(AP) — Two private companies announced Friday a partnership to release mosquitoes across the Caribbean, including Jamaica, bred with a bacterium that blocks the dengue virus as the region fights a record number of cases.

Orbit Services Partners Inc., a company registered in Barbados, is partnering with Verily, a San Francisco-based health technology company, for the project.

The companies have been meeting with government officials in the region in hopes of launching the project early next year, said Orbit chairman Anthony Da Silva.

It would target nations including Barbados, Guyana, Jamaica, St Kitts & Nevis, St Maarten, St Martin, Suriname, Dominican Republic and Haiti.

Similar projects using the Wolbachia bacterium already have been implemented elsewhere in the world. Mosquitoes are infected with Wolbachia in a laboratory and then released into the wild, where they pass it on to their offspring.

The bacterium prevents the dengue virus from replicating inside a mosquito’s gut.

Da Silva said the partnership has been three years in the making and was delayed by the pandemic.

The proposal is still pending approval in individual Caribbean nations.

The Caribbean, along with the Americas, has reported more than four million dengue cases so far this year, the highest number since record-keeping began in 1980.

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Santo Domingo—Some 99 municipalities in the country reported a decrease in dengue cases this week compared to those reported the previous week, with the surveillance system capturing 983 new cases of the disease, which has maintained a high demand for medical attention in recent months.

Reduction of cases

According to reports from the Epidemiology Department of the Ministry of Public Health, during epidemiological week number 48, 983 new dengue cases were reported, showing a reduction in the last four weeks of registration, when the average number of weekly cases exceeded 1,000 reported.

This year, the country is experiencing a dengue epidemic, generating a demand for attention in the emergency and hospitalization areas of clinics and hospitals, especially in Greater Santo Domingo. Epidemic conditions of dengue are also registered in different counties of the region.

This positive news comes as the Jaime Mota Regional University Hospital in Barahona considers closing its oral rehydration area, which had been set up for acute diarrheal diseases, due to the normalcy of the situation.

During a recent visit to Barahona, Dr. Estrella met with local authorities, the National Institute of Drinking Water and Sewage (Inapa), and the Ministry of Public Works to address water-related issues. She expressed optimism that the Barahona aqueduct, affected by a landslide in recent months, will be operational within a few weeks, ensuring a stable water supply for the area’s residents.

Regarding dengue fever, Eladio Pérez Antonio, the Vice Minister of Collective Health, reported a significant decrease in cases in recent weeks. Out of 99 municipalities, 50 reported no new cases of dengue. He explained that while dengue follows an endemic curve and cases are expected, the current numbers are within the expected range. The recent increase in cases has now subsided, returning to expected levels.

As of the current reporting, the Dominican Republic has registered a total of 23,036 dengue cases, with 983 of these occurring two weeks ago. The Ministry of Public Health continues to closely monitor the situation to ensure public health and safety.

Researchers from Stanford University Medicine found that roughly one in every five "reasonably healthy" adults aged 50 or older has at least one organ that is aging at a "strongly accelerated rate," which causes a higher risk of disease and death.

The blood test could help guide therapeutic interventions before symptoms appear, according to senior author Tony Wyss-Coray, PhD, the senior author of the study and a professor of neurology at Stanford Medicine in California.

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By looking at specialized proteins in a person’s blood, scientists could detect the biological age of an organ, even if the person appears healthy at the time, Wyss-Coray told Fox News Digital. 

That information could then predict the person’s risk for disease related to that organ.

Wyss-Coray compared it to an auto mechanic plugging a vehicle into a machine to get information about how the different car parts are functioning.

"This is basically what we do, but by looking at the concentration of these highly specialized proteins," he told Fox News Digital in an interview.

The research team — led by Stanford in collaboration with Washington University; the University of California, San Francisco; the Albert Einstein College of Medicine; and Montefiore Medical Center in New York — looked at blood samples from 5,678 people, focusing on proteins in the blood that are unique to specific organs. 

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"For example, because the brain is highly specialized, it uses very special proteins to maintain its function," Wyss-Coray said.

