Month: July 2014

A girl who was born HIV-positive but was treated early and showed no signs of the disease for years has seen her infection return, US doctors said Thursday. The girl's story had raised hopes that doctors may have found a way to cure young children who are born HIV-positive, simply by giving them strong anti-retroviral drugs shortly after birth. "Certainly, this is a disappointing turn of events for this young child, the medical staff involved in the child's care and the HIV/AIDS research community," said Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. Known widely as the "Mississippi baby," she was born to an HIV-positive mother in 2010 and was given a potent dose of anti-retroviral medication 30 hours after birth.

By Mirjam Donath UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) – More than half of the world's seven billion people live in urban areas, with the top "mega cities" – with more than 10 million inhabitants – being Tokyo, Delhi, Shanghai, Mexico City and Sao Paulo, according to a United Nations report on Thursday. Indeed, urbanization, combined with overall population growth, will boost the number of people in cities by 2.5 billion over the next three decades, with much of that growth in developing countries, especially in Asia and Africa. "Managing urban areas has become one of the most important development challenges of the 21st century," Wilmoth said. He said providing such services for a dense urban population was typically cheaper and less environmentally damaging than doing the same for a dispersed, rural population.

The 1,500-year-old skeleton found in France sheds light on how ancient civilizations viewed genetic disorders.

By Julie Steenhuysen (Reuters) – A toddler thought to have been cured of HIV now has detectable levels of the virus in her blood, the child’s doctors and U.S. health officials said on Thursday. The Mississippi child’s stunning story, first disclosed at a medical meeting in March 2013, was the first account of an HIV-infected infant achieving what appeared to be a cure after receiving aggressive drug treatment within the first 30 hours of life. …

A warming planet is likely to bring more hot days, more sweaty people and more dehydration — a key risk factor for a surge in kidney stones, researchers said Thursday. Already, the study in the journal Environmental Health Perspectives found a link between hot days and kidney stones in 60,000 patients whose medical records were studied in Atlanta, Chicago, Dallas, Los Angeles and Philadelphia. "We found that as daily temperatures rise, there is a rapid increase in the probability of patients presenting over the next 20 days with kidney stones," said lead author Gregory Tasian, a pediatric urologist and epidemiologist at The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia. As average daily temperatures climbed above 50 Fahrenheit (10 Celsius), the risk of kidney stone presentation increased in all the cities except Los Angeles.

France has won EU backing for a decree allowing the government to block foreign takeovers of French companies in strategic industries, its economy minister said on Thursday, but the European Commission cautioned it would monitor the law closely. In a surprise move, the government widened in May its control over mergers in industries deemed key to France's national interests as General Electric was seeking to buy the energy assets of French group Alstom. "The European Commission in recent days notified the French government of its approval of the decree as perfectly in line with European treaties," Arnaud Montebourg said in a speech. Chantal Hughes, spokeswoman for the bloc's financial services chief Michel Barnier said the Commission, the EU's executive body, was in contact with French authorities over the issue and had taken "note of the law".

Asian countries should keep their guard against the deadly Middle East respiratory virus, although in its current form it appears less infectious than originally thought, a World Health Organization expert said Thursday. The Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS) has already killed 287 people, said Mark Jacobs, WHO's director for communicable diseases in the Western Pacific. His comments come after the Philippines last week urged its large Muslim minority to reconsider plans to join the annual Hajj pilgrimage, which takes place in Saudi Arabia, until the threat from the virus has dissipated. Later Thursday, the WHO emphasised in a statement that the risk to Asian countries remained small only if the virus remained in its current form.