dufus Posted April 7, 2020 Share Posted April 7, 2020 A Yemeni barber cuts a customer's beard while wearing a face mask and gloves amid the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic, in the Yemeni capital Sanaa on April 4, 2020. (AFP) AL-MUKALLA: An outbreak of the deadly dengue fever in Yemen is putting the country’s strained health system under huge pressure as it prepares for the prospect of dealing with a flood of coronavirus disease (COVID-19) patients, doctors have warned. Health workers at Ibn Sina hospital in Al-Mukalla, the capital of Yemen’s southeastern Hadramout province, staged a protest calling for staff to be issued with personal protective equipment (PPE) after they were forced to treat a patient who died with suspected COVID-19, without having even gloves or masks to wear. Recent flash floods across Yemen have led to a new wave of dengue fever that has killed as many as 59 people and infected more than 7,400 others. The virus, spread by mosquitoes, causes respiratory problems and symptoms very similar to COVID-19. Due to a lack of cash, local health authorities in Yemen have been unable to carry out vital insecticide spraying and they are calling for immediate intervention from the Yemeni government and international aid organizations to curb the spread of dengue fever before the number of patients with the disease overwhelms hospitals. Tawfeeq Balteour, a doctor at Ibn Sina Hospital, said that although tests later found the young male patient had died from dengue fever and not COVID-19, worried medics held a demonstration the next day appealing for PPE. “The (hospital) administration says it will release its stock of the equipment (PPE) when the first case (of COVID-19) occurs,” said Balteour, who joined the protest. “Seasonal fever deaths are causing fear among doctors.” Officials told Arab News there was a severe shortage of PPE and the hospital was conserving stocks until new World Health Organization (WHO) supplies arrived. Aden, Taiz, Lahj, Hadramout, Abyan and Shabwa have been the areas worst affected by the latest outbreak of dengue fever said Dr. Yasser Abdullah Baheshm, director of the Aden-based National Malaria Control Program, adding that 42 people had died from the disease in Aden alone. Doctors in Yemeni hospitals are becoming increasingly wary about treating patients showing symptoms of COVID-19. Health workers at Ibn Sina hospital in Al-Mukalla staged a protest calling for staff to be issued with personal protective equipment (PPE) after they were forced to treat a patient who died with suspected COVID-19, without having even gloves or masks to wear. Farouq Qaid Naji, a doctor at Al-Jumhuriya Hospital in the port city of Aden, told Arab News: “We receive at least 25 new cases (of dengue fever) daily. Each new case frightens doctors, nurses and health workers.” Hospital administrators have set up a special tent to handle dengue fever cases in a bid to help ease fears and pressure in emergency rooms. Baheshm called for swift Yemeni government action to tackle the spread of dengue fever in case COVID-19 sweeps the country. “Health facilities are burdened with dengue fever cases and the diseases have distracted attention and efforts to fight COVID-19. Most of beds at Ibn Sina hospital are taken by dengue fever patients. We need those beds for coronavirus patients. “After the recent rains and floods, I expect the number of cases and deaths will increase rapidly. We are urgently in need of a health education campaign. We also seek to target vector breeding sites and launch indoor and outdoor fogging spray,” he added. sauce Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
humble3d Posted April 7, 2020 Share Posted April 7, 2020 RELATED: A Google Plan to Wipe Out Mosquitoes Appears to Be Working An experimental program led by Google parent Alphabet Inc. to wipe out disease-causing mosquitoes succeeded in nearly eliminating them from three test sites in California’s Central Valley. Stamping out illness caused by mosquitoes is one of Alphabet unit Verily’s most ambitious public-health projects. The effort appears to be paying off, according to a paper published in the journal Nature Biotechnology on Monday. Verily is also running coronavirus triage and testing in parts of California. Bradley White, the lead scientist on the Debug initiative, said mosquito-suppression is even more important during the pandemic, so that outbreaks of mosquito-borne diseases such as dengue fever don’t further overwhelm hospitals. © Bloomberg Google Has A Plan To Eliminate Mosquitoes Around The World Since 2017, the company has released millions of lab-bred Aedes aegypti male mosquitoes into several Fresno County neighborhoods during mosquito season. The insects are bred in Verily labs to be infected with a common bacterium called Wolbachia. When these male mosquitoes mate with females in the wild, the offspring never hatch. In results of the trial published on Monday, Verily revealed that throughout the peak of the 2018 mosquito season, from July to October, Wolbachia-infected males successfully suppressed more than 93% of the female mosquito population at field test sites. Only female mosquitoes bite. Working with the local mosquito abatement district and MosquitoMate, which developed the mosquitoes originally, Verily released as many as 80,000 mosquitoes each day in three neighborhoods from April 2018 through October 2018. In most collections, per night Verily found one or zero female mosquitoes in each trap designed to monitor the population. At other sites without the lab-bred bugs, there were as many as 16 females per trap. “We had a vision of what this should look like and we managed to do that pretty perfectly,” said Jacob Crawford, a senior scientist on the Debug project. © Bloomberg Google Has A Plan To Eliminate Mosquitoes Around The World In the arid climate of the Central Valley, disease is an unlikely result of a mosquito bite. But in the hot, humid regions of the tropics and subtropics, diseases caused by the Aedes aegypti, such as dengue fever, Zika virus and chikungunya, kill tens of thousands of people every year. Releasing masses of Wolbachia-infected mosquitoes into the wild might wipe out entire populations of deadly mosquitoes and the diseases they carry. Verily is not the only organization pursuing an end to mosquito-borne disease. Microsoft Corp. co-Founder Bill Gates has pledged more than $1 billion to help wipe out malaria, including controversial efforts to genetically modify mosquitoes. Infecting mosquitoes with Wolbachia, which occurs naturally in some mosquito species, is a popular approach rooted in an old insect control strategy called sterile insect technique. What Verily’s efforts offer is not just evidence that Wolbachia can help wipe out disease-causing mosquitoes but potential ways to make such efforts work on a massive scale. Last year, Verily released about 14.4 million mosquitoes in Fresno County. © Bloomberg Google Has A Plan To Eliminate Mosquitoes Around The World Initial small-scale Fresno trials in 2016, run by an upstart called MosquitoMate, were the first time male Aedes aegypti mosquitoes infected with the bacteria were ever released in the U.S. The following year, Verily stepped in, bringing more advanced technology to the breeding and release process that could make it possible to expand such efforts to entire cities or regions. The new paper details many of those technologies, such as an automated process for separating male and female mosquitoes in the lab, and software that helps to determine exactly where to release altered male mosquitoes for maximum effectiveness. “Once you try to start rearing hundreds of thousands of mosquitoes a week, you run into all sorts of problems,” said White. “Mosquitoes may be everywhere, but they are really finicky and difficult to grow.” © Bloomberg Google Has A Plan To Eliminate Mosquitoes Around The World Verily has expanded its partnerships to include Singapore’s National Environment Agency. Trials there have entered a fourth phase to cover 121 urban residential blocks and about 45,000 residents. Verily is eyeing partnerships in South America and is in talks to launch in the Caribbean. Within a few years, said Crawford, Verily hopes the program will cover entire regions. Without intervention, he said, the public health toll of mosquito-born illness will only grow. “This is something that’s not going away on its own,” he said. https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/other/a-google-plan-to-wipe-out-mosquitoes-appears-to-be-working/ar-BB12ejxB Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dufus Posted April 7, 2020 Author Share Posted April 7, 2020 yemeni government could request assistance i,m sure specialists could be sent Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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