The team then created a model using an algorithm to detect the organs’ biological age.

"When we compared each of these organs’ biological age for each individual to their counterparts among a large group of people without obvious severe diseases, we found that 18.4% of those age 50 or older had at least one organ aging significantly more rapidly than the average," Wyss-Coray said in a news release from the university.

"These individuals were at a heightened risk for disease in that particular organ in the next 15 years."

Human organs age at different rates, lead authors Hamilton Oh and Jarod Rutledge, who are graduate students in Wyss-Coray’s lab, said in the Stanford news release.

Previous studies have examined ways to detect a person’s biological age through biomarkers, but the Stanford team took it a step further by determining scores for specific organs, including the heart, brain, kidney, liver, pancreas, lung, intestines, immune system and tissues. 

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The researchers used an algorithm that included organ-specific protein calculations and came up with an "age gap." That's the difference between an organ’s actual age and its estimated age based on the algorithm’s calculations, Wyss-Cross told Fox News Digital.

Age gaps were found for 10 of the 11 organs studied. An individual who had an accelerated-aging organ carried a 15% to 50% higher mortality risk over the next 15 years depending on which organ was affected, the study found.

Even for people who did not initially show any active disease or abnormal clinical biomarkers, an accelerated aging heart increased their risk of heart failure by 2.5 times, according to the study release.

Those considered to have "older" brains were 1.8 times as likely to show cognitive decline over five years, compared to those with "young" brains, the Stanford release noted.

Accelerated aging of the brain or vasculature (blood vessel) system also predicted risk for Alzheimer’s disease progression, according to the study.

There were also strong associations between an extreme-aging kidney score with diabetes and hypertension, as well as a link between an extreme-aging heart score and atrial fibrillation or heart attack, Wyss-Coray told Fox News Digital. 

A smaller number of individuals (1 in 60 people) had two organs that were aging at a faster pace. Their mortality risk was 6.5 times higher than a person without a significantly aged organ.

"If we can reproduce this finding in 50,000 or 100,000 individuals, it will mean that by monitoring the health of individual organs in apparently healthy people, we might be able to find organs that are undergoing accelerated aging in people’s bodies, and we might be able to treat people before they get sick," Wyss-Coray said in the release.

Another benefit of identifying accelerated organ aging is that it can help with drug repurposing, he noted.

"Let’s say you take a drug for heart disease and we saw that as a result, your lung gets younger," Wyss-Coray told Fox News Digital in the interview. "It could be another effect of that drug. Then maybe we can use that same drug to treat a lung disease."

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Identifying these proteins can also lead to new drug targets, Wyss-Coray added.

If proteins are shown to decline in people who get a disease, scientists could make more of them, for example — or other proteins could be inhibited if they are detrimental.

Dr. Anuradha Lala, M.D., an advanced heart failure and transplant cardiologist at Mount Sinai Fuster Heart Hospital in New York City, was not affiliated with the study, but told Fox News Digital that the findings may help to increase organ donations. 

In heart transplant medicine, doctors typically select relatively younger, healthier donors to maximize the longevity of the transplanted organ, Lala noted.

"Yet the authors showed … that aging in one organ did not necessarily mean other organs age at the same rate," she told Fox News Digital. 

"Given the large number of patients awaiting life-saving transplantation of specific organs, being able to decipher which organs may indeed have better chances of doing well could theoretically increase the number of donor [hearts] available," Lala said. 

More research is needed into the implications of race, ethnicity and gender, as well as costs and access, she added.

Sean Clouston, PhD, a professor in the Department of Family, Population and Preventive Medicine in the Renaissance School of Medicine at Stony Brook University in New York, was not involved in the study but commented on the research.

"This is a remarkably complicated but intuitive study that used exceptional measurements to examine aging separately across different organ systems," Clouston, who is also the director of public health research, said via email to Fox News Digital.

The study findings could help practitioners identify and treat many types of conditions, he added.

"This could mean that you could go to your doctor to do one blood test to monitor a huge array of conditions … and maybe they could act earlier to intervene for problems that are still only emerging."

