WHO To Declare Guinea Ebola Free

Ebola outbreak ends in Guinea, says WHO

Baby Noubia, Guinea's last Ebola patient, was released from hospital in November

The World Health Organization (WHO) has declared the end of the Ebola outbreak in Guinea, two years after the epidemic began there.

Guineans are expected to celebrate the landmark with concerts and fireworks.

The disease killed more than 2,500 people in the West African state, and a further 9,000 in neighbouring Liberia and Sierra Leone.

Liberia was declared Ebola-free by the WHO in September, and Sierra Leone in November.

However, Liberia has had new cases since the declaration.

A country is considered free of human-to-human transmission once two 21-day incubation periods have passed since the last known case tested negative for a second time.

"It's the best year-end present that God could give to Guinea, and the best news that Guineans could hope for," Ebola survivor Alama Kambou Dore told AFP news agency.

Local health workers echoed a warning from the WHO that vigilance was still vital despite the mood of celebration.

"We have to be very careful, because even if open transmission has been stopped, the disease has not been totally defeated," said Alpha Seny Souhmah, a Guinean health worker and Ebola survivor.

In a statement, the WHO congratulated the Guinean government and people for showing "extraordinary leadership in fighting the epidemic".

But it also noted that there had been 10 new small outbreaks of the virus between March and November.

"The coming months will be absolutely critical," said Dr Bruce Aylward from the WHO's Ebola response team.

"This is the period when the countries need to be sure that they are fully prepared to prevent, detect and respond to any new cases."

The WHO will maintain surveillance and outbreak response teams in Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia throughout 2016, Dr Aylward added.

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Analysis: Tulip Mazumder, Health correspondent, BBC News

This is another major milestone in the bumpy road to the end of the worst Ebola outbreak in history. It all started in Guinea when the virus emerged, probably from fruit bats, in a rural community deep in the forest.

Guinea saw far fewer cases than neighbouring Liberia and Sierra Leone, yet the virus has been circulating there for longer than anywhere else.

I remember travelling through Guinea at the height of the outbreak, and there was still a lot of denial about Ebola; people told me it was a made-up disease. Suspicion is still rife in some communities, and many simply do not trust their government.

Ebola has made a comeback in Liberia after the country twice declared the end of the epidemic, and there is every possibility it could return to Guinea. It will be up to communities to keep the killer virus at bay, by reporting suspicious deaths and encouraging loved ones to seek treatment if they show symptoms of Ebola.

But medical facilities also need to respond quickly, which will happen for the extra 90-day "heightened surveillance" period. A key question is what will happen after that, particularly for the thousands of Ebola survivors who are still facing health problems.

More than 100 health workers also lost their lives in the fight against the disease.

Many survivors still live in fear of the stigma and long-term side effects associated with the virus.

The government in Guinea has blamed the virus for poor economic performance and says it has also caused people to distrust the country's health services.

President Alpha Conde has doubled the health budget since winning re-election in October.

Original Article:BBC World News

Gororrhoea Has Become DEADLY - Beware!!!!!!

Gonorrhoea 'could become untreatable'

By James Gallagher

Gonorrhoea could become an untreatable disease, England's chief medical officer has warned.

Dame Sally Davies has written to all GPs and pharmacies to ensure they are prescribing the correct drugs after the rise of "super-gonorrhoea" in Leeds.

Her warning comes after concerns were raised that some patients were not getting both of the antibiotics needed to clear the infection.

Sexual health doctors said gonorrhoea was "rapidly" developing resistance.

A highly drug-resistant strain of gonorrhoea was detected in the north of England in March.

That strain is able to shrug off the antibiotic azithromycin, which is normally used alongside another drug, ceftriaxone.

In her letter, the chief medical officer said: "Gonorrhoea is at risk of becoming an untreatable disease due to the continuing emergence of antimicrobial resistance."

Soaring cases

But while an injection of ceftriaxone and an azithromycin pill are supposed to be used in combination, this may not always be the case for all patients.

