Cholera spreads to Iraqs south
Fri, 21 Sep 2007 21:14:10 GMT
By KATARINA KRATOVAC, Associated Press Writer
BAGHDAD - Cholera was confirmed Friday in a baby in Basra, the farthest south the outbreak has been detected. Officials expressed concern over a shortage of chlorine needed to prevent the disease from spreading.
A shipment of 100,000 tons of the water purifier has been held up at the Jordanian border over fears the chemical could be used in explosives. Baghdad, which has doubled the amount of chlorine in the drinking water, now has only a week's supply.
World Health Organization spokeswoman Fadela Chaib said in Geneva that Iraq has registered 29,000 cases of acute watery diarrhea, with 1,500 of those confirmed as cholera. All but two confirmed cases are in the north.
The bottle-fed, 7-month-old infant is the only confirmed case in Basra, Iraq's second-largest and southernmost city, WHO reported.
On Thursday, WHO confirmed the first case in Baghdad since the U.S.-led invasion in 2003, saying a 25-year-old woman turned up at a hospital with a severe case of diarrhea that proved to be caused by cholera.
Cholera is a gastrointestinal disease typically spread by drinking contaminated water. It can cause severe diarrhea that in extreme cases can lead to fatal dehydration. It broke out in Iraq in mid-August, but until this week had been limited to three northern provinces.
Naeema al-Gasseer, WHO's representative for Iraq, said there have been 10 deaths in the north, a number she said indicates the disease is not getting out of hand.
"We are treating this as an outbreak, not an epidemic," al-Gasseer said. "People are panicking because of the numbers. We are trying to focus them away from the numbers. We tell everyone in Iraq: Wash your hands with disinfectant, boil water at least five minutes, don't eat fruit and vegetables that cannot be peeled and may have been washed with contaminated water."
Cholera is endemic to Iraq, with about 30 cases registered each year. The last epidemic was in 1999, when 20 cases were discovered in one day, said Adel Muhsin, the Health Ministry's inspector-general.
The number of confirmed cases does not always indicate the scope of the problem; many people who get cholera do not develop symptoms but can pass on the disease.
The current outbreak has sharply increased Iraq's needs for chlorine. But Muhsin and the WHO said 100,000 tons of the chemical were being held at the border with Jordan, apparently due to fears that the chlorine might fall into the hands of insurgents and be used in bombs.
Several chlorine truck bombings earlier this year killed scores of Iraqis.
The head of Baghdad's Water Department, Sadiq al-Shimmari, said the capital had only a week's supply of chlorine. After the outbreak was detected last month, officials doubled the daily amount of the chemical being dumped into Baghdad's drinking water.
"Without chlorine, the water stations will shut down," al-Shimmari warned. "God willing, we will not reach that point."
Diyala province north of Baghdad, the site of fierce fighting between U.S. forces and militants, has reported scores of suspected cholera cases.
Hom Suhail al-Khishali, head of the provincial health department, said none were confirmed. But he warned that the province's "bad security situation ... is preventing medical teams from reaching the residents."
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Associated Press writer Sameer N. Yacoub contributed to this story.
Cryptosporidium outbreak hits the West
Fri, 21 Sep 2007 21:22:35 GMT
By REBECCA BOONE, Associated Press Writer
BOISE, Idaho - Nearly 230 Idaho residents have been sickened by a waterborne parasite this year, along with hundreds of others across the Rocky Mountain West, health officials said. The cryptosporidium outbreak has reached record numbers, Idaho Department of Health and Welfare spokesman Tom Shanahan said, and has federal officials looking at the role water parks and public pools play in spreading the diarrhea-causing parasite.
Since 1995, Idaho has averaged about 23 cryptosporidium cases a year, said Dr. Randall Nett, an epidemic intelligence officer with Idaho's Health and Welfare Department. But this year, 229 cases have been reported, the vast majority in the Boise and Meridian areas.
Nearby Utah has been even harder hit, with more than 1,600 illnesses attributed to cryptosporidium so far this year, Utah Department of Health epidemiologist Diane Raccasi said. Colorado and other Western states have also reported increases, Nett said.
"It's a record year by a long way," said Nett. "There's probably going to have to be some research done to determine if it was weather, rainfall, runoff or other things contributing to the outbreak."
But at least one popular summer pastime is a contributing factor, health officials believe: Splash parks and other recreational water parks can offer the hardy parasite the opportunity to rapidly spread from person to person.
Splash parks are often a feature of city parks, and are popular with younger children because they require no swimming skills. Instead of a pool, water sprays up from spouts in the ground, somewhat like a glorified sprinkler system. Many parks also feature water guns or water slides.
But at parks where water is recirculated, the spray can rinse any contamination — whether from diarrhea, vomit or dirt — down into a water holding area and back up through the water spouts, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
"Unfortunately, there's no national pool code to regulate how these splash pads are designed, so the CDC is working with a consortium of scientists to come up with a model pool code," similar to what the Food and Drug Administration created for food, Nett said.
"To prevent outbreaks of cryptosporidiosis, change is needed in the way we build and operate the nation's disinfected recreational water facilities," the CDC wrote in a report earlier this summer. "Key changes call for the inclusion of new supplementary disinfection measures that kill the parasite ... and existing chlorine disinfection."
