Health | WPN World People News

An international team of scientists from the 1000 Genomes Project Consortium has created the world’s largest catalog of genomic differences among humans, providing researchers with powerful clues to help them establish why some people are susceptible to various diseases.

With advances in medicine helping more people to live longer lives, the number of people over the age of 60 is expected to double by 2050 and will require radical societal change, according to a new report released by the WHO for the International Day of Older Persons (1 October).

Anyone infected with HIV should begin antiretroviral treatment as soon after diagnosis as possible, WHO announced Wednesday. With its "treat-all" recommendation, WHO removes all limitations on eligibility for antiretroviral therapy (ART) among people living with HIV; all populations and age groups are now eligible for treatment.

PACE has spelled out a series of measures to encourage the pharmaceutical industry to respond more effectively to public health needs, urging stricter drug approval policies, full transparency over the real costs of drug development and, where necessary, mandatory licensing of drugs.

A human death from rabies is a tragic but rare thing in the United States and most developed nations. It’s just as tragic but sadly common in parts of the world where some 3 billion people are at risk of being bitten by a rabid dog. More than 59,000 people die of rabies each year because they cannot get the care they need. That’s about 1 person dying of rabies every 9 minutes.

Discoveries about how the human brain contributes to our success — both as a species and as individuals — are among the first fruit of projects funded under the National Institutes of Health BRAIN Initiative program as well as the Human Connectome Project. One study may help to explain the mystery of how our primate brain’s outer mantle, or cortex, was able to expand as much as 1000-fold through evolution, compared to other mammals. The other reveals that the more successful we tend to be — score higher on commonly considered positive personal qualities, such as education and income levels and life satisfaction — the more key parts of our brain tend to talk with each other when we’re not doing anything in particular.

Current standards for ultrasound evaluation of fetal growth may lead to misclassification of up to 15 percent of fetuses of minority mothers as being too small, according to a study by researchers at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and other institutions.

At the genetic level, any 2 people are more than 99% the same. The variations that exist can be as small as a difference in a single DNA building block—called a single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP)—or as large as whole sections of the genome being copied or moved. These variations may underlie differences in susceptibility to disease, response to drugs, or reaction to environmental factors.

Too many children are overweight in this country. Stopping obesity in children decreases their risk of illness and disease when they get older.

Underscoring the urgent need to transform how essential health care is delivered in low- and middle-income countries, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, World Bank Group and World Health Organization on 26 September are launching a new partnership to support countries in improving the performance of primary health care. Primary health care is the pillar of health systems and is central to preventing epidemics like Ebola; improving women’s and children’s health; controlling major infectious diseases, such as HIV and TB; and managing the rising burden of non-communicable diseases, such as heart disease and cancer.