Gait speed as a "vital sign" to predict prognosis in older adults with blood cancers

Gait speed is an easily obtained "vital sign" that accurately identifies frailty and predicts survival and unplanned hospital visits regardless of age, cancer or treatment type, or other factors among older patients with blood cancers, according to a new study published June 5, 2019 in the journal Blood. The association was strongest in those with non-Hodgkin lymphoma.

For every 0.1 meter per second decrease in gait speed, the risk of dying, unexpectedly going to the hospital, or ending up in the emergency room increased by 22%, 33% and 34%, respectively.Every 5 kg decrease in grip strength was associated with worse survival), but not hospital or ED use.

Monitoring gait speed not only helps to recognize individuals who are frail and may fare worse, it also identifies people who are in much better shape than expected based on age alone. Researchers suggest that gait speed should be used as a routine part of medical assessments along with other vital signs to guide treatment plans.

Today is World Day against Child Labour: “Children shouldn’t work in fields, but on dreams!”

World Day Against Child Labour was first observed by the International Labour Organization (ILO) in 2002 to focus attention on the global extent of child labour and the action and efforts needed to eliminate it.

Target 8.7 of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) specifically calls to: “Take immediate and effective measures to eradicate forced labour, end modern slavery and human trafficking and secure the prohibition and elimination of the worst forms of child labour, including recruitment and use of child soldiers, and by 2025 end child labour in all its forms.”

The theme for this year is “Children shouldn’t work in fields, but on dreams!”

Some facts on child labor

• Worldwide 218 million children between 5 and 17 years are in employment. Of these, 152 million are victims of child labour; almost half of them, 73 million, work in hazardous child labour.
• Hazardous child labour is most prevalent among the 15-17 years old.
• Among 152 million children in child labour, 88 million are boys and 64 million are girls; 58% of all children in child labour and 62% of all children in hazardous work are boys.
• Almost half of child labour (72.1 million) is to be found in Africa; 62.1 million in Asia and the Pacific; 10.7 million in the Americas; 1.2 million in the Arab States and 5.5 million in Europe and Central Asia.
• Child labour is concentrated primarily in agriculture (71%), which includes fishing, forestry, livestock herding and aquaculture, and comprises both subsistence and commercial farming; 17% in Services; and 12% in the Industrial sector, including mining.

Healthcare News Monitor

Mandatory Bar Codes Planned for All Medicines Sold in India: How It Works

The Better India- Tanvi Patel

To control the sale and purchase of counterfeit medicines in pharmacies and hospitals, the Union Health Ministry (UHM) is planning to take a new, more concrete step. To ensure that all the medicines, whether branded or otherwise, are authentic, the UHM is directing all manufacturers to add barcodes to their medicines from the primary stage. Here are 9 points that you must know about this decision: A 2015 report by the Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industry of India revealed shocking numbers of the domestic pharmaceutical industries. About 25 per cent of drugs in India are either fake, counterfeit or substandard, they noted. These fake drugs were available as popular medicines such as Betadine, Crocine, Voveran etc. To counter this, the UHM is planning to direct all Active Pharmaceutical Ingredient (API) packages to use barcodes for their raw materials. This step, they believe, will make it easy for them to track imported and domestically-manufactured materials.

Daily HIV prevention pill urged for healthy people at risk

Business Standard- AP

Doctors should offer a daily HIV prevention pill to healthy people who are at high risk of getting infected with the virus, an influential health care panel recommended Tuesday. The new guidelines aim to help cut the nearly 40,000 new HIV infections in the US each year. Screening people for the HIV virus also is critical. The U.S. Preventive Services Task Force reiterated its long-standing advice that everyone ages 15 to 65 and anyone whos pregnant should be regularly screened, a step to early, life-saving treatment. But the latest recommendations went a step further. Studies show that if people who are still healthy take certain HIV drugs every day, it dramatically reduces their chances of being infected by an HIV-positive sexual partner or from injection drug use.

