ANALYSIS AND COMMENTS

December2017 Dailynation; Kenya’s efforts to keep a healthy population are being hampered by the often-ignored ailments like seasonal influenza (flu), the World Health Organisation (WHO) has said. In its situation report, WHO indicates that as many as 650,000 people die from respiratory problems annually, warning governments to focus more on …

November 2017 cnn; Tens of millions more Americans now have high blood pressure. Almost half of all Americans — 46% — are now considered to be in the high blood pressure category based on new guidelines released Monday. High blood pressure should be treated at 130/80 rather than 140/90, according …

November 2017 straitstimes; Young doctors are feeling burnt-out, and this affects their ability to empathise with patients, a local study has found. Researchers surveyed nearly 500 medical residents across 34 specialities in three public hospitals, eight in 10 of whom said they felt emotionally exhausted, lacking in personal accomplishment, or …

November 2017 Businessdaily; There has been this long-held belief that the highly technical medical degree courses are dominated by males. But a scrutiny of university enrolment data over the past 12 years paints a different picture, debunking the notion. The gender gap in enrolment of undergraduate medical courses has actually …

November 2017 Independent; Nobody wants to have open heart surgery. But if you do, you want to have it in that afternoon. That’s the conclusion of a major new study that found there is a significantly higher risk of damage for people having surgery in the morning. And it’s all …

October 2017 Standardmedia; The Kenya National Blood Transfusion Service (KNBTS) is incensed by reports that part of blood its bank is contaminated with HIV and syphilis. The report published three weeks ago in a foreign journal shows 6.2 per cent of donated blood had high levels of HIV, with as high …

October 2017 ThisAfrica; For the sexually active heterosexual woman the standard has been set: when in doubt carry your own. Protection that is, we are talking about protection. Every teenager receives some form of sexual education in school but because of reasons to do with stigma, legislation, tradition and culture …

October 2017 Theconversation; If plants could be superheroes, the Moringa (Moringa oleifera) tree would be one of them. Although native to the foothills of the Himalayas in India, moringa can thrive in most tropical and subtropical regions. It is drought tolerant, grows rapidly, has leaves that can be used as …

September 2017 cnbc;  IBM Watson might not deliver on its lofty goal to revolutionize medicine with artificial intelligence, as a recent investigation suggests. But that doesn’t mean new technology will be incapable of improving health care. IBM put a heavy dose of investment and hype into the medical potential of …

August 2017  Washingtonpost; The Food and Drug Administration is investigating the sudden deaths of five people who had undergone an obesity treatment that places an inflated silicone balloon in their stomach. All deaths happened within a month of the procedure, the FDA said in a letter earlier this week to health-care …