Earlier this year, the British Association for Sexual Health and HIV (BASHH) warned that some online pharmacies were offering only oral medication.

Using just one of the two drugs makes it easier for the bacterium to develop resistance.

The letter, which is also signed by chief pharmaceutical officer Dr Keith Ridge, stated: "Gonorrhoea has rapidly acquired resistance to new antibiotics, leaving few alternatives to the current recommendations.

"It is therefore extremely important that suboptimal treatment does not occur."

What is Gonorrhoea?

The disease is caused by the bacterium called Neisseria gonorrhoeae.

The infection is spread by unprotected vaginal, oral and anal sex.

Symptoms can include a thick green or yellow discharge from sexual organs, pain when urinating and bleeding between periods. Often the person has no symptoms, however, but can still easily spread the disease to others.

Untreated infection can lead to infertility, pelvic inflammatory disease and can be passed on to a child during pregnancy.

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Gonorrhoea is the second most common sexually transmitted infection in England and cases are soaring.

The number of infections increased by 19% from 29,419 in 2013 to 34,958 the following year.

Dr Jan Clarke, the president of BASHH, told the BBC News website: "We're really pleased that the chief medical officer has stressed that gonorrhoea needs this approach to treatment due to the rapid development of resistance.

"We need to protect what we've got and we need to encourage pharmacists and general practitioners to follow first-line treatment."

Dr Andrew Lee, from Public Health England, added: "Investigations are ongoing into a number of cases of anti-microbial resistant gonorrhoea.

"Public Health England will continue to monitor, and act on, the spread of antimicrobial resistance and potential gonorrhoea treatment failures, to make sure they are identified and managed promptly."

Original Article:     BBC Health News

Quite Nutritious - What Do You Think?

This is a meal for all seasons including the Christmas and New Year Seasons.

Have you had it today?

What do you think about it?

2, 400 Babies Born With Brain Damage!!!!

Brazil declares emergency after 2,400 babies are born with brain damage, possibly due to mosquito-borne virus

The aedes aegypti mosquito at an entomology laboratory in Fort-de-France, in the French overseas department of Martinique. Brazil's Health Ministry confirmed the connection between the growing of microcephaly cases in babies born in northeast Brazil and the Zika virus. (Patrice Coppee/AFP/Getty Images)

Brazilian health authorities are sounding the alarm about a mosquito-borne virus that they believe may be the cause of thousands of infants being born with damaged brains.

The pathogen, known as Zika and first discovered in forest monkeys in Africa over 70 years ago, is the new West Nile -- a virus that causes mild symptoms in most but can lead to serious neurological complications or even death in others. Brazil's health ministry said on Nov. 28 that it had found the Zika virus in a baby with microcephaly — a rare condition in which infants are born with shrunken skulls — during an autopsy after the child died. The virus was also found in the amniotic fluid of two mothers whose babies had the condition.

"This is an unprecedented situation, unprecedented in world scientific research," the ministry said in a statement on its website, according to CNN.

Brazil is investigating more than more than 2,400 suspected cases of microcephaly and 29 deaths of infants that occurred this year. Last year the country saw only 147 cases of microcephaly.

The situation in Brazil is so overwhelming that Angela Rocha, a pediatric infectious diseases specialist in Pernambuco, one of the hardest hit states, said in an interview with CNN that women may want to hold off on getting pregnant.

"These are newborns who will require special attention their entire lives. It's an emotional stress that just can't be imagined...," Rocha said. "We're talking about a generation of babies that's going to be affected."

Until a few years ago, human infections with the virus were almost unheard of. Then, for reasons scientists can't explain but think may have to do with the complicated effects of climate change, it began to pop up in far-flung parts of the world. In 2007, it infected nearly three-quarters of Yap Island's 11,000 residents. In 2013, Zika showed up in Tahiti and other parts of French Polynesia and was responsible for making an estimated 28,000 people so ill they sought medical care. It arrived in Brazil in May, where tens of thousands have fallen ill.