Kolkata: Brick dented doctor’s skull in mob assault

The Times of India- Sumati Yengkhom

A bright student, a school topper, who also came first in his Higher Secondary examination from Howrah district, Paribaha Mukhopadhyay always wanted to study medicine and serve people. But before his career as a doctor could take off properly, the intern at NRS Medical College and Hospital, had to be admitted to ITU, after he was assaulted by a mob—supposedly family and friends of a patient who died at NRS on Monday night—early on Tuesday. “The patient (Mukhopadhyay) has suffered depressed fracture in the right frontal region with contusion. He was wheeled into the operation theatre for elevation frontal depression and wound debridement. Luckily, the damage was not very extensive and hence he is recovering well. His condition is stable,” said Dr Hrishikesh Kumar, neurologists at Institute of Neurosciences Kolkata (INK) where Mukhopadhyay is admitted. Initially, he admitted to NRS itself, but he was later shifted to INK. Doctors at suspect a blunt object, like a brick, had hit his head, causing the depression. Apart from the fracture, doctors did not find any internal injury. He was fully conscious when he was brought to INK, doctors said. “He would be under close observation for the next 24 hours when he will remain in the ICU. If everything goes well, we should be able to shift him to the ward,” said Dr Amit Roy, CEO, INK.

Free dialysis facilities in 18 hospitals in Assam: Sarma

Business Standard-PTI

Assam government would provide free hemo-dialysis facilities in 18 hospitals in the state, Health minister Himanta Biswa Sarma said Tuesday. The free dialysis facilities would be provided free under public-private partnership model as part of the Pradhan Mantri National Dialysis Programme under National Health Mission, Sarma said. The first free dialysis service will begin at Nalbaris Swahid Mukanda Kakati Civil Hospital on June 14 and subsequently it will be started in seven other hospitals by June 20 next, the minister told reporters here. In the next three months, free dialysis facility will be provided in seven more centres followed by three more within six months, thereby covering 18 hospitals, he said.

5,462 beds, Rs 5,540 crore: Patna to get worlds largest hospital soon

The New Indian Express- Rajesh Kumar Thakur

If everything goes to plan, India will soon have the world’s largest hospital in Patna. Speaking at an official function to launch a proposed 500-bed hospital on the premises of the Indira Gandhi Institute of Medical Science (IGIMS), state chief minister Nitish Kumar said, “The 1700-bed Patna Medical College and Hospital (PMCH) will be upgraded into a 5,462-bed hospital of international standard with ultra-modern medical facilities in the next four to five years.” A detailed project report is being readied. “Demolition of old buildings of PMCH and shifting of beds and other medical facilities would be carried out phase-wise without inconveniencing the patients,” he added.

Current Temperature Status and Warning for next five days

Heat Wave and Temperature Observed Yesterday (Past 24 hours from 0830 hrs IST of 10 June, 2019 to 0830 hrs IST 11 June, 2019)

Heat Wave:

Yesterday, Severe Heat Wave conditions were observed in many parts over West Rajasthan and at isolated pockets over East Rajasthan. Heat wave in many parts with severe heat wave in isolated pockets over Madhya Pradesh and Haryana, Chandigarh & Delhi. Heat Wave Conditions in some parts with severe heat wave in isolated pockets over East Uttar Pradesh and in isolated pockets over Bihar, Saurashtra & Kutch, Madhya Maharashtra and Vidarbha.(Annexure 1 & 2).

MAXIMUM TEMPERATURES

Maximum temperatures were markedly above normal (5.1°C or more) at most places over Punjab, Haryana, Chandigarh & Delhi, East Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Vidarbha; at many places over West Rajasthan Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Jharkhand and Chhattisgarh and at isolated places over Jammu & Kashmir, Saurashtra & Kutch and Telangana; appreciably above normal (3.1°C to 5.0°C) at most places over Uttar Pradesh, Marathwada and Madhya Maharashtra; at many places over Bihar, Odisha, Gangetic West Bengal, Gujarat region and North Interior Karnataka; at a few places over Rayalaseema, Konkan & Goa and Coastal Karnataka and at isolated places over Coastal Andhra Pradesh & Yanam and Assam & Meghalaya; above normal (1.6°C to 3.0°C) at many places over Sub-Himalayan West Bengal & Sikkim and Nagaland, Manipur, Mizoram & Tripura; at a few places over Tamilnadu, Puducherry and Karaikal and at isolated places over South Interior Karnataka. Yesterday, the highest maximum temperature of 50.3°C was recorded at Churu (West Rajasthan).

Temperatures Recorded at 1430 Hours IST of Today, the 11th June, 2019

• Khajuraho(East Madhya Pradesh) recorded the maximum temperature of 48.2°C (Annexure 3).
• Temperatures recorded at 1430 hours IST of today have risen by 1-4°C in most Places over Andhra Pradesh; in many places over Orrisa; at some places over Gujarat State, Tamilnadu and Assam & Meghalaya and in one or two pockets of Kerala and Arunachal Pradesh.(Annexure 4).