A strong earthquake of magnitude 6.9 struck off the west coast of Chile on Monday, rocking the capital Santiago and briefly causing alarm along the Pacific Coast but sparing the quake-prone nation of any serious damage.

The quake was centered about 85 miles (137 km) from Santiago, and some 22 miles (35 km) west of the coastal city of Valparaiso. The U.S. Geological Survey twice revised the magnitude before settling on 6.9, a strength usually capable of causing severe damage.

The epicenter’s shallow depth of 15.5 miles (25 km) below the sea allowed it to be felt hundreds of miles (km) away.

Santiago office buildings swayed for about 30 seconds at the end of the workday.

‘Short, but very powerful’

Closer to the epicenter, residents scrambled for higher ground, remembering the lessons of the country’s devastating earthquake and tsunami in 2010.

“It was short but very powerful,” said Paloma Salamo, a 26-year-old nurse, who was in a clinic in Viña del Mar, just north of Valparaiso, when the quake struck.

People ran from the facility carrying children and some headed for the hills when the tsunami alarm sounded, she said, but calm was soon restored.

“So far there has been no human loss nor significant damage,” President Michelle Bachelet said, praising people for evacuating in an orderly fashion in the immediate aftermath.

Cellphone networks down

Officials canceled a tsunami warning that had been issued in Valparaiso. The Pacific Tsunami Warning Center reported small tsunami waves of half a foot (15 cm).

There were no reports of structural damage in Valparaiso, but cellphone networks were down in some places, a spokesman with the local government said.

Videos from the Valparaiso area showed objects falling from store shelves, rocks falling onto roads and lights flickering.

Felt beyond the Andes

The quake was felt as far away as Argentina, on the other side of the Andes.

Interior Minister Mario Fernandez said there had been some landslides but “in general the situation is pretty normal bearing in mind the quake’s intensity.”

Strict construction codes in Chile limit damage to buildings.

Copper mining was unaffected, according to Chile’s state-run Codelco, one of the largest copper mining companies in the world, and Anglo American, which has copper operations in central Chile.

But interruptions in the electricity supply led the Aconcagua oil refinery to temporarily suspend operations for safety reasons, state-run oil firm ENAP said. There was no damage to either of Chile’s two refineries, ENAP said.

Several aftershocks including two of magnitudes 5.0 and 5.4 were recorded in the same spot and could be felt in Santiago, part of a cluster of tremors from that area in recent days.

‘Ring of Fire’

Chile, located on the so-called “Pacific Ring of Fire,” has a long history of deadly quakes, including a 8.8 magnitude quake in 2010 off the south-central coast, which also triggered a tsunami that devastated coastal towns. More than 500 people died.

That was the sixth-largest earthquake ever recorded, according to the USGS. The largest recorded temblor in history was also in Chile, a 9.5-magnitude quake in 1960.

The long, slender country runs along the border of two tectonic plates, with the Nazca Plate beneath the South Pacific Ocean pushing into the South America Plate, a phenomenon that also formed the Andes Mountains.

 
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From: MeNeedIt

An experimental blood test can quickly and accurately diagnose malaria from other infections, so treatment of the mosquito-borne illness can be started promptly. 

The symptoms of malaria, which strikes an estimated 200 million people around the globe every year, are non-specific.  That means the fever, aches, pains and chills in the early stages could be mistaken for any number of infections. 

Identifying and treating malaria promptly not only increases a patient’s chances of survival, but also helps prevent the disease from spreading to more people.

The blood test, developed by researchers at Stanford University in California, looks for patterns of immune system activation to determine whether a person is infected with the malaria parasite, and not a bacterium or virus.  It is reportedly 96 percent accurate.

Purvesh Khatri, a professor of medicine at Stanford, helped develop the biomarker test, which looks at which genes are switched on or off, depending on the infection.

A simple blood test measuring these immune markers could be helpful in resource-poor settings, according to Khatri. 

“So a test like ours is useful,” he said, “You could take a blood test that would not require an expert technician, and they are more sensitive than the rapid diagnostic test than we have now.”

Khatri notes the current test is not very accurate because it looks for a molecule, called an antigen, that activates an immune response in a malaria infection. 

“And the problem with those are there are not enough antigen,” said Khatri.  “So treatment then [could] be inappropriate and then it could awhile before malaria is diagnosed.”

Khatri and his team drew upon data from 40 studies involving more than 3,000 blood samples from patients with various infections.  Some were known to have malaria.  But there were also other tropical illnesses observed in the studies, including dengue, typhoid and leishmaniasis.

