The Health News – 19 April 2017
Overview:
• Australia has had a routine publicly-funded measles, mumps and rubella vaccination program for almost 50 years. It has been extremely effective. In 2014, the World Health Organisation announced that the disease was officially eliminated in Australia. While there is no longer a local strain of measles, Australia still sees the occasional case brought in from overseas, which usually leads to state health departments issuing a warning of a potential outbreak.
• The Surgical and Robotics Training Institute at Sydney’s Royal Prince Alfred (RPA) Hospital. will have the capacity to train 400 surgeons a year and offer more public patients access to these less-invasive procedures for little or no cost. A robotics surgery symposium will be held in late June where doctors will discuss having a national register for surgeons who provide robotic treatment. The meeting will also address discretionary surgeon fees for such procedures.
• A team of doctors in Britain is to become the first in the world to modify pig organs to treat newborn babies with birth defects. Professor De Coppi previously pioneered a similarly ground breaking transplant in 2010 in which a 13-year-old boy was given a new trachea that was created from a deceased human donor using the teenager’s stem cells. Before the first patient can receive a transplant, the treatment must be approved by the Medicines & Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency.
News on Health Professional Radio. Today is the 19th of April 2017. Read by Rebecca Foster. Health News
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-04-18/measles-explainer-signs-symptoms-outbreak-threat/8348962
The measles is an infectious disease caused by the morbillivirus.
It once infected hundreds of thousands of Australian kids, but was declared eliminated in Australia in 2014.
But every once in a while, a new case of the measles is brought in from overseas, prompting state health departments to issue a warning for people to look out for signs and symptoms.
Symptoms can take 10 to 14 days to develop after infection.
The most distinctive is the measles rash.
Otherwise, expect the same sorts of symptoms you’d have when you catch a really bad cold.
Measles encephalitis itself can also kill you.
“[Around] one in 1000 die, so if you had 100,000 cases you could have up to 100 deaths.
“So there were certainly scores of deaths in the pre-immunisation era every time we had a major outbreak, and many hospitalisations as well.”
… Australia has had a routine publicly-funded measles, mumps and rubella vaccination program for almost 50 years. It has been extremely effective.
In 2014, the World Health Organisation announced that the disease was officially eliminated in Australia.
While there is no longer a local strain of measles, Australia still sees the occasional case brought in from overseas, which usually leads to state health departments issuing a warning of a potential outbreak.
… if enough parents chose not to vaccinate their children because they had faith in their immune system, the disease could make a comeback.
More Australian surgeons will be trained to use robots at the operating table, with the opening of the country’s first robotic surgery training facility at Sydney’s Royal Prince Alfred (RPA) Hospital.
The Surgical and Robotics Training Institute will have the capacity to train 400 surgeons a year and offer more public patients access to these less-invasive procedures for little or no cost.
Operating metres away from a patient while controlling guiding robotic arms could become a new norm for surgeons going into the future, but there are still questions over whether robots can do a better job.
Australian surgeons have had to travel to California to develop their robotic skills and the institute will be the first in the southern hemisphere to offer comprehensive training.
A 2016 Australian study published in prestigious journal The Lancet questioned the value of using expensive robotic technology to treat prostate cancer patients.
The study compared patients who had either a robotic or a non-robotic surgery and found there were not many differences in the outcomes, including the patient’s urinary and bowel function or recovery time.
A robotics surgery symposium will be held in late June where doctors will discuss having a national register for surgeons who provide robotic treatment. The meeting will also address discretionary surgeon fees for such procedures.
A team of doctors in Britain is to become the first in the world to modify pig organs to treat newborn babies with birth defects.
Babies born missing a section of their oesophagus, the tube linking the mouth to the stomach, are to receive transplants harvested from pigs and then modified using the child’s stem cells.
The landmark life-saving treatment will be used next year by doctors at Great Ormond Street Hospital in London on about 10 children born with severe cases of oesophageal atresia.
The research team also plans to develop the treatment for adults … a far more common and often fatal condition.
The tissue engineering takes about eight weeks and doctors hope to implant the modified oesophagi at about two to three months after the child is born.
Professor De Coppi previously pioneered a similarly ground breaking transplant in 2010 in which a 13-year-old boy was given a new trachea that was created from a deceased human donor using the teenager’s stem cells.
…Costs will likely be recouped through the prevention of long-term conditions associated with the current procedure. Initial work was funded by the Cell and Gene Therapy Catapult and the UK Stem Cell Foundation and the clinical translation has been supported by the National Institute for Health Research.
Before the first patient can receive a transplant, the treatment must be approved by the Medicines & Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency.