional cure” meant the virus level would be so low as to be undetectable in the body, as long as patients kept taking injections of the antibody, perhaps on a quarterly basis, or less frequently.

Those infected with HIV can keep the virus under control with antiretroviral drugs that stop it from infecting new cells.

However, treatments must be taken daily and do not eliminate the infected cells from the body. So the virus can still exist, and symptoms return, if patients stop taking medication properly.

The new antibody would have a significantly longer half-life than current treatments, and could, for example, be administered on a quarterly basis, Chen said, making it easier than the daily treatment most HIV-infected patients face.

Promising results did not mean the treatment would be readily available soon, said Andrew Chidgey, chief executive of the charity group AIDS Concern in Hong Kong.

“Governments are being very slow to implement programmes here,” he added. “So just because a treatment becomes available, doesn’t mean that people will get it, or that it will have an impact.”

(Source: Reuters)

After realizing that girls often skipped school every month because they couldn’t afford sanitary pads, Feka Parchibell is on a mission to make cheaper options available to students from disadvantaged communities in Cameroon.

Feka, a teacher, is the founder of Hope for Vulnerable and Orphans (HOVO) an organization that helps teach youth life skills and seeks to empower them through entrepreneurship, leadership and agriculture.

Feka learnt to make washable pads using fabric through her organization’s partners, Rose Academies that’s based in the United States.

We do not have the money to buy the fabrics so it is not easy. The need is really huge and then getting into some of these communities is not easy. It’s really-really risky and challenging because we have to use the motto bikes, use public transports. So it’s really not easy.

The pads made from cotton, flannel, fleece fabrics and towels also have a fastener.

Washable pads provide an affordable alternative for girls from low-income families compared to a pack of disposable sanitary pads which cost about 1 US dollar.

“Mothers don’t talk these things with children so in my days nobody told me about it. When it happened they just told me – okay, you are a woman and I was given a packet of pads and that was it. So when it got finished I had to use other things. I had to go to use toilet tissue and so it wasn’t really easy. So because I know, I have been through that experience I was really really motivated to help some of these young girls out,” said Feka.

One in 10 African girls miss school during their periods, the U.N. children’s agency UNICEFestimates, which means they fall behind in their studies and often drop out of school.

Talking about menstruation is still considered taboo in many parts of the world where it is seen as shameful or embarrassing.

Feka and her team want to encourage people to talk openly about menstruation to girls on the continent.
Once a month Feka and her colleagues go out to local communities to teach girls and women how to make and use the sanitary pads.

The talks also cover menstrual hygiene.

So far Feka has worked in 30 communities in Cameroon, the Democratic Republic of Congo and with refugee communities in Uganda.

The washable pads can be reused for six months, but this too can be a challenge if access to water and soap is limited.

Feka gets funding from the United State embassy in Cameroon and Rose Academies but she says the number of people relying on her for pads is far greater than what the resources can cover.

“The challenges are huge because we get to see some many people in need but the means is not there. We do not have the money to buy the fabrics so it is not easy. The need is really huge and then getting into some of these communities is not easy. It’s really-really risky and challenging because we have to use the motto bikes, use public transports. So it’s really not easy,” she said.

Sharon Eta, 15 is a beneficiary of the pads project and says when she started her period her mother could not afford to buy her sanitary towels. She says after attending one of Feka’s talks things improved and she’s also learnt how to make her own pads.

“When I got the pad from aunty Parch (Parchibell) the pad was helping me into some ways. That is from morning to evening I will not change no leakage. I can play, I can go out,” she said.

Campaigners say it is important to make pads more widely available as girls are often forced to stay at home during their periods, affecting their development and self-esteem.

Reuters