The Health News Australia August 11 2017

Overview

• The Australian Medical Association has suggested stripping funding from schools that do not actively promote vaccinating students amidst a potential measles outbreak. Vaccinations are mandatory in Australia under “no job, no pay” laws, which block parents who opt out from receiving various child care payments.
• South-east Queensland is about to get unusually hot again and Brisbane is expecting temperatures 8 degrees celsius above average next week. The warmer weather is set to arrive tomorrow and will be a sharp turnaround from this morning, which was the coldest of the month so far, falling to 3C at Archerfield, -1C at Gatton and -0.4C at Amberley.
  
• According to University of Melbourne Professor of medicine Rodney Sinclair, up to half of all men and women experience acne into their thirties. Acne is not just a “teen phase”. It occurs when there is a problem with the production of oil (sebum) or its flow to the skin surface.

News on Health Professional Radio. Today is the 10th of August 2017. Read by Tabetha Moreto. Health News

http://www.9news.com.au/health/2017/08/09/18/43/enforce-no-jab-no-pay-at-schools-ama

The Australian Medical Association has suggested stripping funding from schools that do not actively promote vaccinating students amidst a potential measles outbreak. The West Australian government issued a citywide health alert last week when an unvaccinated high school student returned to Perth from Italy, where he contracted measles. About two hundred of the four hundred students at the Steiner school Perth Waldorf have not been vaccinated.

More cases were expected with nine out of ten susceptible persons in close contact with a measles patient likely to develop it, Department of Health Director of Communicable Diseases Doctor Paul Armstrong said. The school in Bibra Lake has not responded to a Department of Health offer to “bring the jabs to them” through free clinics. AMA WA president Omar Khorshid questioned whether government funding should be given to schools that do not take responsibility for health outcomes and provide free vaccinations for children. Measles is highly infectious, forty per cent of cases require hospitalisation and it was responsible for thousands of deaths around the world, but it “should not be seen in the Western world” anymore, Doctor Khorshid said.

Vaccinations are mandatory in Australia under “no job, no pay” laws, which block parents who opt out from receiving various child care payments. Given the student attended school while infected, the department has ordered that all unvaccinated students be blocked from turning up until there was no longer a measles risk.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-08-10/another-winter-heatwave-to-grip-south-east-queensland/8791306

South-east Queensland is about to get unusually hot again, with Brisbane expecting temperatures eight degrees celsius above average next week.The warmer weather is set to arrive tomorrow and will be a sharp turnaround from this morning, which was the coldest of the month so far, falling to three degrees celsius at Archerfield, negative one celsius at Gatton and negative zero point four celsius at Amberley. Bureau of Meteorology forecaster James Thompson said that it’s funny, sometimes you get the cold mornings with the hot days just because the skies are clear, which allows the air to cool down a lot overnight. But mornings will be warmer as the unusually hot weather settles in, coming on the back of Queensland’s hottest July on record.

The hot July and precious little rain has also set the stage for a worrying fire season across Queensland, authorities have said. Rural Fire Service operations director Chief Superintendent Gary McCormack said authorities were now looking at an “average to above-average fire season”, with areas of open grassland most at risk. “We certainly have experienced continual above-average temperatures and below-average rainfall and that’s all contributing to what is potentially another busy fire season,” he said.

Superintendent McCormack said local brigades and fire service staff would be engaging with their communities to prepare for what could be a lengthy fire season. ABC Emergency has sourced advice from official agencies on how to plan for a bushfire emergency, including preparing a survival kit and what to do before, during and after a disaster.

Queensland residents could help by being responsible with their use of fire, and alerting local authorities to risks and hazards.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/health/2017-08-09/when-acne-isnt-just-a-teenage-phase/8687240

Up to half of all men and women experience acne into their thirties, University of Melbourne Professor of medicine Rodney Sinclair said. There are several conditions that lead to pimples, but acne vulgaris and acne rosacea are by far and away the most common, said Professor Sinclair, also director of dermatology at Epworth Healthcare. “The classic one we tend to think of when we think ‘acne’, is called acne vulgaris,” he said.”That’s the ordinary, common or garden variety acne that causes pimples in adolescents.” It occurs when there is a problem with the production of oil or sebum or its flow to the skin surface. When adults have acne vulgaris, it is sometimes an issue that newly presents itself in adulthood, often in women who have the under-skin contraceptive implant for the first time or in women who stop taking the oral contraceptive. But more commonly, it tends to be a hangover from adolescence. Professor Sinclair also said that acne vulgaris is thought to be a disease that lasts for ten to twelve years.

But acne rosacea “tends to affect women in their twenties and thirties and men in their forties and fifties” and its cause is unknown, Professor Sinclair said. It is associated with flushing and redness of the face, and produces papules (blind-headed bumps) and pustules (classic yellow-headed pimples with red rings around them) — but not blackheads or whiteheads, which come with acne vulgaris.

Things as simple as avoiding food you know inflames your acne to changing your bedclothes because you overheat at night — a known cause of acne in adults. Beyond those treatments, there are a range of over-the-counter creams, prescription antibiotics — both in pill form and applied to the skin — and other prescription medications that have great success.