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Two Studies Find Patients Have Lower Health-Related Quality Of Life After Cancer Diagnosis
Cancer patients who are older than 65 years have poorer physical health and, in some cases, mental health when compared with people of the same age group without cancer, according to a study in the June 9 online issue of the Journal of the National Cancer Institute.
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CDC Prioritizes H1N1 Vaccinations For Pregnant Women
When the H1N1 flu vaccine becomes available in the fall, pregnant women should be among the first groups vaccinated because of their high risk for serious complications, a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention expert panel said on Wednesday, the Washington Post reports. The 15-member committee advises CDC on vaccine policy. The priority list also includes caretakers of infants, health care workers, children and young adults, and older people with chronic conditions. Anthony Fiore, a physician and epidemiologist at CDC, told the committee that about 6% of H1N1 deaths and hospitalizations are among pregnant women (Brown, Washington Post, 7/30). According to a CDC study published online Wednesday in the journal Lancet, pregnant women who contract the H1N1 virus -- also known as "swine flu" -- are at least four times more likely to be hospitalized than other people with the virus, the AP/Google reports. The study analyzed the first 34 U.S. cases, including six deaths, in pregnant women from April to mid-June of 2009. Although it is not clear if pregnant women are more susceptible to the virus, they have a higher risk of complications after becoming infected. The study"s authors said pregnant women suspected of having H1N1 should be administered Tamiflu as soon as possible, prior to the completion of diagnostic testing. CDC"s Denise Jamieson, the lead author of the study, said that Tamiflu appears relatively safe for pregnant women, despite limited safety data on its use in that population.Most pregnant women who contract H1N1 have mild flu symptoms like a cough or fever, according to the World Health Organization. Jamieson said that CDC does not recommend specific precautions for pregnant women but that doctors should act quickly -- preferably within 48 hours -- if a pregnant woman shows symptoms. She added that the pregnant women who died were basically healthy, and nearly all had viral pneumonia before experiencing acute respiratory problems prior to their death (Cheng, AP/Google, 7/29).CDC"s priority groups include about 159 million people out of a total U.S. population of more than 300 million, the Chicago Tribune reports. The agency expects to have about 120 million doses of the vaccine by the end of October. Officials are confident there will be enough for their target groups because only 20% to 50% of those recommended to receive seasonal flu vaccines seek them out. However, if supplies of the vaccine are unexpectedly restricted, the panel recommended that a smaller group -- about 41 million of the most susceptible to adverse side effects from infection or most likely to spread the virus -- be given priority for the vaccine. This smaller group also includes pregnant women (Maugh, Chicago Tribune, 7/30).
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Secretary Of State Backs MS Society Work Retention Project
Secretary of State for work and pensions James Purnell MP is lending his support to an MS Society-led project designed to help people with chronic and fluctuating health conditions remain in work.
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Scientists Map How HIV Spread In Europe

An international team of scientists has tracked how and when HIV has made its way around Europe. They found that tourists, travellers and migrants actively export the virus from Greece, Portugal, Serbia and Spain to the rest of Europe, and suggest that countries should focus not only on resident populations but also on travellers and visitors when they design and implement programs to tackle the spread of HIV. The study was the work of first and corresponding author Dr Dimitrios Paraskevis and colleagues and is due to be published soon in the journal Retrovirology. Paraskevis is based at the National Retrovirus Reference Center, Department of Hygiene Epidemiology and Medical Statistics, at the Medical School in the University of Athens, Greece. He said that: "Popular tourist destinations like Greece, Portugal and Spain probably spread HIV with tourists infected during their holidays." From their results, the researchers found that "in most of the countries in Europe the epidemic was introduced by multiple s and subsequently spread within local networks". However, when they looked at Poland they concluded that HIV spread there mostly because of injected drug users, who make up about half of the HIV-infected population. HIV-1 subtype B is the most common form of the virus in Europe today. By using samples from 17 different countries in Europe (including Israel), and a technique called "phylogeography", Paraskevis and colleagues were able to trace the evolutionary family tree of the virus and where it travelled to and from. They also applied the principle of parsimony, which assumes that the tree most likely to be linked to a migratory event is the one that is formed from the smallest number of evolutionary changes. Comparing the RNA structures of the possible changes with those prevalent in each area and applying the principle of parsimony they could then see how and when each new virus version went from its starting point to other places in Europe. In the case of HIV-1 subtype B they found that for three countries, Austria, Poland and Luxembourg, there was hardly any migration outward to the rest of Europe. But from Greece, Portugal, Serbia and Spain, there was a lot of migration of subtype B to other countries. From Greece the virus spread to seven other countries, and from Spain it spread to five. Other countries also exported the virus, but to a lesser extent. For instance, in the case of Italy there was only one target country: Austria. In the case of Portugal, the virus passed primarily to Luxembourg, whose population is about 13 per cent Portuguese. The map for Italy, Israel, Norway, the Netherlands, Sweden, Switzerland and the UK showed that the virus went both ways: these countries were both exporters and importers of the virus. The authors concluded that: "Subtype B phylogeographies provide a new insight about the geographical distribution of viral lineages, as well as the significant pathways of virus dispersal across Europe, suggesting that intervention strategies should also address tourists, travellers and migrants." In their background information the authors describe how HIV-1 Subtype B spread to the United States and elsewhere from a single-point introduction from Haiti in the late 1960s. It entered Europe mainly as a result of homosexual contacts and needle sharing activity in or from the USA, as well as heterosexual contact with people from Central Africa. Africa is where the virus originated, in chimpanzees. Although non-B subtypes have been increasing in Europe in recent years, the AIDS epidemic among long term residents is dominated by subtype B viruses. "Tracing the HIV-1 subtype B mobility in Europe: a phylogeographic approach." Dimitrios Paraskevis, Oliver Pybus, Gkikas Magiorkinis, Angelos Hatzakis, Annemarie MJ Wensing, David A van de Vijver, Jan Albert, Guiseppe Angarano, Birgitta ç„sjç¶, Claudia Balotta, Enzo Boeri, Ricardo Camacho, Marie-Laure Chaix, Suzie Coughlan, Dominique Costagliola, Andrea DeLuca, Carlos de Mendoza, Inge Derdelinckx, Zehava Grossman, Osama Hamouda, I M Hoepelman, Andrzej Horban, Klaus Korn, Claudia Kuecherer, Thomas Leitner, Clive Loveday, Eilidh Macrae, I Maljkovic, Laurence Meyer, Claus Nielsen, Eline LM Op de Coul, Vidar Ormaasen, Luc Perrin, Elisabeth Puchhammer-Stç¶ckl, Lidia Ruiz, Mika Salminen, Jean-Claude Schmit, Rob Schuurman, Vincent Soriano, J Stanczak, Maja Stanojevic, Daniel Struck, Kristel Van Laethem, M Violin, Sabine Yerly, Maurizio Zazzi, Charles A Boucher and Anne-Mieke Vandamme. Retrovirology (in press, expected online during May 2009) Additional s: BioMed Central. Written by: Catharine Paddock, PhD Copyright: Medical News Today Not to be reproduced without permission of Medical News Today


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