Cryptosporidium can survive for up to a year in the right conditions, Raccasi said. People infected with the parasite get symptoms ranging from watery diarrhea, abdominal cramps, fever, nausea and vomiting. The illness can last for as long as a month. An infected person can spread the parasite through water or through contact with changing tables or bathroom fixtures, or during diaper changes, according to the CDC.
Splash parks and pools have been indicated in Utah's outbreak, Raccasi said, and most of Idaho's cryptosporidium cases have originated at a Meridian city splash park, Shanahan reported. The splash park in Meridian, like many others, uses chlorine to keep its water clean, but the cryptosporidium parasite has a hard outer shell that allows it to survive even in properly chlorinated water.
Meridian officials are considering adding ultraviolet light decontamination to the splash park, said city communications director Shelly Houston, because the UV light is more effective at killing hardy contaminants.
"Our splash pad is meticulously maintained. It's brand new and it's really been our baby so we've been paying close attention to chemical precautions and disinfecting techniques," Houston said.
"It's been a good learning experience for all of us. You can't help but think of those little children playing in their diapers or their mamas changing diapers on nearby picnic tables, and realize the importance of good hygiene and handwashing."
In general, water poses a high risk for transmitting cryptosporidium, which can live in human and animal fecal matter, Raccasi said. Young children, especially those in diapers, can easily contaminate pools and splash parks, she said.
"I don't want to say that splash parks aren't safe, they just have some variables for decontamination that make them a higher risk," Raccasi said. "Combine that with the fact that they're attracting more children between the ages of zero to four years old — and that's the age group that has the most difficulty controlling their bowels — and it makes decontamination more complicated."
Study Soccer beats jogging for fitness
Fri, 21 Sep 2007 21:23:28 GMT
By MARIA CHENG, AP Medical Writer
LONDON - A friendly game of soccer works off more fat and builds up more muscle than jogging, new research shows. Danish scientists, who conducted their research on 37 men, also found the soccer players felt less tired after exercising than the joggers because they were having more fun.
"This is good news for men who prefer to play football with their mates," said Dr. Gary O'Donovan, a sports medicine expert at the University of Exeter who was not connected to the study.
To measure how hard the men were working out, the researchers strapped heart monitors to their chests and compared blood samples and muscle tissue before and after matches and jogging sessions.
The researchers selected men with similar health profiles aged 31 to 33 and split them into groups of soccer players, joggers, and couch potatoes — who not surprisingly ended the three-month study in the worst shape.
Each period of exercise lasted about one hour and took place three times a week. After 12 weeks, researchers found that the body fat percentage in the soccer players dropped by 3.7 percent, compared to about 2 percent for the joggers.
The soccer players also increased their muscle mass by almost 4.5 pounds, whereas the joggers didn't have any significant change. Those who did no exercise registered little change in body fat and muscle mass.
"Even though the football players were untrained, there were periods in the game that were so intense that their cardiovascular was maximally taxed, just like professional football players," said Dr. Peter Krustrup, head of Copenhagen University's department of exercise and sport sciences, who led the study.
The soccer players and the joggers had the same average heart rate, but the soccer players got a better workout because of intense bursts of activity. Krustrup and his colleagues found there were periods during soccer matches when the players' hearts were pumping at 90 percent their full capacity. But the joggers' hearts were never pushed as hard.
Unlike the soccer players, the joggers consistently thought their runs were exhausting.
"The soccer players were having more fun, so they were more focused on scoring goals and helping the team, rather than the feeling of strain and muscle pain," Krustrup said.
Health officials were unsure how much impact the study results might have on the wider population.
Nick Cavill, a research associate at the British Heart Foundation at Oxford University, said it's hard enough convincing people to exercise moderately, let alone engage in a high-intensity sport like soccer.
"There might be enormous benefits to telling people to play football twice a week," he said. "But if they're not going to do it, then that message may be useless."
ISU working on artificial hands for vets
Fri, 21 Sep 2007 21:16:27 GMT
POCATELLO, Idaho - Idaho State University has received an $842,000 grant from the Department of Defense to develop a prosthetic hand that, rather than simply being attached, will be implanted and provide a sense of touch and temperature sensation by converting impulses sent to and from the brain.
"The existing commercial technology for arm and hand amputees hasn't changed significantly in the past six decades," said D. Subbaram Naidu, an engineering professor at the school who is leading the project. "The Department of Defense is embarking on a research program to fund prosthetic research to revolutionize upper-body prosthetics and to develop artificial arms that will feel, look and perform like a real human arm guided by the central nervous system."
The "Smart Prosthetic Hand Technology" program has three phases. The grant received in July by the school covers the first 18-month, theoretical phase.
Other ISU professors also are working on the project. Marco Schoen will measure signals from the brain that control muscles, and Naidu will convert those to signals to control the prosthetic hand. A prototype will be built by Alba Perez.
There are significant challenges to the project, said James Lai, associate director of ISU's Biomedical Research Institute. He and Solomon Leung, an engineering professor, are examining biological effects of implanting the prosthetic hands.
"We will examine how to bypass the tissue rejection problem that has occurred when trying to attach a prosthetic device," Lai told the Idaho State Journal. "We'll use this study as a potential springboard to other possible research in tissue engineering and the creation of artificial organs."
Lai said a prototype hand could be ready for human testing in five years.
Also working on the project is Alex Urfer, chairman of the physical and occupational program in the ISU Kasiska College of Health Professions.
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Information from: Idaho State Journal, http://www.journalnet.com