Seventh case of novel coronavirus confirmed in B.C. | Canada News Media
Connect with us

Health

Seventh case of novel coronavirus confirmed in B.C.

Published

 on

CINDY E. HARNETT

Times Colonist

article continues below

 

A seventh case of the novel coronavirus has been diagnosed in British Columbia, bringing the number of cases in Canada to 11.

Provincial health officer Dr. Bonnie Henry said Monday the man is a close contact of another infected person, a woman who returned to the province last week from travel in Iran. Both are in stable condition and in isolation in the Fraser Valley.

The first person in B.C. with COVID-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus, has recovered. Three people are recovering at home, and another is no longer symptomatic.

“This is a rapidly evolving situation,” Henry said. Health officials are confident they have identified all the contacts of the new cases and there’s no reason for anyone in the public to go in for testing unless contacted by public health officials.

COVID-19 is primarily spread through close contact with an infected person and breathing in droplets that are in the air after someone coughs.

There are almost 78,000 cases of confirmed cases of COVID-19 around the world after it broke out in Wuhan, China, in December. Some health officials are warning that the time to contain coronavirus is running out, a time sensitivity that Henry raised as she spoke to the media.

“I think it’s really important to recognize that the global situation is evolving also very rapidly and we’ve heard over the weekend of the dramatic increase in the number of cases in a number of countries, particularly in Italy, and around the world,” she said.

“We are still very much in what we call containment here in British Columbia. Although there is widespread transmission in some areas of the world, we are not in that position yet, but we are preparing for that. We are preparing for all of the possibilities that we might see over the coming weeks.”

Henry said health officials are hoping the new coronavirus will be similar to influenza and other respiratory viruses that circulate during winter and typically wane in early spring.

“But we are not out of the woods yet, and, really, that buys us time,” she said.

If the virus can’t be contained and eradicated from human transmission, Henry said it might arise next influenza season, by which time anti-viral medications and a vaccine could be developed.

Public health officials continue to stress simple hygiene regimes: washing hands, coughing into sleeves and staying away from others if you’re sick.

B.C. is not screening at airports but is stepping up advice and measures for travellers, Henry said, without sharing specifics.

Many more Canadians who were outside of the country have tested positive for the virus.

They include 129 people who were aboard the Diamond Princess cruise ship, which was docked in Yokohama, Japan, since early February, being repatriated to Cornwall, Ont., on Friday. They will be in isolation for 14 days.

Henry asked anyone travelling internationally to monitor themselves and their children. Anyone with symptoms should limit their contact with others and contact their primary care provider, local public health office or call the 811 healthline to reduce the possibility of passing the virus on to others.

B.C. Health Minister Adrian Dix and Henry said Monday that B.C. has a robust system for identifying people who have the virus and the number of cases here is low.

Testing for the disease is being conducted by the B.C. Centre for Disease Control and is no longer being sent for confirmation to the National Microbiology Laboratory in Winnipeg.

Source link

Continue Reading

Health

Whooping cough is at a decade-high level in US

Published

 on

 

MILWAUKEE (AP) — Whooping cough is at its highest level in a decade for this time of year, U.S. health officials reported Thursday.

There have been 18,506 cases of whooping cough reported so far, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said. That’s the most at this point in the year since 2014, when cases topped 21,800.

The increase is not unexpected — whooping cough peaks every three to five years, health experts said. And the numbers indicate a return to levels before the coronavirus pandemic, when whooping cough and other contagious illnesses plummeted.

Still, the tally has some state health officials concerned, including those in Wisconsin, where there have been about 1,000 cases so far this year, compared to a total of 51 last year.

Nationwide, CDC has reported that kindergarten vaccination rates dipped last year and vaccine exemptions are at an all-time high. Thursday, it released state figures, showing that about 86% of kindergartners in Wisconsin got the whooping cough vaccine, compared to more than 92% nationally.

