Today, on the BBC news site on their health news page they told of how the disease of HIV travelled around the world.  Apparently the disease spread around the world by way of the happy go lucky vacationer.  I guess people are really carefree when on vacation.  Read this story to get the full details.

“HIV’s spread around Europe mapped
Scientists who have mapped HIV’s spread across Europe say holidaymakers infected abroad are largely to blame.
By analysing samples from 17 European countries, the international team tracked the movement of the virus around the continent.

Their map shows Greece, Portugal, Serbia and Spain are big HIV exporters, with many tourists to and migrants from these countries leaving with the virus. The UK is an exporter and importer, Retrovirology journal says.
The same is true of Israel, Norway, the Netherlands, Sweden and Switzerland, while countries like Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Germany and Luxembourg are largely importers of HIV, the researchers say.

In Poland, HIV is contained but is spread among its inhabitants because of injecting drug-users, the research group found.  To construct their map, the researchers looked at the most common type of HIV circulating in Europe, known as HIV-1 subtype B.  They tracked its migration by creating a family tree for the virus, looking at detailed genetic characteristics that reveal how the virus has been evolving over time.

Lead author Dimitrios Paraskevis, of the University of Athens, said: “Popular tourist destinations like Greece, Portugal and Spain probably spread HIV with tourists infected during their holidays.”

In the case of Serbia as an exporter, it is most likely down to its inhabitants travelling to other countries and carrying the virus with them, he said.

“To a large extent HIV spread within Poland is due to injecting drug-users, who make up around half of the HIV-infected population.

“Viruses move around with travellers – thus health programmes within countries should not only target the national populations, prevention efforts must also be aimed at migrants, travellers and tourists – who are both major sources and targets of HIV.”
Rowan Harvey, of the Terrence Higgins Trust, said: “HIV isn’t constrained by borders, it’s a global epidemic and there are bound to be patterns of transmission between countries.  “Tourists travelling abroad should definitely pack condoms, but people should also be aware that HIV is at its highest level in the UK as well.

“To protect yourself from HIV and other sexually transmitted infections, safer sex is essential both at home and abroad.”"

Source:  BBC News

Reuters health news reports today online that the death toll from the swine flu or H1N1 flu as it is now known, is declining.

“MEXICO CITY  – New laboratory data showed fewer people have died in Mexico than first thought from a new influenza strain, a glint of good news for a world rattled by the threat of a flu pandemic.

Mexico cut its suspected death toll from the H1N1 flu to up to 101 from as many as 176, as dozens of test samples came back negative. Fewer patients with severe flu symptoms were also checking into hospitals, suggesting the infection rate of a flu that has spread to Europe and Asia was declining.

The World Health Organization said on Saturday 15 countries have reported 615 infections with the new flu virus A-H1N1, widely known as swine flu.

Italy later confirmed its first case, a man in the Tuscany region who returned from Mexico on April 24. He has recovered.

Almost all infections outside Mexico have been mild. The only death in another country has been a Mexican toddler who was taken to the United States before he fell sick.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention agreed the outbreak may not be as severe as it looked a few days ago, citing many mild cases that were not immediately noticed.

President Barack Obama said the United States was responding aggressively to the new flu strain.

He outlined steps his administration was taking to address the virus, including school closures, and said antivirals were being distributed to states where they may be needed and new stockpiles had been ordered.

For Mexicans — spending a second weekend stuck indoors with stores and businesses shuttered across the country and the capital, Mexico City, devoid of its lively restaurants, bars, cinemas and museums — the data is cheering.

Health Minister Jose Angel Cordova acknowledged the numbers were encouraging but cautioned it was too early to say Mexico had control of the flu.

“For now it’s unpredictable,” Cordova said late on Friday. “We need more days to see how it behaves and whether there is really a sustained decline.”

The new virus is only the third infectious disease experts regard as having pandemic potential in the past 10 years.

It has world health experts racing to find a vaccine and is wreaking havoc with a travel industry that flies hundreds of thousands of people to and from Mexico each week.

China suspended flights to Mexico after Hong Kong authorities on Friday confirmed a Mexican man who flew via the Chinese mainland was infected with the flu strain”.

By Catherine Bremer, Source:  Reuters.com

This health news update on Psoriasis comes from the Science Daily website.
“A new Cochrane review finds that two commonly used topical treatments work best together to treat chronic psoriasis, but are not a cure.

“Almost everyone with psoriasis will try topical treatments and some people will use them throughout their lifetime, so it is important to know how effective and safe they are,” said lead author Anne Mason, a research fellow at the Centre for Health Economics the University of York, in England.

Mason said that chronic plaque psoriasis is the most common form, “typically affecting 1 to 2 percent of the population.” Psoriasis causes thick, red patches — or plaques — and silver scales to form on the skin. Topical treatments are those applied directly to the skin.

This review looked at a wide range of different topical treatments from 131 randomized trials involving 21,448 people with psoriasis. Treatments include synthetic versions of vitamin D called “analogues,” topical corticosteroids and tar-based medications among others. Researchers compared treatments with either a placebo or a vitamin D product, depending on the study.

“The main message from the review is that most topical treatments are effective in reducing the symptoms of psoriasis, but none actually cures psoriasis,” Mason said.

The review appears in the latest issue of The Cochrane Library, a publication of The Cochrane Collaboration, an international organization that evaluates medical research. Systematic reviews like this one draw evidence-based conclusions about medical practice after considering both the content and quality of existing medical trials on a topic.

“Another key finding is that combining two commonly used topical treatments — vitamin D analogues and a corticosteroid — is more effective than either treatment used on its own,” Mason said. “Using the two products separately, vitamin D in the morning and corticosteroid at night, can achieve similar effects, and be as well tolerated, as using a specially combined product.”

Up to 40 percent of those who used vitamin D treatments had skin irritation and other side effects that led to lower levels of compliance. The topical corticosteroids showed less irritation, but had higher levels of thinning of the skin.

Mason noted that psoriasis is a lifelong disease, so patients likely will be using prescribed medications for very long periods. However, since most of the studies only followed participants between four and eight weeks, the authors were unable to come to any conclusions about extended use of these treatments.

“It is surprising how little adequate evidence is available addressing long-term safety of treatments or long-term management of psoriasis,” Mason said. “Patients should realize that most evidence is from short-term trials and that there is very little long-term evidence on benefits and potential harms to consider when deciding on maintenance strategies.”

Steven Feldman, M.D., is a professor of dermatology, pathology and public health sciences at Wake Forest University. “The goal of therapy for psoriasis is to strike a balance between the irritation sometimes seen with Vitamin D analogues and thinning of the skin that is an adverse effect of long-term corticosteroid use,” he said. “This study makes it clear scientifically that there will be no one-size-fits-all solution in treating this condition. The review is an evidence-based confirmation of what most of us knew from experience.”

While the results show that the corticosteroids work as well as the Vitamin D products with fewer short-term side effects, he cautioned against interpreting this review as a call to forego the more expensive Vitamin D analogues.

“The idea that corticosteroids are safer somehow is misleading,” Feldman said. “That doesn’t take into account that the more serious side effects that occur with long-term continuous use of the corticosteroid drugs.”

The review disclosed that three of its five co-authors have received funding from pharmaceutical companies that make medications used to treat psoriasis.”

Source:  Sciencedaily.com