Displaying items by tag: Health

During lockdown newspapers reported thousands dying weekly. But last week 1,082 more people died than would be expected. These ‘excess deaths’ have averaged 1,000 for 15 weeks this year: they are not Covid deaths, so not newsworthy. Most deaths occur in private homes. This year there were 6,000 fewer deaths than expected in hospitals and care homes but over 17,000 more in people’s homes in England and Wales alone. Doctors are concerned about the unexpectedness of these deaths. 30- to 59-year-olds have excessively high death rates with heart attacks and diabetes. Symptoms were untreated during lockdown. People who need treatment now are struggling to get it. Waiting lists are larger than ever and getting a GP appointment is a lottery. Unless these issues are addressed, these diseases will continue to go untreated.

Chinese officials locked down a popular resort city after 450 Covid-19 cases emerged, causing over 2,000 tourists to be stranded as the city conducts mass testing. China’s ‘zero-Covid’ policy puts immense pressure on regional leaders to eliminate the virus. Wuhan also has a lockdown over a case of cholera. Bibles for China’s Kurt Rovenstine said it was a local official who restricted travel. That incited some panic. Rovenstine said that churches and schools suffer the worst from lockdowns. One parent said her son could only attend school six weeks out of the seventeen in the semester. Churches can’t meet to offer the Lord’s Supper, and people can’t go to church to receive a Bible. There are many requests for Bibles around China. Despite the challenges, Christians throughout China remain committed to growing in Jesus. They want to share His story with their neighbours.

Vaping among children and teenagers has almost doubled in two years. Experts blame the rise on social media. A survey by Action on Smoking on Health (Ash) showed 7% of 11- to 17-year-olds are vapers. They are being attracted to disposable e-cigarettes, in fruity flavours used by people on TikTok and Instagram. Over the past year, a new generation of disposable vapes known as ‘puff bars’, which contain nicotine, have come onto the market. While it is illegal to sell vapes to under-18s, social media carries posts from teenagers showing the new vapes and discussing the flavours, which include pink lemonade, mango and strawberry banana. The disposable popular vapes are brightly coloured, pocket-size, with sweet flavours and sweet names and cost under £5. Pray for more funding to enforce the law against underage sales. Pray for action against child-friendly packaging and labelling

Covid infections are up 43% across the UK, following the Jubilee weekend of partying and two new fast-spreading subvariants of Omicron, BA4 and BA5. People can catch them even if they have recently had other types of Covid. The Office for National Statistics (ONS), which compiles the data, says it is too early to say if this is the start of another wave. Millions celebrated the Queen's Platinum Jubilee between 2 and 5 June, giving Covid many opportunities to spread. It usually takes a few days for people to show symptoms or test positive after catching it, so the latest data covers some of that Jubilee mixing. There were 11,778 new confirmed positive test result on 17 June 2022, and 80,128 people in the last 7 days. An increase of 17,771 compared to the previous 7 days. Data is being monitored closely: see

The Royal College of Nursing is urging the Government to increase investment in long Covid research after being warned that patients are suffering under a ‘postcode lottery’ in care. Some clinics treat long Covid as a physical condition, while other clinics treat it as psychological. Existing services are woefully inadequate to meet the level of demand. Latest official data estimates that two million people have said they are experiencing long Covid. There is also a need for nursing expertise to be used more widely to treat the condition. Where nursing staff are used in long Covid care, they play a pivotal role in managing patient care and treating chronic symptoms. Nursing staff see first-hand how life-limiting long Covid can be, especially when patients are suffering with complex chronic symptoms such as fatigue, joint pain, and brain fog. There are not enough specialist services to meet the growing demand, and the help patients get varies hugely across the country.

Some medical students need to work multiple part-time jobs to afford to complete their degrees. Final year students have stopped training because they don't have enough money to survive.

For that year, they get a bursary to live on (maximum £6,458). It is not enough - especially for those from low-income backgrounds. They are campaigning for better NHS bursaries. Penny Sucharitkul hopes to be a vascular surgeon, but the money does not even cover her rent. She is from a single-parent family, and relying on Universal Credit after her father lost his job during the pandemic. On top of studying full-time, she works as a martial arts instructor and a clinical research assistant. She says working-class students are treated unfairly. ‘We're getting up at 6 am, training all day, then going to work again. It’s incredibly taxing on our mental health. We're burning people out before they've even started in the NHS.’

Health workers in Pakistan are marking children’s fingers as having had a polio vaccination, when in reality parents have refused the vaccine after believing conspiracy theories that they are harmful, blasphemous, or a plot to sterilise Muslims. This is the biggest challenge - to eradicate the crippling virus in one of its last haunts. Deteriorating security along the border is making the situation worse, as militants cross from Afghanistan - the only other country where polio is still circulating. After two years free of polio Pakistan has two poliovirus cases. They were also paralysed, raising further concerns that there may still be hundreds of cases in the region. On average, only one in 200 infections leads to paralysis. Bill Gates, who invests billions in the polio fight, said ‘it would be tragic if the disease made a comeback because it would spread back across the world and eventually you have what you had before 1988 - hundreds of thousands of paralysed children.’

Fred Parry attributes twenty years of sobriety to a rehab clinic, saying recovering from alcoholism was the best thing that ever happened to him. He is now a cellist, a music teacher, a husband and father. When his son Adam began battling addiction, Fred sent him to the same clinic to recover. He did for a short time, but Fred could not afford further rehab. Adam didn’t present like an alcoholic; he was well-spoken, intelligent, often reading three books at a time. But he was tortured and couldn't find a way out. Addiction took over when he started studying chemistry at University. He dropped out and was hospitalised six times for alcohol-related seizures. Fred was told by a doctor, ‘There's nothing you can do for an alcoholic, just lock them up and throw the key away’ Adam died after another seizure. He was 32. Mr Parry wants the Scottish government to improve access to addiction treatment services, including residential rehab.

Officials said a lack of exposure to common infections during young children’s ‘formative’ years, owing to pandemic measures, may be fuelling a global outbreak of hepatitis, the deadly liver disease. A total of 114 cases of ‘acute hepatitis of unknown origin’ have been reported in Britain since the first spate of cases was detected in Scotland less than four weeks ago. Health officials said they had detected as many cases in the past three months as they would normally expect to see in a year; the vast majority of cases involved children aged five and under. Experts have previously raised concerns about the long-term impact of lockdown on children's education and physical and mental health. However, this is the most serious potential health complication to have emerged so far. Liver experts said these cases may be the ‘tip of the iceberg’, as some symptoms could be missed.

Ayder Referral Hospital, Tigray’s main hospital, is now turning away sick people they can no longer treat. They have run out of supplies, casting doubt on the government’s claim to have opened the war-torn Ethiopian region to humanitarian aid. 200 patients, including babies with meningitis and tuberculosis and a 14-year-old boy with HIV, have been turned away. Two cancer patients waiting for operations were turned away due to no cancer drugs. These needy people are suffering from widespread famine and the ravages of a brutal 17-month war. Officials said they could only accommodate patients with food or money. A paediatric ward nurse said ten patients left when there was no more food: they said, ‘Pray for us; instead of dying here let’s go home and die there.’