From those blood studies, investigators analyzed the activation of 2,100 different genes, looking at which genes switched on and off with parasitic, viral and bacterial infections.

They found a group of seven genes that were expressed in malaria compared to healthy people and those with other infectious illnesses.

To confirm their discovery, the researchers whittled the samples down to 900, in which they were able to discern the pattern of gene activation unique to malaria with near 100 percent accuracy.

While the experimental blood test is accurate in diagnosing malaria, Khatri says it might also detect other parasitic diseases that researchers have not yet studied.

But he said the blood test could be reliably used in cases where malaria is strongly suspected and confirmation of the disease is needed.

Khatri presented his findings at a meeting of the European Congress of Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases before World Malaria Day this week.
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From: MeNeedIt

Nine years after his death at age 28, audiences are seeing a different side of Australian actor Heath Ledger through the lens of his own camera.

Documentary “I Am Heath Ledger” uses thousands of hours of self video shot by Ledger, as well as his art work and music videos, to paint a portrait of the young actor who took Hollywood by storm in roles like “Brokeback Mountain” and “The Dark Knight.”

The film also seeks to counteract the lingering perception that Ledger was severely depressed when he accidentally overdosed on painkillers, anxiety and insomnia medication.

“He was super happy and he was loving life. He struggled with some demons, but he wasn’t one to go anywhere but forward,” Ledger’s Hollywood agent Steve Alexander says in the film, which was launched at the Tribeca Film Festival this week.

Rather than dwell on his January 2008 death in New York, the film uses Ledger’s video archives and interviews with his family and closest friends to “celebrate Heath’s life and to tell the story of this multi-faceted artist,” director and producer Derik Murray told Reuters Television.

It portrays Ledger as a force of nature who longed for adventure, was generous with his friends, and whose passions ranged from chess to making music videos. His non-stop energy also meant he rarely slept a full night.

While Ledger’s friends including Naomi Watts and director Ang Lee were interviewed for the film, Michelle Williams’ – Ledger’s former fiance and mother of his daughter Matilda – chose not to take part, said her spokeswoman.

Murray said Williams’ support was integral to the film “but she really didn’t feel she wanted to be in front of the camera.”

Ledger was found dead a few months after the couple split up and shortly after filming his role as the manic Joker in “The Dark Knight,” for which he won a posthumous Oscar.

“There was a lot of conversation and chatter around the fact that his passing was a byproduct of his role as the Joker and that he spiraled down this path and couldn’t pull himself out of it,” said Murray.

But Murray said everyone the filmmakers spoke to said this was untrue. “He had the best time making it… The Joker was a role. He was enthralled by it. He was proud of it.”

“I Am Heath Ledger” will get a one-night showing in 300 U.S. movie theaters on May 3 and premiere on Spike TV on May 17.
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From: MeNeedIt

Elton John spent two nights in intensive care with a potentially deadly bacterial infection and has canceled all his concerts for the rest of April and May, his publicist said on Monday.

The British musician, 70, became “violently ill” on a flight home from his recent South American tour, spokeswoman Fran Curtis said in a statement.

The “Rocket Man” singer spent two nights in intensive care in the U.K. and is resting at home after being released on Saturday, the statement said.

The infection was not identified, but the statement said John contracted the “harmful and unusual bacterial infection” during his South American tour, which ended in Chile on April 10.

“Infections of this nature are rare and potentially deadly,” the statement said, adding that his time in intensive care was followed by an “extended stay in hospital.”

John is expected to make a full recovery but has canceled all his concerts in Las Vegas for April and May, as well as a gig in Bakersfield, California, on May 6.

John apologized to fans for disappointing them, adding in a statement: “I am extremely grateful to the medical team for their excellence in looking after me so well.”

He is due to resume performances at a concert in Twickenham, England, on June 3.

John, a Grammy, Oscar and Tony winner for his work in film and theater, is working on a score for a Broadway musical adaptation of the comedy-drama “The Devil Wears Prada.”
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From: MeNeedIt

The World Health Organization has chosen Ghana, Kenya and Malawi as the countries where the world’s first malaria vaccine will be tested next year on young children.

The injectable vaccine, known as RTS,S, or Mosquirix, was developed by the British pharmaceutical company, GlaxoSmithKline.

The test will be conducted on babies and toddlers, aged 5 to 17 months.

Malaria is a life-threatening disease caused by parasites that are transmitted to people through the bites of infected female mosquitoes.