Whooping cough, also called pertussis, usually starts out like a cold, with a runny nose and other common symptoms, before turning into a prolonged cough. It is treated with antibiotics. Whooping cough used to be very common until a vaccine was introduced in the 1950s, which is now part of routine childhood vaccinations. It is in a shot along with tetanus and diphtheria vaccines. The combo shot is recommended for adults every 10 years.

“They used to call it the 100-day cough because it literally lasts for 100 days,” said Joyce Knestrick, a family nurse practitioner in Wheeling, West Virginia.

Whooping cough is usually seen mostly in infants and young children, who can develop serious complications. That’s why the vaccine is recommended during pregnancy, to pass along protection to the newborn, and for those who spend a lot of time with infants.

But public health workers say outbreaks this year are hitting older kids and teens. In Pennsylvania, most outbreaks have been in middle school, high school and college settings, an official said. Nearly all the cases in Douglas County, Nebraska, are schoolkids and teens, said Justin Frederick, deputy director of the health department.

That includes his own teenage daughter.

“It’s a horrible disease. She still wakes up — after being treated with her antibiotics — in a panic because she’s coughing so much she can’t breathe,” he said.

It’s important to get tested and treated with antibiotics early, said Dr. Kris Bryant, who specializes in pediatric infectious diseases at Norton Children’s in Louisville, Kentucky. People exposed to the bacteria can also take antibiotics to stop the spread.

“Pertussis is worth preventing,” Bryant said. “The good news is that we have safe and effective vaccines.”

___

AP data journalist Kasturi Pananjady contributed to this report.

___

The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

The Canadian Press. All rights reserved.

Source link

Continue Reading

Health

Scientists show how sperm and egg come together like a key in a lock

Published

 on

 

How a sperm and egg fuse together has long been a mystery.

New research by scientists in Austria provides tantalizing clues, showing fertilization works like a lock and key across the animal kingdom, from fish to people.

“We discovered this mechanism that’s really fundamental across all vertebrates as far as we can tell,” said co-author Andrea Pauli at the Research Institute of Molecular Pathology in Vienna.

The team found that three proteins on the sperm join to form a sort of key that unlocks the egg, allowing the sperm to attach. Their findings, drawn from studies in zebrafish, mice, and human cells, show how this process has persisted over millions of years of evolution. Results were published Thursday in the journal Cell.

Scientists had previously known about two proteins, one on the surface of the sperm and another on the egg’s membrane. Working with international collaborators, Pauli’s lab used Google DeepMind’s artificial intelligence tool AlphaFold — whose developers were awarded a Nobel Prize earlier this month — to help them identify a new protein that allows the first molecular connection between sperm and egg. They also demonstrated how it functions in living things.

It wasn’t previously known how the proteins “worked together as a team in order to allow sperm and egg to recognize each other,” Pauli said.

Scientists still don’t know how the sperm actually gets inside the egg after it attaches and hope to delve into that next.

Eventually, Pauli said, such work could help other scientists understand infertility better or develop new birth control methods.

The work provides targets for the development of male contraceptives in particular, said David Greenstein, a genetics and cell biology expert at the University of Minnesota who was not involved in the study.

The latest study “also underscores the importance of this year’s Nobel Prize in chemistry,” he said in an email.

___

The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Science and Educational Media Group. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

The Canadian Press. All rights reserved.

Source link

Continue Reading

Health

Turn Your Wife Into Your Personal Sex Kitten

Published

 on

Product Name: Turn Your Wife Into Your Personal Sex Kitten

All orders are protected by SSL encryption – the highest industry standard for online security from trusted vendors.

Turn Your Wife Into Your Personal Sex Kitten is backed with a 60 Day No Questions Asked Money Back Guarantee. If within the first 60 days of receipt you are not satisfied with Wake Up Lean™, you can request a refund by sending an email to the address given inside the product and we will immediately refund your entire purchase price, with no questions asked.

(more…)

Continue Reading

Trending

Exit mobile version