The World Health Organization, which has been monitoring the spread of the virus closely and issued an alert about the situation in Brazil, reported this month that it had popped up for the first time in the West African nation of Cape Verde and that it had led to additional illnesses in Panama and Honduras.

In the United States, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has found the virus in a few travelers returning from overseas, but says there have not come across any cases of people being infected by mosquitoes in the country.

Brazil has been struggling to contain the virus for months through both public education campaigns --which urge residents to use insect repelant and limit their time outdoors -- as well as by sending mosquito eradication teams house to house to treat places where aedes aegypti mosquito that carries the virus might breed. The health ministry said it was sending truckloads of larvicide -- enough to treat 3,560 Olympic-sized swimming pools -- to northeastern and southeastern states that have been most affected and that it would add 266,000 new community health agents to make the house calls.

Source:     Brazil Declares Emergency After 2400 Babies Are Born With Brain Damage

Beware Of Wheat!!!!!!

Written by:   Okey Goodluck Nwankwo

There are THREE inherent DANGERS in the chemistry of WHEAT that make it a CLASSIC DESTROYER OF HEALTH. 

I call them the DOWNSIDES of WHEAT.

The FIRST: WHEAT contains GLUTEN – a protein that causes inflammation, a systemic process that has harmful effects across all the organ systems in the body including the brain, heart, joints, eyes and digestive tract. 

As a matter of fact, inflammation does not only precede all degenerative diseases like diabetes, cancer, stroke, glaucoma, arthritis and Parkinson’s disease, but also fuels their insidious progression. 

A review paper in the New England Journal of Medicine listed 55 DISEASES that can be caused by eating GLUTEN-CONTAINING foods. The diseases include osteoporosis, anemia, cancer, canker sores, fatigue, rheumatoid arthritis and multiple sclerosis. 

The paper also linked gluten to many psychiatric and neurological diseases including depression, schizophrenia, dementia, nerve damage, epilepsy and autism. The paper concluded that there are 120 or more diseases associated with eating foods that contain gluten. Dr. Joseph A. Murray, MD states that he is surprised how often gluten affects the brain.

The SECOND: WHEAT study by Dr .J. Robert Cade, MD of the University of Florida showed that people with autism and schizophrenia have high level of PEPTIDES in their urine. 

These PEPTIDES, according to Dr. Cade, come from CASEIN (protein in milk and other dairy products) and GLIADIN and GLUTEN in WHEAT, BARLEY, OATS and RYE.

Another study of 30,000 patients analyzed from 1969 – 2008 reported in the journal of the American Medical Association found that people diagnosed with GLUTEN-SENSITIVITY had a higher risk of death from cancer and heart disease than the normal population.

Worse still, the bulk of wheat being consumed in the country is the AMERICAN HYBRID STRAIN, which has much HIGHER GLUTEN content than the European wheat.

The THIRD: Inherent DANGER in the Chemistry of WHEAT is its High GLYCEMIC Index GI. 

Glycemic Index is a scale that ranks carbohydrate rich foods by how much they raise blood sugar level compared to low glycemic foods. 

Wheat has GI of 71 compared to yam and sweet potato with GI of 49 and 54 respectively. 

Invariably, eating food with high GI like wheat regularly promotes WEIGHT GAIN and makes DIABETES INTRACTABLE. According to Dr. Mark Hyman, MD “WHEAT is a MAJOR contributor to OBESITY, DIABETES, CANCER, DEMENTIA, DEPRESSION and many Modern ills.”

What's your experience with wheat?

Share with us in the comment box below

Coffee Or Tea - Which Is Healthier?

A colleague recently came to me asking what’s better: coffee or tea? She told me that she (a coffee drinker) and her boyfriend (more of a tea guy) were debating which beverage is healthier, each believing their own personal preference was the more virtuous option.

It’s a good question because it seems like every day there’s news about the health benefits of one or the other, but you never see the two compared.

The truth: there isn’t a clear standout. Both of these uniquely healthy pick-me-ups have their own long list of health pros—and cons. Below, I go over the reasons to sip one or the other, along with tips for getting the most out of each one.