WHO said in a statement the pilot program “will assess the feasibility of delivering the required four doses of RTS,S, the vaccine’s potential role in reducing childhood deaths, and its safety in routine use.

“The prospect of a malaria vaccine is great news. Information gathered in the pilot will help us make decisions on the wider use of this vaccine,” said Dr. Matshidiso Moeti, WHO Regional Director for Africa. “Combined with existing malaria interventions, such a vaccine would have the potential to save tens of thousands of lives in Africa.”

Malaria interventions include insecticide-treated nets and spraying indoor walls with insecticides.

In 2015, approximately 429,000 people died from malaria, the majority of them were young children in Africa.

Global efforts between 2000 and 2015, however, have led to a 62 percent reduction in malaria deaths.

According to WHO, “Africa bears the greatest burden of malaria worldwide.” In 2015, sub-Saharan Africa was home to 90 percent of malaria cases and 92 percent of malaria deaths.

Tuesday is World Malaria Day.
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From: MeNeedIt

European shares opened sharply higher and the euro briefly vaulted to five-month peaks on Monday after the market’s favored candidate won the first round of the French election, reducing the risk of another Brexit-like shock.

The victory for pro-EU centrist Emmanuel Macron, who is now expected to beat right-wing rival Marine Le Pen in a deciding vote next month, sent the pan-European STOXX 50 index up 3 percent, France’s CAC40 almost 4 percent and bank stocks more than 6 percent.

Traders top-sliced some of the euro’s overnight gains, but it was still up more than 1 percent on the dollar, more than 2 percent against the yen and 1.3 percent on the pound as the early flurry of deals subsided.

“It (the first round result) has come out in line with the market’s expectations so you have something of a risk rally as there was a bit of a risk-premium built into all markets,” said James Binny, head of currency at State Street Global Advisors.

There was also an unwinding of safe-haven trades.

Shorter-term German bonds saw their biggest sell-off since the end of 2015 as investors piled back into French as well as Italian, Spanish, Portuguese and Greek debt.

The Japanese yen’s fall was widespread, the market’s so-called fear-guage, the VIX volatility index, plunged the most since November and gold saw its biggest tumble in more than a month.

E-mini futures for Wall Street’s S&P 500 climbed 0.9 percent in early trade, while yields on 10-year U.S. Treasury notes rose almost 8 basis points to 2.31 percent.
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From: MeNeedIt

Concerted campaigns in the Greater Mekong Subregion [GMS] to radically reduce the impact of malaria has lifted hopes a vital target to eradicate malaria from the region may be within reach.

Deyer Gobinath, a malaria technical officer with the World Health Organization (WHO) in Thailand, said the outlook is positive for eliminating severe forms of malaria across the region within the next decade.

The goal is for most of the GMS countries by 2025 to try and eliminate falciparium malaria – the most severe form of malaria – the falciparium malariia – and then by 2030 basically all forms or all species of malaria,” Gobinath said.

In 2015, WHO leaders said there were 14 million malaria cases across Southeast Asia, resulting in 26,000 deaths.  Globally, in the same year, the WHO reported 438,000 lives lost, mostly in Africa and warned that 3.2 billion people – almost half the world’s population – face health risks from the disease. 

Mortality rates decline; challenges remain

The campaigns in Southeast Asia cover Myanmar, Laos, Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam, all reporting consistent declines in mortality rates, by as much as 49 percent since 2000.

Populations most vulnerable to the mosquito-borne disease are largely in remote border regions, isolated from infrastructure and immediate medical support.

The key areas of concern lie in regions between Thailand and Myanmar – also known as Burma – and in Cambodia among others.

But Saw Nay Htoo, director of the Burma Medical Association, said collaboration between medics and local communities has had a positive impact in reducing malaria’s impact.

“In the ground level we set up the malaria [clinic] post which we have at least one malaria health worker, according to the population they have, to detect malaria,” he said. “And if there is malaria positive then the patient is given the malaria medicine. So we have been doing this for three years. It seems our program is going very well – there are less malaria cases in the border areas.”

Combination of drugs

The fight against malaria is largely based on a combination of drugs known as Artemisinin-based Combination Therapy, or ACT, as the main line of drug treatment.

The World Health Organization’s Gobinath said Thailand’s medical infrastructure and funding support have all contributed to lowering the numbers of malaria cases.

“For malaria in Thailand here’s been quite a remarkable decrease – a steady decrease, decline in the number of confirmed cases of malaria. In the past 10 years or so something like 30,000 cases in 2012; to 2015 it was 19,000 to 20,000 cases. So it’s been a gradual but persistent decline of confirmed malaria cases,” he told VOA.

