Category Archives: Health

disease, Health

Millions of people in the United States live with HIV

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Although HIV/AIDS has mainly faded from the headlines, the disease continues to be infecting millions. When looking at the United States, about 1.1 million people age 13 and older are living with HIV, the virus which causes AIDS, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. A decade ago, the sheer number of U.S. infections was declining substantially every year, but that stopped in 2013. Since that time, about 39,000 individuals have become newly infected each year, which prompted the CDC this present year to declare the nation’s progress in preventing HIV has stalled. Current commentary by four top public health insurance and AIDS experts, published within the New England Journal of Medicine, reports that a lot more than two-thirds of new infections occur those types of who will be poor or who are ethnic, racial or sexual minorities. The CDC did note locales which have enacted plans to eliminate HIV epidemics within their communities have observed some success in prevention, with new HIV infections down 40 percent in Washington, D.C., and 23 percent in New York City from 2010 to 2016. No cure exists for HIV or AIDS. (AIDS itself will not kill; nonetheless, it allows other diseases to kill.) Nearly 16,000 people into the United States diagnosed with HIV died in 2016, the newest data available. However, antiretroviral therapy — an HIV treatment regimen that has been introduced into the mid-1990s — can keep HIV controlled, preventing it from progressing to AIDS. Individuals who begin this treatment early and take it regularly as recommended can reduce, and possibly eliminate, their odds of transmitting HIV to others and generally can live long healthy lives.

Reference

The Big Number: 1.1 million people in the U.S. live with …. https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/the-big-number-11-million-people-in-the-us-live-with-hiv/2019/05/10/f9f74338-726c-11e9-9eb4-0828f5389013_story.html

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HIV treatment may eliminates risk of passing on virus

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The possibility of passing in the HIV virus is wholly eradicated by successful drugs treatment; a landmark study has revealed, in a substantial boost towards the prospects of ceasing the AIDS epidemic.

Research of about 1,000 gay male couples with one partner with HIV who had taken antiretroviral therapy (ART) discovered no new cases of transmission towards the HIV-negative partner during sex without a condom.

During the period of the eight-year study, 15 men were infected with HIV, the herpes virus, which causes AIDS. However, genetic tests revealed that the transmissions were a result of the HIV-negative men having sexual relations with someone aside from their partner.

The report, in The Lancet medical journal, indicates that using ART to suppress HIV to undetectable levels showed that it was incapable of transmission during sex.

If everyone in the world with HIV knew their status and had usage of successful treatment, no new cases would occur, the study suggests.

Reference
HIV treatment eliminates risk of passing on virus …. https://fox17online.com/2019/05/03/hiv-treatment-eliminates-risk-of-passing-on-virus-landmark-study-says/

Culture, disease, Health

Looking at the new HIV map that offers a detailed look at the epidemic

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The United Nations has established a target of ceasing the global HIV/AIDS epidemic by 2030.

The tide, in other areas, is slowly turning in southeastern Africa — which involves international locations like South Africa, Mozambique, Lesotho and Botswana — and which remains the epicenter associated with the epidemic and home to over fifty percent the 36.9 million people living with the disease. The rates of fatalities and infections one can find declining overall. However, a July 2018 report through the United Nations’ AIDS agency found a $5.4 billion shortage in international financing needed to accomplish ultimate triumph.

A first-of-its-kind new map can help boost the precision associated with HIV/AIDS response as some data-savvy scientists narrow their focus on the continent’s worst-affected areas — into the size of a tiny town.

Research published presents what these scientists explain as the most step-by-step map ever produced of HIV prevalence across sub-Saharan Africa. The group behind the map is a global consortium of epidemiologists led by the University of Washington-Seattle’s Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation. Their work appears when looking at the peer-reviewed journal Nature.

The researchers do not just go country by country. Researchers break down the continent into a grid of tens and thousands of 9.6-square-mile squares. The effect is a view of HIV distribution that is more fine grain compared to general national or province level statistical data, and that could have a significant effect on how resources are assigned to diagnose, treat and stop new infections.

Reference
Fan, Yaxin, Xinyan Zhu, et al. “Network-Constrained Spatio-Temporal Clustering Analysis of Traffic Collisions in Jianghan District of Wuhan, China.” PLoS One, vol. 13, no. 4, Public Library of Science, Apr. 2018, p. e0195093.

