Killer bird flu virus erupts again in Thailand
The deadly bird flu virus, which has killed 55 Asians, has erupted again in Thailand despite a major campaign to eradicate it, the government said on Monday.
Infected fowl were found this month in five places of three districts in Suphanburi province, 100 km (60 miles) north of Bangkok, during follow-up inspections of previously affected areas, a senior Agriculture Ministry official said.
Device mechanically removes brain blood clots
An FDA-approved device, which is threaded into the brain’s arteries, can safely retrieve blood clots and open large vessels that become blocked and lead to stroke, research indicates.
Each year, about 700,000 Americans suffer a stroke and 88 percent of those strokes are caused by a blood clot that blocks the blood supply to the brain—so called ischemic stroke.
Stroke caused by occlusion of large brain blood vessels (greater than 1.5 mm in size) is a particularly “mortal form of stroke,” Dr. Wade S. Smith from the University of California, San Francisco noted in comments to Reuters Health.
Spain to allow therapeutic cloning, minister says
Spain plans to introduce legislation allowing therapeutic cloning, its Health Minister said on Monday, a decision likely to bring a new clash between the governing Socialists and the Roman Catholic Church.
In an interview in newspaper El Mundo, Elena Salgado said the legislation could be effective by next year.
S. Africa health dept sharply hikes AIDS estimate
New figures from South Africa suggest that more than 6.5 million of the country’s 47 million people may now be HIV-positive. The figure is a sharp jump on previous estimates and is likely to fuel debate on the extent of the country’s HIV/AIDS pandemic.
The Department of Health, releasing a 2004 study of women at antenatal clinics, said results indicated that between 6.29 and 6.57 million South Africans now carry the HIV virus against 5.6 million at the end of 2003.
First trial against Merck’s Vioxx starts in Texas
A lawsuit against Merck & Co.’s Vioxx goes to trial in a Texas state court on Monday in the first of thousands of cases claiming the pharmaceutical giant hid the risks of a popular painkiller.
The case in Angleton, near Houston, pits the family of deceased Texan Robert Ernst against the big drugmaker, which pulled Vioxx off the market in September after studies showed prolonged use could increase the risk of heart attack and stroke.
The lawsuit could help determine the direction litigation will take in the other state courts in New Jersey, California and Texas, and in the U.S. federal court in New Orleans, a legal expert said.
