Month: April 2014

Australian swimming great Ian Thorpe is in "good spirits" in a Sydney hospital as he fights a serious infection and reports that he might lose the use of his arm are "nonsense", his manager said on Wednesday. The five-times Olympic champion, who retired after the Athens Olympics before making an unsuccessful comeback bid for the 2012 London Games, contracted the infection after undergoing shoulder surgery earlier this year. "He's fine, he's a battler," James Erskine told Channel 9's Today programme. "He's in good spirits, you know, he's got drips in, he's got antibiotics and all that sort of thing so he's not exactly going to swim in the Commonwealth Games tomorrow." Erskine said he was not sure how long Thorpe, who attended the wedding of Britain's Prince William in 2011 and might have been expected to catch up with the royal on the upcoming tour of Australia, would remain in hospital.

Saudi Arabia said on Wednesday it had recorded 11 cases infected with the potentially deadly Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) virus in Jeddah, including hospital staff. Two of the patients died, six have recovered, while three are undergoing treatment, the official Saudi Press Agency reported quoting the Jeddah health authority. The emergency department of King Fahd hospital in Jeddah was closed for disinfection after one health worker there tested positive for the virus and subsequent tests on other staff members showed further infections. Some patients were transferred to other hospitals while the disinfection was carried out, the health authority said.

China’s capital Beijing is taking a novel approach to protecting doctors from growing levels of violence from angry patients: volunteer “guardian angels”. The campaign will recruit students, medical workers and other patients to act as middlemen between doctors and those in their care to defuse disagreements and smooth over tensions, the official Xinhua news agency reported on Wednesday. Doctors in China have come under increasing threat as the country’s healthcare system struggles to cope with low doctor numbers, poor levels of training and rampant corruption inflating the price of care. This has seen a number of fatal attacks by patients on doctors in the past year.

By Sophie Knight TOKYO (Reuters) – Olympus Corp on Wednesday said six Japanese trust banks have filed a lawsuit against the endoscope maker seeking 27.9 billion yen ($273 million) for damages relating to a $1.7 billion accounting scandal in 2011. The six banks, which include State Street Trust and Banking Co Ltd, Mitsubishi UFJ Trust and Banking Corp and The Nomura Trust and Banking Co Ltd, are seeking compensation for false financial statements submitted by Olympus in the 11 years to 2011. Damages from the scandal continue to weigh on Olympus, with the announcement marking the fifth lawsuit it has publicly recognized.

By Barbara Liston ORLANDO, Florida (Reuters) – A 93-year-old Florida man believed to be the oldest mayor in the U.S. lost his bid to be re-elected to a record 20th term in office on Tuesday. “We lost but we love all of you … sorry that it didn’t work out,” John Land said at his campaign party. Land conceded based on word from a campaign supporter at the Orange County elections office before unofficial results were posted.

By Andrew M. Seaman NEW YORK (Reuters Health) – Pregnant women at a high risk for the potentially fatal complication preeclampsia should take low-dose aspirin after their first trimester, according to a government-backed panel. The draft recommendation from the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) is based on a review of the evidence that found low-dose aspirin reduced the likelihood of developing the condition and its complications. “Low-dose aspirin – in looking at benefit – reduced the risk of preeclampsia by 24 percent,” Jillian Henderson, the review’s lead author, told Reuters Health. Henderson is a researcher at the Kaiser Permanente Center for Health Research Northwest in Portland, Oregon.