New HIV Map Offers Most Detailed Look Yet At The Epidemic …. https://www.tpr.org/post/new-hiv-map-offers-most-detailed-look-yet-epidemic

disease, Health

Look out for black spider bites

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The black widow spider’s bite produces shooting pain and appears as two dots produced by their fangs. Nausea, increased blood circulation pressure, and vomiting occur soon after and certainly will require immediate medical attention. The brown recluse spider bite is painless, but may still be extremely serious. The bites in many cases are red, then white, and also have blisters by means of a bullseye. These bites require also immediate medical help, as a big ulcer can develop in the skin.

disease, Health

Beware of black fly bites

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Similar to ticks, black flies live off the blood of other animals, plus they can deliver painful bites! Irrespective of being a general nuisance to humane, these flies can hold diseases. Many U.S. states will have programs to manage black fly populations. Along with hurting immediately, black fly bites remain painful, itch, and certainly will become infected with scratching. Some people have allergy symptoms to these bites that include hives or wheezing.

disease, Health

Tick bites

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A tick will attach itself to the warm parts of the body and feed on blood, passing on any illness it carries in the act. Ticks can hold a number of diseases, including Rocky Mountain spotted fever and Lyme disease. Early elimination of the tick can help prevent transmission of those diseases. Watch for such symptoms as rashes, muscle aches, fever, swollen lymph nodes, and headache within the weeks following a tick bite, since these can be signs and symptoms of tick-related diseases.

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Chigger bites

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Chiggers are not actually insects, but instead the juvenile type of a form of mite. They could be present in forests and grasslands, along lakes and streams, if not in parks, lawns, and golf courses. These bites are painless, however they produce itchy, raised red lesions from the skin which can be just like the reaction from experience of poison ivy or oak. Scratching the bites can also cause them to spread and search as a rash.

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Identifying mosquito bites

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As most individuals recognize, mosquito bites itch severely. Mosquito bites may swell as a result of toxins or allergic substances carried within the mosquito’s saliva. Scratching the bites can cause them to break or teat, and can even lead to infection. Wearing insect repellant is important because mosquitos can carry diseases such as malaria, West Nile virus, Dengue fever, Zika, and yellow fever.

Mosquito bites lead to a variety of mild, acute, and, rarely, life-threatening allergy symptoms. These include common wheal and flare reactions and mosquito bite allergies (MBA). The MBA, also termed hypersensitivity to mosquito bites (HMB), are excessive reactions to mosquito bites that are not brought on by any toxin or pathogen into the saliva injected by a mosquito at the time it takes its blood-meal. Rather, they have been allergic hypersensitivity tendencies due to the non-toxic allergenic proteins within the mosquito’s saliva. Research indicates or suggest that numerous types of mosquitoes can induce ordinary reactions along with MBA. These include Aedes aegypti, Aedes vexans, Aedes albopictus, Anopheles sinensis, Culex pipiens, Aedes communis, Anopheles stephensi, Culex quinquefasciatus, Ochlerotatus triseriatus, and Culex tritaeniorhynchus. Furthermore, there clearly was substantial cross-reactivity amongst the salivary proteins of mosquitoes in identical family and, to an inferior extent, different families. It is assumed that these allergic responses may be brought on by virtually any mosquito species (or other biting insect).

The mosquito bite allergic reactions are informally classified as 1) the Skeeter syndrome, for example. severe local skin reactions occasionally connected with low-grade fever; 2) systemic reactions that start around high-grade fever, lymphadenopathy, abdominal pain, and/or diarrhea to, very rarely, life-threatening signs and symptoms of anaphylaxis; and 3) severe and often systemic reactions happening in people that have an Epstein-Barr virus-associated lymphoproliferative disease, Epstein-Barr virus-negative lymphoid malignancy, or an additional predisposing condition such as Eosinophilic cellulitis or chronic lymphocytic leukemia.

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Flea bites

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Flea bites often start as an itchy rash of tiny, sometimes bleeding, bumps within the armpits or perhaps the crease of a joint. The itching might be localized to start with, nonetheless it can spread and be very severe, especially in those who are responsive to flea bites. The region around these bites may swell, and touching them will cause them to make white.

In lots of species, fleas are principally a annoyance with their hosts, causing an itching sensation which often causes the host to try to eliminate the pest by biting, pecking or scratching. Fleas are not only a source of annoyance, however. Flea bites cause a slightly raised, swollen itching spot to form; it has just one puncture point during the center, like a mosquito bite. Aside from this, the eczematous itchy skin disease flea allergy dermatitis is common in lots of host species, including cats and dogs. The bites often come in clusters or lines of two bites, and will remain itchy and inflamed for up to several weeks afterwards. Fleas can lead to hair thinning due to frequent scratching and biting by your pet, and may cause anemia in acute cases.

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Bed Bugs bites

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Bed bugs leave large circles of bites in orderly rows. The bites cause itching, skin redness, localized swelling, as well as blisters regarding the bites. These spots eventually turn to small red bumps and fade after several days. The bites are not dangerous, though infections might result from scratching the bites.

Bed bugs are obligatory bloodsuckers. They usually have mouth parts that saw through the skin, and inject saliva with anticoagulants and painkillers. Sensitivity of humans varies from extreme allergic reaction to no reaction at all (about 20%). The bite usually produces a swelling without any red spot, but when many bugs feast upon a small area, reddish spots may appear following the swelling subsides. Bedbugs prefer exposed skin, preferably the face area, neck, and arms of a sleeping person.