But he said for progress to be sustained it will require continued “political will and commitment.”

WHO officials said attention needs to focus on migrant worker populations moving across the region’s borders. Thai health authorities have taken steps to enable medical access to migrant populations at risk of malaria, largely in remote border areas.

The battle far from over

But challenges remain, said Maria Dorina Bustos, a WHO technical officer with responsibilities for monitoring drug resistant strains of malaria across 18 countries in the Asia Pacific.

Dorina Bustos said the region with drug resistant forms of malaria is spreading. “The Thai-Cambodia or the Thai-Myanmar border, you need to think about the Thai-Laos border because the Southern Laos drug resistance is also about evident – is documented, it is also there. And what is actually more alarming is happening in the Cambodia side,” she told VOA.

She said drug resistance becomes evident in the delay in clearance of the parasite from the patient. Dorina Bustos says the use of fake drugs and self-treatment also opens the way to drug resistance.

“What we are seeing in the last five years is that it is really emerging in the most parts of the region – initially just in the Western border of Cambodia and now it has also spread to the east and almost the whole country,” Dorina Bustos said.

She said there is a need for close monitoring of major population centers – especially in India and Africa – to ensure successful treatment and avoiding issues of the use of fake medicines.

A positive note has been ongoing investment and research in new drugs, including commitments by major pharmaceutical industries.

“It’s really here in the Mekong where we really have a problem. Cambodia, the borders of Thailand, the borders of Thai/Laos and Cambodia/Vietnam – it’s very specific in the Mekong region,” she said. “For Malaysia, the Philippines, Indonesia, Solomon Islands, Vanuatu and even India, Bangladesh and Nepal the ACT [Artemisinin-based Combination Therapy] is all working perfectly well.”
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From: MeNeedIt

Robert De Niro helped Burt Reynolds onto the red carpet for the Tribeca Film Festival premiere of his new movie “Dog Years” Saturday night in New York. It was a rare appearance for the 81-year old actor, who at times struggled to walk.

Reynolds was given a chair on the red carpet, so that he could speak to a limited number of press outlets about the film.

He was overjoyed at the turnout.

“Great to see Mr. De Niro, who I love, and … you know, all the people that I know,” Reynolds said. “It’s very sweet.”

In the film, which is still shopping for distribution, Reynolds portrays an aging movie star who realizes his best days are behind him. The actor sees similarities in the character with his own life.

Reynolds laughed at the obvious parallel with his own life, though he said, “I guess I’m doing all right. I think because it’s a hell of a turnout.”

Written and directed by Adam Rifkin, the film also stars “Modern Family’s” Ariel Winter, Chevy Chase and Nikki Blonsky.

Reynolds joked about working with younger co-stars.

“You don’t learn from young actors,” Reynolds said. “You just tell them how to behave.”
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From: MeNeedIt

This year marks the half-way point in an international campaign to provide children and adults the world over with access to life-saving vaccines. VOA’s Carol Pearson reports on the progress – and what’s at stake in this campaign.
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From: MeNeedIt

Six years ago, 194 countries signed on to the Global Vaccine Action Plan, an international campaign to provide children and adults around the world with access to life-saving vaccines.

The goal of the program is to prevent millions of people from getting vaccine-preventable diseases by the time it ends in 2020. The idea is to provide universal access to vaccines to protect people of all ages, from the very young to the very old.

Dr. Flavia Bustreo, is the assistant director-general for Family, Women’s and Children’s Health at the World Health Organization.

“Immunization and vaccines are the most powerful public health tools that we have currently, “ she said.

Millions of children saved

Bustreo says 35 years ago, 13 million children lost their lives from diseases that could be prevented by vaccines.

She says that number has been reduced to 6 million, but 6 million is still too high.

Today, 85 percent of children are vaccinated against measles and other deadly diseases, but Bustreo says more children need these vaccines.

“We need to have vaccination coverage that is about 90 percent, in order to have what we call the ‘herd effect’ … which means you cover the children who are vaccinated, but also, because of the reduction of transmission of infections, you also cover the children that are not vaccinated,” Bustreo said.

Final push on polio

Because of vaccines, polio is on the brink of eradication. Polio exists in two conflict zones: in northern Nigeria and along the border between Pakistan and Afghanistan. Last year there were 37 cases. Compare that to the 350,000 cases in 1988 when the eradication campaign began.