Existing treatments, including those for Alzheimer’s disease, could also become much more effective, Clouston noted.

Two doctors from Northwell Health on Long Island, New York — Dr. Christine L. Sardo Molmenti, PhD, an associate professor and cancer epidemiologist, and Dr. Ernesto P. Molmenti, MD, Ph.D., surgical director of kidney transplantation — were not involved in the study but weighed in on the findings.

The findings "bring us closer to the concept of individualized and personalized medicine," they said in a joint statement to Fox News Digital.

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"They are able to identify, in a minimally invasive way, which organs will require immediate, intermediate and/or long-term therapeutic interventions," the doctors said.

"Once an organ has been identified as actively aging, it may allow for providing optimal medical care and improving prognosis and survival," they continued. 

"With our ultimate goal of intervening prior to the progression of disease, this approach also focuses on prevention as a promising strategy for reducing morbidity and mortality of several chronic diseases that are leading causes of death in this country."

For more Health articles, visit www.foxnews.com/health. 

Santo Domingo.- The Dominican Republic’s Ministry of Public Health (MSP) revealed the significant impact of its “Health Route, Change your Lifestyle” initiative, having completed 30 interventions across the country. Health Minister Dr. Daniel Rivera highlighted the initiative’s success in benefiting over 1,451 thousand families, stemming from the findings of the Overweight, Hypertension, and Obesity Study.

Dr. Rivera elaborated on the broad reach of the program, noting its contribution to reducing the country’s blood donation deficit, early detection of breast cancer, hypertension in pregnant women, and encouraging Dominicans to embrace healthier lifestyles. The program positively impacted 21,796 pregnant women, 10,187 older adults with health preservation guidance, and 215,740 families in total.

The Health Minister expressed gratitude for the public’s enthusiastic participation and acknowledged the support of both public and private organizations in achieving these milestones. First Lady Raquel Arbaje also thanked those involved, including Health Minister Dr. Rivera and Dr. Gina Estrella, for their efforts in executing the initiative.

President Luis Abinader’s government considers the comprehensive health of the population a top priority, as highlighted by Arbaje, who also mentioned the School Health program, a collaboration involving various ministries and health organizations. She proudly referenced the “Take care of your mental health” telephone line, another Public Health initiative.

Dr. Gina Estrella credited the success of the Health Route to teamwork and community commitment. The event also included recognition of various provincial directorates for their outstanding contributions to the initiative, as well as acknowledgment of the First Lady, private companies, departmental managers, and Dr. Estrella for their roles in the program.

Originally inspired by President Abinader’s concern about the post-COVID-19 increase in chronic diseases, the Health Route started in provinces with high rates of hypertension, diabetes, and obesity. To date, it has integrated about 35 services in different health areas.

View the full post Transforming creative tools into instruments of empowerment on NOW Grenada.

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Hello from ASH! Writing this Readout from a press room at the annual hematology confab here in San Diego. Today’s edition is chockfull of Vertex content, plus some extras from ASH and elsewhere.

Read the rest…

The Vector Control Unit will continue its fogging programme this week with emphasis on three parishes.

When the exercise starts on Monday, December 11, the team will focus attention on the St John districts of Foster Hall, St Margaret’s Village Road, Glenburnie and the environs.

A return to that parish on Tuesday, December 12, will see fogging at Martin’s Bay, Zores, New Castle, New Castle Hill, and environs.

The following day, Wednesday, December 13, the team will journey to St Philip, where Bottom Bay Road, Bottom Drive, Ocean Drive, Apple Hall, Inch Cape, Harrismith Road, and environs will be sprayed.

On Thursday, December 14, fogging will move to St Michael. Areas to be sprayed are: Danesbury Road, Hinkson Gap, Retreat Road, Spring Garden, Carters Gap, Carlton Terrace, Brighton Beach Road North and South and environs.

Fogging concludes on Friday, December 15, with a return to St Michael. The districts to be visited are Brighton Road, Ashdeane Road, Brighton Terrace, Dodson Land, Rosemont, Deacon’s Farm Housing Area, Birds River, Holders Land, Brandons, Bays Water, and environs.

