Hospitals in Syria's Sweida struggling after sectarian clashes, WHO says
"Inside of Sweida, it's a grim picture, with the health facilities under immense strain," the World Health Organization's Christina Bethke told reporters in Geneva via video link from Damascus.
"Electricity and water are cut off, and essential medicine supplies are running out."
Many medical staff cannot reach their workplace safely, and the main hospital's morgue was full at one point this week as it dealt with a surge of trauma cases.
At least 903 people were killed in the sectarian bloodshed, according to the Syrian Network for Human Rights, after clashes between Druze militias and Bedouin tribes spilled into ferocious fighting between the Druze and government forces sent to quell the unrest.
The Network's head, Fadel Abdulghany, has said the toll is not final, and that his group documented field executions by Syrian troops, Bedouin tribal fighters and Druze factions.
Though the WHO has managed to deliver two convoys of aid in the last week, access remains difficult because tensions remain between the groups controlling various parts of Sweida governorate, it said.
More than 145,000 people have been displaced by the recent fighting, the WHO said, with many sheltering in makeshift reception centres in Daraa and Damascus.
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Medical News Today
an hour ago
- Medical News Today
Lower physical activity 12 years before onset may indicate heart disease risk
Several lifestyle changes can help lower the risk for heart disease, including being physically active. A new study found that adults who developed heart disease later in life experienced a decline in their physical activity about 12 years before their cardiovascular also discovered that Black male participants had a more continuous decline in physical activity from young adulthood to middle age, and Black female participants consistently reported the lowest physical activity throughout adulthood, highlighting to the World Health Organization (WHO), cardiovascular diseases are currently the leading cause of death worldwide, with about 17.9 million people dying from one each research tells us there are several lifestyle changes we can make to help lower our risk for heart disease, including eating a healthy diet, quitting smoking, getting enough quality sleep, maintaining a healthy weight, managing stress, and being physically active. 'Cardiovascular disease is largely preventable through lifestyle modifications, and physical activity is one of the most powerful tools we have,' Yariv Gerber, PhD, professor in the Department of Epidemiology and Preventive Medicine at the School of Public Health, Gray Faculty of Medical and Health Sciences at Tel Aviv University, Israel, told Medical News Today.'Lifelong physical activity is essential for maintaining function, preventing disability, and reducing the risk of cardiovascular and metabolic diseases. However, staying active over time can be difficult, especially during life transitions or after health events — periods when people are most vulnerable to decline,' Gerber is one of the authors of a new study published in the journal JAMA Cardiology, which found that adults who developed heart disease later in life experienced a decline in their physical activity about 12 years before their cardiovascular event. Less physical activity from young adulthood to middle ageFor this study, researchers analyzed health data from more than 3,000 participants of the Coronary Artery Risk Development in Young Adults (CARDIA) study. The study started in 1985-1986 and study participants were given 10 physical activity assessments until 2020-2022. Upon the study's conclusion, researchers found that most study participants experienced a decline in their moderate-to-vigorous physical activity (MVPA) levels from young adulthood to middle age, which then evened out in later years. 'While not every individual declined, on average, all demographic groups showed reductions in physical activity from young adulthood through midlife,' Gerber said.'This highlights how difficult it is to maintain healthy behaviors over time, even among generally healthy adults. Since physical activity is so closely tied to cardiovascular and overall health, it's essential to recognize when these declines occur — and to intervene early, ideally before habits become ingrained or health starts to deteriorate,' he in activity 12 years before heart disease diagnosisWhen looking at the correlation between physical activity and heart disease, Gerber and his team discovered that many participants' MVPA levels began declining about 12 years before a heart disease diagnosis, such as coronary heart disease, stroke, or heart researchers noticed in many cases an accelerated physical activity decline within two years of their cardiovascular event. Gerber explained that it takes years for cardiovascular disease to develop. 