There’s a special urgency to vaccinate all children against polio. Dr. David Nabarro has worked on a number of health programs at the World Health Organization and now as a special envoy for the United Nations.

“The last part of eradicating any disease is always the hardest part,” he said. “If you don’t do it, you lose everything. To do it, you’ve got to really bring all the energy and commitment you can to bear, and it requires a special kind of dedication.”

Vaccines have prevented millions of deaths and countless numbers of children from becoming disabled. By 2020, at the conclusion of the Global Vaccine Action Plan, the U.N. wants to see countries strengthen routine immunizations for all children. It wants to complete the effort to end polio and to control other vaccine-preventable diseases. Also, the goal is to be well on the way in developing new vaccines for other diseases that plague our world.
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From: MeNeedIt

Earth Day is observed around the world with tree plantings, exhibits, cleanups and protests.
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From: MeNeedIt

Drawn-out deaths. Communities torn apart. Survivor’s guilt. Patrick Fallah says his memories of the days when the Ebola virus swept through Liberia are so awful that he sometimes has trouble focusing on the present.

“Sometimes when I have a flashback of the death of my son and others who died in the Ebola treatment unit, I don’t want to speak to people. I grieve so much that my mind is not really on what I am doing,” said Fallah, 30, who lost his 8-month-old son and stepmother and is president of the National Ebola Survivors Network of Liberia.

The trauma of the world’s deadliest Ebola outbreak, which killed more than 11,300, mostly in Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea, has left many survivors fighting a battle some worry will never end.

But Liberia, one of the world’s poorest countries and with just one psychiatrist, has announced the ambitious goal of expanding access to mental health care to 70 percent of its population in the next few years.

The World Health Organization declared an end to the Ebola outbreak in June, estimating that more than 10,000 people who had been infected have survived in the three West African countries, including more than 4,000 in Liberia.

As the world’s attention has turned to other crises, many Ebola survivors still face the psychological consequences of the epidemic, feeling guilt over their pasts and worry for their futures without resources to deal with the pain.

Mental health is often an expense far beyond the reach of impoverished countries. Liberia is still struggling to rebuild its basic health services after more than a decade of back-to-back civil wars that left a quarter-million people dead, with many killings carried out by drugged, under-age fighters notorious for hacking off survivors’ limbs.

Then Ebola arrived, frightening Liberians with its lack of a cure and its transmission through contact with body fluids. Many people became too scared to touch others or offer comfort as the death toll grew.

Now Liberia’s government has announced its ambition to expand mental health care access to its more than 4.2 million people, with help from the U.S.-based The Carter Center.

“After the civil war, people didn’t go through enough counseling. You have people already going through post-traumatic depression. Then Ebola came, and that built on what was already going on,” said Dr. Francis Kateh, Liberia’s deputy health minister and chief medical officer.

The Carter Center is helping to train Liberia’s health care workers to identify mental health issues.

Last month, 21 clinicians specializing in child and adolescent mental health graduated from the training. They join 187 mental health professionals who have been trained by the center since 2010 to work in prisons, with refugees or in other settings and are based in primary care clinics and hospitals around the country.

The Carter Center hopes to replicate its program in other countries, including Sierra Leone.

But educating the public will take time, the new mental health workers say.

“There are many people living with mental health problems in Liberia without knowing they are,” said one of the new specialists, Theophilus A. Joe.

Stigma remains around mental health issues, said Musulyn Massaqoui, a registered nurse and another recent graduate. Most people come to clinics only for physical issues, she said.

Ebola survivors often have hearing and vision problems, joint pain or chronic fatigue, according to the medical aid charity Doctors Without Borders. Many also are shunned by their communities and family members, making them vulnerable to mental health issues.

Children left orphaned by Ebola or who watched family members die are especially challenged, said Fallah with Liberia’s survivors’ network, which has about 1,800 members.

“They continue to have depression. They are still thinking about their parents,” he said. “Sometimes when they sit in the class, they don’t concentrate.” During the holidays, some feel so neglected that they “want to take up knife to kill themselves.”

Some of Liberia’s newly trained mental health workers have been placed in schools and orphanages to lessen the chances of stigma, said The Carter Center’s mental health program director, Eve Byrd.

That approach is critical, she said. “If you address childhood trauma early, you’re most likely to decrease symptoms of illness as the person ages.”

Stigma in Liberia has proven to be deadly. In March, an Ebola survivor who made the cover of Time magazine for her work as a nurse during the outbreak died when she experienced complications after childbirth and the nurses on duty were too afraid to touch her.

 
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From: MeNeedIt