Fogging will run from 4:30 to 8:30 p.m., each day. Householders are asked to assist in the control of the aedes aegypti mosquito by opening all windows and doors to allow the fog to penetrate. Persons with respiratory problems should protect themselves from inhaling the fog.

Pedestrians and motorists should proceed with caution when encountering fogging operations on the street and parents are instructed to prohibit children from playing in the fog or running behind the fogging machine.

Members of the public are advised that the completion of scheduled fogging activities may be affected by events beyond the Unit’s control. In such circumstances, the Unit will return to affected communities as soon as possible.

(PR)

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The Queen Elizabeth Hospital (QEH) says it resumed burning medical waste at its Martindales Road facility on Monday, November 27.

Since then, management has received a number of complaints from residents in the surrounding environs about the increase in the level of smoke coming from the incinerator, the QEH said in a statement on Saturday. 

The hospital said it has acknowledged these concerns and is taking them seriously. 

In response, management and the engineering department have decided on the following measures: 

• The creation of a new schedule for burning medical waste as an immediate measure to address environmental concerns raised by residents. Starting next week, incineration will be conducted on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays only; there will be no burning from Friday through to Monday.

• As a temporary measure, the existing incinerator will be outfitted with new ‘after-burners’, the purpose of which is to provide a cleaner burn and a significant reduction in the level of smoke expelled from the plant. These should be installed within the coming weeks.

• The board of management and the management team are actively exploring green, environmentally friendly technologies as a long-term solution for medical waste management at the hospital.

Management at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital apologies for the inconvenience and thanks residents for their patience and understanding, as we work on a more permanent solution.

(PR)

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The Best-dos Santos Public Health Laboratory has reported an increase in positive samples for dengue fever in Barbados.

As a result, health officials are urging Barbadians to take precautions to avoid contracting the virus, which is transmitted by the Aedes Aegypti mosquito.

The laboratory indicated that five positive cases of dengue – three cases of Type 2 and two cases of Type 3 were recorded in August. Additionally, four positive cases of the virus – two cases each of Type 2 and Type 3 – were recorded, so far, for September.

This profile is somewhat different from earlier this year, when Types 1 and 3 were the main strains circulating. However, the Best-dos Santos Public Health Laboratory reported that these results were in keeping with the strains that are currently circulating in the Americas.

In light of the increase in cases, Chief Medical Officer, Dr Kenneth George, encourages members of the public to report mosquito sightings to the Environmental Health Departments at the polyclinics nearest to them.

“Once those reports are received, the environmental health officers will go out to those districts and carry out investigations,” he said.

The Ministry currently conducts fogging in “problem areas” where it receives several reports about mosquito breeding.

The CMO noted that the likelihood of severe dengue is increased when there are multiple strains of the virus circulating.  He added that severe dengue can include shock syndromes and hemorrhaging.

The Ministry reminded health providers to remain vigilant for the warning signs of severe dengue, which usually occur after the fever has subsided and may include, severe abdominal pain and signs of bleeding, for example, from the gums.

“In addition, all unexplained fevers with accompanying headaches, muscle pains or rash should be reported to your primary care physician. The Best-dos Santos Public Health Lab remains on alert. It is, at this time, able to process excess samples,” Dr George explained.

He pointed out that while the Ministry of Health and Wellness remained committed to reducing the mosquito burden in the country, it could not do it alone and needed the public’s cooperation.

The Chief Medical Officer advised Barbadians to check water they have stored and indoor plants regularly for mosquito larvae, and change the water in the overflow dishes of plant pots every three to four days.

He further suggested that persons wear mosquito repellent during peak biting times – dusk and dawn; wear light-coloured, long-sleeved clothing; and inspect old tyres for water collection and drain them, once necessary.

Mosquito nets should also be used over infant beds, carriers, cribs and strollers; and window and door screens should be installed to keep out mosquitoes.

The Ministry encourages health providers to send samples from persons suspected of having dengue to the public health lab for definitive diagnosis and typing of the specific dengue strains.

(BGIS)

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