More healthcare news snippets

Law gets tougher with smokers

IT WILL be illegal to smoke in a car where a child is a passenger, according to new smoking legislation gazetted this month. From Friday, restaurant and pub owners will face higher penalties if their patrons smoke outside designated, legal smoking areas. The tobacco industry will also no longer be able to use covert forms of marketing, like holding "parties" or using "viral" marketing to attract young smokers. A common tactic, explained Peter Ucko, director of the National Council Against Smoking, is that cigarette companies would use viral marketing where reps would go to clubs or parties and hand out cigarettes. The two amendments to the Tobacco Control Act also make it illegal for an adult to smoke on premises used for childcare activities or schooling. The law will also now control the substances that can be added to tobacco. Flavours like chocolate and liquorice are often used to make it easier for young people to start smoking by hiding the taste. The terms "low tar", "light" and "mild" are to be prohibited. It is believed that these labels suggest that "light" cigarettes are less harmful than regular ones. Cigarette vendors must now, under the new legislation, sell tobacco products only and not other products like sweets and chocolates. They also can operate only in areas where minors don't have access. Owners of pubs and other establishments can face a maximum fine of R50 000 for violating the law, and an individual smoker can be fined R500. Smokers are also no longer allowed to smoke in partially enclosed areas, like a covered patio or veranda. Smoking will be restricted in public places such as sports stadiums and bus stops. People will also not be allowed to smoke near the entrances to buildings. Tobacco packaging will also now have picture-based health warnings. But Ucko said South Africa still had a long way to go when compared with the rest of the world. In other countries, smoking was prohibited in restaurants and pubs.

Shaun Smillie: The Star, 1 September 2009

Hope for the health of SA

FOR years, SA was an international laughing stock for its tragically absurd approach to the deadly AIDS epidemic. Now, that national nightmare may be ending. The new government of President Jacob Zuma seems to have a clearer-eyed view of the problem, its remedies and the need to improve the overall healthcare system than its predecessor did. A saner approach began to take shape last year when Barbara Hogan was named Health Minister. Last week, the new Health Minister, Aaron Motsoaledi, went further. He accepted a critique by South African scientists, who said the African National Congress's record on AIDS and healthcare was deeply flawed, and promised remedial action. SA's leaders must now espouse sensible, scientifically-based advice about AIDS and put in place programmes that seek to both treat and prevent the disease. But the problem is bigger than AIDS. Even though SA spends more on health than any other African country, tuberculosis is rampant and child mortality rates are rising. Improving the quality of healthcare will offer the people of SA a better future.

Editorial Comment Business Day, 1 September 2009

Global economic downturn increases malnutrition, death rates among African children

THE global economic downturn is "raising malnutrition and death rates among Africa's children" and restricting their access to healthcare, according to a UN assessment released ahead of a G20 leaders meeting later this month that will focus on ways to minimise the effect of the downturn on the world's poorest people. UNICEF Social Policy Advisor Anthony Hodges said research indicated the people most-affected by the economic situation lived in the developing world and Africa, in particular. He said the economic downturn would have a negative impact on households with possible serious knock-on effects on children in terms of worsened nutrition, worsened dietary diversity, in some cases withdrawal of children from schools, increased child labour, difficulties for the families to access health services and so on. About 10 percent of people in Africa have some sort of social protection, which refers to government pension plans, health insurance and unemployment compensation, according to Hodges, who added that the economic downturn has weakened many governments' ability to fund these social nets. Some African governments have been able to strengthen their social services having launched school feeding programmes that raise nutrition levels and encourage children to attend school.

News.Medical.Net, 3 September 2009

New 'cling-wrap' antibodies disarm HIV

SCIENTISTS have found two powerful new antibodies that disarm HIV, offering fresh clues in the hunt for a vaccine. The antibodies were found in blood samples of volunteers in regions hit hardest by HIV, including SA. The discovery was one small step towards developing a vaccine against HIV infection as scientists still needed to discover how the antibodies worked and turn these properties into an effective jab, according to Linda-Gail Bekker, joint director of the Desmond Tutu HIV/AIDS Centre at the University of Cape Town, who collaborated with US scientists on the research. Despite the history of disappointments, the discovery of areas of vulnerability in the virus was cause for optimism, she said. Researchers found two broadly acting neutralising antibodies that appear to stop a wide range of HIV strains from getting a grip on CD4- T cells, which are a key part of the body's immune system. Bekker said they cling-wrap the virus, and stop it from being able to attach to the host target cell. The two broadly acting neutralising antibodies, PG9 and PG16, described in a paper published last week in the US journal SCIENCE, are the first to be found in more than a decade. They appear to be more powerful than those previously studied, and as they stick to parts of the HI virus that are more accessible scientists hope they will prove easier to turn into a vaccine. The antibodies were also the first ones to be isolated among people in the developing world, where the majority of people infected with HIV lived. The breadth of the antibodies' effect against HIV was important as an effective AIDS vaccine had to work against the ever-increasing number of strains of the virus, said Bekker. HIV mutated fast, and different subtypes dominated in different regions. SA was primarily affected by the C-clade. The antibodies were discovered using new technology developed by biotechnology companies Theraclone Sciences and Monogram Biosciences that screened blood samples from 1 800 HIV-infected volunteers in seven sub-Saharan African countries, Thailand, Australia, the UK and the US.

Tamar Kahn: Business Day, 7 September 2009

Swine flu deaths in SA at 47

FORTY-seven people had died from swine flu in SA by yesterday, according to the National Institute for Communicable Diseases. There had also been 11 253 laboratory confirmed cases of the illness caused by the virus. Of the people who died, 20 were pregnant women, five of whom were HIV-positive.

SAPA, 16 September 2009

Apparent spike in diarrhoea deaths 'partly due to improved reporting'

MORE children under the age of five died because of diarrhoea last year, but Health Minister Aaron Motsoaledi has said the higher figures were partly due to improved reporting by hospitals. The Human Sciences Research Council (HSRC) warned that as summer approached the prevalence of diarrhoea and the deadly E coli bacteria would increase. Motsoaledi said the number of children treated for diarrhoea also rose, from 651 410 in 2007 to 687 711 last year. The number of children under five reported to have died in South Africa last year was 3 385, an increase of 658 on the year before. In 2007, the number of reported deaths was 2 727, an increase of 418 on the figure for 2006. In a written reply to a parliamentary question by DA MP Emmah More, Motsoaledi said the increase was, in part, due to improved reporting from hospitals, where most of the deaths had occurred. The Free State had the highest number of reported deaths, at 607, followed by KwaZulu-Natal (543), Limpopo (541), the Eastern Cape (536), North West (361), Mpumalanga (331) Gauteng and the Northern Cape (both 221), while in the Western Cape the number was 24. The Department of Health did not keep records of adults who were treated or died because of diarrhoea, Motsoaledi said. KwaZulu-Natal treated the highest number (235 421) of children for the condition, followed by Limpopo with 119 701. The HSRC's David Hemson said, although there had been improvements in the way the department dealt with diarrhoea, the number of children and adults dying was still high. Hemson said diarrhoea was preventable and treatable. However, the government's efforts to reduce deaths were disrupted by people using "unsafe" sources of water. He said the situation was improving, but the difficulty was that water projects in many rural areas, where most deaths occurred, were not well operated.

Xolani Mbanjwa: The Cape Times, 21 September 2009