Danish researchers look to genetic cure for asthma New technique could also lead to vaccine for cancer Danish researchers have developed a novel genetic method that could lead to the development of safe and effective vaccines for controlling diseases such as cancer, asthma, and allergies. “The major research breakthrough is that we have created a general and user-friendly platform for the development of a special type of effective and safe vaccines,” said one of the researchers Adam Sander from University of Copenhagen in Denmark. “The highly effective method opens a new door for controlling diseases such as cancer, asthma, allergies and cardiovascular diseases by means of vaccines,” Sander pointed out. The method was described in the Journal of Nanobiotechnology. The idea behind the new technique is to mimic the structure of a virus. When you have made the virus structure, it is used as a platform onto which are glued harmless parts of the disease...

Kenya: It's Time to Stop These Preventable Deaths of Mothers and Children e+ Photo:  Lauren Everitt/AllAfrica Many mothers at Kenyatta National Hospital prefer Kangaroo Care over incubators so that they can touch their babies. The day of a child's birth should be a day filled with joy, but for many Kenyans, it is a day of fear. For the most unfortunate, it is a day of tragedy. For Atieno, a woman living in western Kenya, the fear lasted for days. She laboured for more than 72 hours at home in her rural village. There was heavy bleeding and when Atieno finally delivered her daughter, it was without the help of a skilled birth attendant or life-saving products such as oxytocin to stop bleeding. Both mother and baby were fortunate. They survived one of the riskiest experiences a woman and her child will face: childbirth. While Atieno and her baby survived, too many others do not. As doctors, we hear and see these stories every day. One in 38 Kenyan women...

Zimbabwe: I Wanted to Raise My Hand - HIV Can Be Manageable in Zimbabwe When I came to the UK in September 2015 to study at the University of Sussex, I was told that the HIV medication I was on, was not available, which was frustrating. It was frustrating because instead of taking a single pill containing different antiretroviral drugs, as I had been doing at home in Zimbabwe, I now had to take three different pills a day. I'm in the UK studying for a Masters in Development Studies and recently we had a class discussing what role health plays in the interaction with citizenship. The main subject was HIV, and it was interesting to see the different assumptions people make because of the difference in prevalence in HIV between countries such as the UK and Zimbabwe. Access to antiretroviral medication In the UK in 2014, the adult rate of HIV prevalence was 0.19 per cent (AVERT) compared to 16.7 per cent in Zimbabwe (UNAIDS). Furthermore, in the UK 91 per cent of H...

How to Stop ‘Mystery’ Coughs That Won’t Quit Sometimes a cough is like an unwelcome houseguest, sticking around way too long and making you miserable along the way. A persistent cough with no clear cause is termed by some as “mystery cough,” but it’s more accurately called chronic or idiopathic cough, says pulmonologist Sumita Khatri, MD . “About 10 to 20 percent of the population has at some point had a cough that lingers more than  eight weeks , which is the definition of chronic cough,” says Dr. Khatri. “It can be debilitating and very frustrating for people.” When a cough persists for more than three weeks, it’s time to see a doctor. When solving coughing mysteries, Dr. Khatri looks at an assortment of intertwined possible causes that take some detective work to sort through. Here are four of the most common culprits. 1. Asthma “My patient may say, ‘But I don’t have shortness of breath!’” says Dr. Khatri. “But many people don’t know that cough ...

Ivy Prosper to speak at global maternal health summit in New York Ivy Prosper, presenter of the award winning series, Maternal Health Channel will speak to its powerful impact in Ghana at the annual “Women In The World” summit. The event takes place on April 6 – 8 in New York. Ivy travelled across Ghana presenting the much watched series from isolated villages, as well as well known towns and cities. Ivy’s ease of presentation as well as her professionalism soon made her a familiar and refreshing face on Ghanaian television. She also became an icon for maternal health across the world. Ivy prosper(with mic) during a documentary with Maternal Health Channel in the Northern region Ivy started her broadcast career as a Reporter with TV Cogeco Niagara, Canada on the community program The Source. She was then selected as a finalist in the search for a Traffic Reporter at NBC affiliate station WDIV in Detroit, Michigan. Some notable people she’s interviewed include Actor/Produc...

Stressed at Work? You May Have a Higher Risk of Stroke It’s already known that stress from work can increase your risk for  cardiovascular disease , particularly  high blood pressure  and  heart disease . But a recent  study  now links work stress to an increased risk of  stroke , especially for women. Dimensions of work In the study, researchers in China compiled data from six studies with 138,782 participants. The researchers evaluated the link between job stress and future stroke risk. The researchers looked at two dimensions of work called psychological job demand and job control. Psychological job demand means a worker’s time pressure, mental load and level of responsibilities.  Job control is your control over decisions. The researchers found that jobs with high demands and low control, such as waitress or nurses aide, were associated with a 22 percent in...