The Pros: 

Tea boasts a long list of health benefits. The rich antioxidants in tea fight inflammation, and have been shown to help prevent blood vessels from hardening. 

Tea drinkers have a significantly lower risk of stroke and heart disease, and tea is known to boost brain health. 

One study, for example, found that compared with older adults who drank less than three cups a week, those who drank more than two cups of green tea a day had a significantly lower risk of age-related declines in memory.

Regular tea drinkers also have higher bone density levels and slower rates of bone loss.

Overall it’s associated with anti-aging: research shows that the cells of regular tea drinkers have a younger biological age than non-drinkers. Pretty potent stuff!

The Cons: 

The first one is purely cosmetic—stained teeth.

Another is the potential impact on your iron levels due to tanins, a type of antioxidant that interferes with the absorption of non-heme, or plant-based iron from foods like greens and beans. In one classic 1982 study drinking tea with a meal resulted in a 62% reduction in iron absorption compared to 35% for coffee.

Finally, if you’re sensitive to it, the caffeine in tea may also be a con, although the levels are lower than coffee. 

One cup or eight ounces of black tea contains 14-70 mg of caffeine, and green tea 24-45 mg, compared to 95-200 mg in the same sized portion of coffee.

Healthy prep tips

The most important tip for tea is to limit or avoid adding sweetener. Enjoy it hot or iced, and if you need a little sweetness add a splash of 100% fruit juice. You can also add flavor with a bit of natural seasoning, like fresh grated ginger, or fresh mint. Each of these also boosts the antioxidant potency in your mug.

As for the iron issue, if you’re an omnivore this is less of a concern since tannins do not impact the uptake of animal-based heme iron found in meat, fish, and poultry. But if you are vegetarian or vegan the best way to offset the impact is to consume your iron-rich plant foods with a source of vitamin C. In the same study, OJ upped iron absorption by 85%. Other top vitamin C sources include bell peppers, broccoli, cauliflower, Brussels sprouts, kiwi, and strawberries.

Coffee

Pros: 

The good news about coffee just keeps on coming. A brand new Harvard study found that those who drink about three to five cups of coffee a day may be less likely to die prematurely from some diseases than those who drink less or no coffee. A rich source of antioxidants, regular coffee consumption has also been linked to protection against type 2 diabetes, Parkinson’s, and certain cancers.

Cons: 

Natural substances in unfiltered coffee (meaning boiled or espresso) have been shown to raise cholesterol levels slightly. Also coffee is more acidic than tea, so if you have stomach or digestive issues you may tolerate tea better.

Coffee has long had a reputation for bone issues, but it remains unclear how significant the effects are. One study found that a high intake of coffee—four or more cups a day—reduced bone density by 2-4%, but the effect didn’t translate to an increased risk of fracture. However, if you already have low bone density coffee consumption is something you should discuss with your physician.

The remaining cons of coffee are primarily tied to its caffeine content, which again is higher than in tea. Caffeine is a stimulant, so if you’re sensitive to it coffee may leave you feeling overly stimulated, jittery, and anxious. If you have high blood pressure, you should limit your caffeine intake because caffeine can cause a short, but dramatic spike in blood pressure.

Also two or more cups of coffee a day can up the risk of heart disease in people with a fairly common genetic mutation, which slows the breakdown of caffeine in the body. Unfortunately the testing for this is limited, and not typically offered by doctor’s offices. One company, affiliated with the University of Toronto, offers a test through registered dietitians, but it will likely be an out of pocket expense.

Finally, coffee is a known diuretic, meaning it flushes water from the body. Research shows that your body can adjust to a regular habit, but if you only have it once in a while, or you have more than usual, it could leave you dehydrated.

Healthy prep tips

Again, sugar and other coffee “adds” are a big issue. Fancy coffees doctored up with syrups, milk, and whipped cream can easily add up to more calories than a meal should provide: 540 for a Starbucks grande peppermint white chocolate mocha made with 2% milk and whipped cream. That’s 140 more than a salad from Chipotle made with romaine, black beans, fajita veggies, salsa, and guacamole. I’m not in favor of using artificial sweeteners due to their potential impact on appetite and blood sugar regulation, as well as gut health.

