By Daniel Lawler Agence France-Presse PARIS, France (AFP) — Artificial intelligence could help almost halve the workload of radiologists when it comes to searching routine scans for signs of breast cancer, a large Swedish study suggested on Wednesday. The interim results of the trial were hailed as promising, but the authors cautioned that more research was needed before AI can be used to screen for breast cancer on a wider scale. While increasingly convincing […]
Tag: health
US makes new Alzheimer’s drug more widely accessible
WASHINGTON, United States (AFP) — The US drug regulator gave full approval to a new Alzheimer’s medicine on Thursday, a move that makes it more widely available to the public through government-run health insurance for the elderly. Leqembi, developed jointly by Japan’s Eisai and Biogen of the United States, was shown in a clinical trial to modestly reduce cognitive decline among patients in the early stages of the disease. But the study also raised concerns […]
WHO announces 18 mn malaria jab doses for 12 African nations
GENEVA, Switzerland (AFP) — Around 18 million doses of the first malaria vaccine will be delivered to 12 African countries by 2025, the World Health Organization, UNICEF and the Vaccine Alliance said Wednesday. “Malaria remains one of Africa’s deadliest diseases, killing nearly half a million children under the age of five every year,” WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told a briefing. In 2021, 96 percent of the world’s malaria deaths occurred in Africa. The Mosquirix […]
Study highlights limitations of BMI in predicting death
By Issam AHMED Agence France-Presse WASHINGTON, United States (AFP) — People classified as overweight though not obese are not at a higher risk of death, according to a new study Wednesday that underscores the limitations of the body mass index (BMI), long a standard medical metric. The findings, published in the journal PLOS ONE, come as populations in both rich and poor countries are becoming heavier. In the United States, more than 70 percent of […]
Israeli volunteers help Palestinians travel to hospitals
By Delphine Matthieussent Agence France-Presse REHAN, Palestinian Territories, June 27, 2023 (AFP) — As dawn broke over the occupied West Bank, Mamoun Abu al-Rob and his son crossed into Israel, where a volunteer was waiting to take them to a hospital. Past the Rehan crossing in the northern West Bank, where Palestinian workers were passing through a dimly lit corridor, Abu al-Rob walked towards Yael Noy’s car as his six-year-old son, Adam, dozed in his […]
No evidence Covid created in Chinese lab: US intelligence
WASHINGTON, June 24, 2023 (AFP) – The head of US intelligence said Friday that there was no evidence that the Covid-19 virus was created in the Chinese government’s Wuhan research lab. In a declassified report, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) said they had no information backing recent claims that three scientists at the lab were some of the very first infected with Covid-19 and may have created the virus themselves. Drawing […]
Diabetes cases to double to 1.3 billion by 2050: study
PARIS, June 22, 2023 (AFP) — The number of people suffering from diabetes worldwide will more than double to 1.3 billion by 2050 driven by structural racism and gaping inequality between countries, new research predicted on Friday. Every country on the globe will see an increase in the number of patients with the chronic disease, according to the most comprehensive analysis of global data projecting out to 2050. Some 529 million people were estimated to […]
Positive results for potential first chikungunya vaccine
PARIS, June 12, 2023 (AFP) — French-Austrian drugmaker Valneva’s vaccine candidate against chikungunya, a mosquito-borne virus which causes occasional outbreaks across the world, showed promising results in a large new trial, a study said on Tuesday. While the results were hailed as good news in the fight against chikungunya, the trial was carried out on people in the United States where the virus is extremely rare, with experts saying more research was needed. There are […]
Dogs die as South Africa snake antivenom shortage bites
By Umberto BACCHI Agence France-Presse JOHANNESBURG, June 12, 2023 (AFP) — Zarza, a much-loved Staffordshire terrier, ended up at a South African animal hospital with a bite from a Mozambique spitting cobra on her snout. The snake’s powerful venom can stop the breathing muscles from working, but normally the bites are treatable with an antidote. The problem, say South African veterinarians, is that they currently have virtually no vials of the antiserum left. “We’ve been […]
Cheap diabetes drug reduces risk of long Covid: study
By Daniel Lawler Agence France-Presse PARIS, France (AFP) — People who took a cheap diabetes drug after testing positive for Covid-19 had a 40 percent lower risk of getting long Covid, a US-based study said Friday. The finding was hailed as a potential “landmark” in the fight against the still little-understood condition, which the World Health Organization estimates affects one in 10 people who get Covid. The study said it was the first randomized, placebo-controlled […]
Treatment found to reduce progression of rare blood cancer by 74%
WASHINGTON, June 5, 2023 (AFP) – A treatment that involves genetically modifying the body’s own immune cells has been found to cut the risk of disease progression by 74 percent in people with a rare type of blood cancer, results showed Monday. Ciltacabtagene autoleucel — also known by its trade name Carvykti — was tested in a clinical trial involving 419 patients with multiple myeloma, whose disease was not responsive to the current frontline drug […]
Pill halves risk of death in type of lung cancer
WASHINGTON, June 4, 2023 (AFP) – A pill has been shown to halve the risk of death from a certain type of lung cancer when taken daily after surgery to remove the tumor, according to clinical trial results presented on Sunday. The results were unveiled in Chicago at the largest annual conference of cancer specialists, hosted by the American Society for Clinical Oncology (ASCO). Lung cancer is the form of the disease that causes the […]