I advise my coffee loving clients to add a little plant-based milk, a minimal amount or no added sugar, and a sprinkling of an antioxidant-rich spice like cinnamon.

The bottom line

Stick with what you’re partial to, take the cons into account, and be sure you aren’t using the caffeine in either tea or coffee as a crutch, to mask fatigue from too little sleep. 

While you may get a benefit from using caffeine pre-exercise it’s best to cut off caffeine completely at least six hours before bed for optimal sleep. 

And if either beverage leaves you feeling zapped of energy, either from the caffeine or what you’re adding to it, wean down your intake and up the H2O, the ultimate health-boosting beverage.

Source:    Coffee Or Tea - Which Is Healthier

8 TopTips On How To Make Your Skin Soft And Glowing

Believe me, been there, done that. When I started my high-school my skin was a real mess, and I spent way too much money on all the miracle products that should make my skin soft and glowing in no time. Of course, nothing really helped. 

Years passed by and I decided to treat my skin with a bit more respect, I stared eating properly, drinking enough of water and voila, my skin improved. 

Now I decided to share my tips with you, and help you improve you problematic skin. Good luck.

1.     Eat Almonds regularly

Almonds are especially rich with vitamin E, and we all know that there is no better healer than this vitamin is. 

It helps you skin regenerate, especially after the damage too much Sun exposure can cause. 

Vitamin E also has amazing antioxidant powers.

2.     Eat loads of Green Vegetables such as Kale

Green color will be your new best friends with this amazing vegetable. 

Kale contains vitamins A, B complex, C, E and K, as well as potent levels of manganese, calcium, potassium, iron, magnesium, and phosphorus. 

There is no better way to totally clean your skin.

3.     Eat plenty Avocado Pear

To boost you skin’s vitally Avocado is the best way to do it, not only it is rich with vitamin E, which like mentioned before has amazing healing powers, but it also contains a lot of vitamin C, which will reduce the redness of your skin.

4.     Eat Fish especially Tuna

Every fish you consume is great for your whole body, skin included, but tuna is the one people just adore. 

It is so versatile that provides us with tons of opportunities how to use it. 

The main thing why we love tuna so much is Selenium, this nutrient helps preserve elastic and leaves your skin smooth and tight.

5.     Drink Green Tea

Green Tea is much more than just an antioxidant that helps you get rid of all the annoying blemishes, like pimples or red spot that are left after them. 

Drinking two cups of this amazing tea a day also helps prevent skin cancer.

6.     Take lots of Oat Milk

There are many people who claim that taking dairy products from their diet have improved their skin a lot. 

Changing your usual milk for Oat milk will help you with your acne problem. 

Oat milk is high in fiber, lactose free and high in vitamin E.

7.     Eat Tofu

The soft texture, made from soy beans will help you love Tofu, but it is not only healthy and delicious, it also has some superpowers. 

Yes, this calcium and proteins rich food will help almost anyone with any skin problems you can possibly imagine.

8.     Drink lots of Water

So, clear skin definitely starts from within, and water is the best thing to start with. 

Drinking enough of water and trying to stay away from beverages full of sugar and alcohol will make your skin soft and glowing.

Source:     Your Skin

Your Brian Is In real Trouble - Find Out Why!!!

What too little sleep does to your brain and body

Surrounding ourselves with screens comes with an unexpected side effect: We can't sleep.

And our bodies and minds are suffering.

Whether it's because we're staying up to squeeze in a final episode of "Master of None" or scrolling through Facebook, nearly 40% of us get less than seven hours of sleep a night, according to a recent Gallup poll. And the CDC estimates that another 50-70 million Americans likely have a sleep disorder.

Here are eight horrible things that can happen if you don't get enough sleep:

Original Article:     Health Effects Of Not Sleeping Enough