'The fact that we observed declines in physical activity more than a decade before diagnosis suggests that there's a long window of opportunity for prevention. Physical activity directly influences key risk factors like blood pressure, lipid levels, glucose, and body weight. Sustaining activity across adulthood could help delay or prevent cardiovascular disease onset — especially if we can identify and support individuals at risk of physical activity decline during these early stages.'— Yariv Gerber, PhDMost continuous physical activity decline observed in one groupAnd when looking at participants by ethnicity, researchers found that Black male participants had a more continuous decline in physical activity from young adulthood to middle age, and Black female participants consistently reported the lowest physical activity throughout adulthood. 'These differences are deeply concerning,' Gerber said. 'The study underscores the need for early and sustained preventive interventions — especially among populations historically at higher risk. Black women, in particular, showed consistently low MVPA levels and the highest risk of low activity post-cardiovascular disease.''Addressing this requires culturally tailored strategies, including easy access to safe recreational spaces, affordable facilities, transportation support, and system-level efforts to make physical activity more accessible to all,' he continued. 'Integrating physical activity promotion into routine care is also critical; even brief counseling has been shown to increase activity levels, despite the time constraints often cited by providers.'Targeted education and support neededMNT spoke with Jonathan Fialkow, MD, chief of cardiology at Miami Cardiac & Vascular Institute, part of Baptist Health South Florida, about this commented this was an interesting review of a population correlating maintaining moderate to intense physical activity to gender, race, and age, with some components showing declines in people who develop cardiac disease.'We are aware of the benefits of moderate-intense physical activity for cardiac and metabolic health,' he continued. 'To better understand populations at risk for achieving these benefits, we can better target them for education and support. Limitations in the study exist, but ultimately, we may be able to find other determinants in social, financial, behavioral, and lifestyle elements that may contribute to obstacles to more intense and regular physical activity, so we can address them.'MNT also talked to Jennifer Wong, MD, a board certified cardiologist and medical director of Non-Invasive Cardiology at MemorialCare Heart and Vascular Institute at Orange Coast Medical Center in Fountain Valley, CA, about this research, who said it was useful to see the timing of physical activity decline and cardiovascular events. 'This underscores the importance of physical activity for preventing cardiovascular disease,' Wong explained. 'Prevention is key for our cardiovascular health. I find it helpful to look at the impact of modifiable risk factors and prioritize the more effective strategies.''I would like a better understanding of why the decline in physical activity is associated with increased cardiovascular events,' she continued. 'Did the decline occur because of progression of cardiovascular disease? Did symptoms of coronary ischemia or heart failure lead to the decline in activity? Or did the decrease in physical activity lead to more cardiovascular disease?'
Reuters
2 hours ago
- Reuters
Hunger and disease spreading in war-torn Sudan, WHO says
LONDON, Aug 8 (Reuters) - Hunger and disease are spreading in war-torn Sudan, with famine already present in several areas, 25 million people acutely food insecure and nearly 100,000 cholera cases recorded since last July, the World Health Organisation said on Friday. Sudan's conflict between the army and rival Rapid Support Forces has displaced millions and split the country into rival zones of control, with the RSF still deeply embedded in western Sudan, and funding cuts are hampering humanitarian aid. "Relentless violence has pushed Sudan's health system to the edge, adding to a crisis marked by hunger, illness and despair," WHO Senior Emergency Officer Ilham Nour said in a statement. "Exacerbating the disease burden is hunger," she said, adding that about 770,000 children under 5 years old are expected to suffer from severe acute malnutrition this year. Cholera has also hit a camp for Darfur refugees in neighbouring eastern Chad, the United Nations refugee agency said on Friday. An outbreak in the Dougui refugee settlement has so far resulted in 264 cases and 12 deaths, said Patrice Ahouansou, UNHCR's situation coordinator in the region, leading the agency to suspend the re-location of refugees from the border with Sudan to prevent new cases. "Without urgent action, including enhancing access to medical treatment, to clean water, to sanitation, to hygiene, and most important, relocation from the border, many more lives are on the line," Ahouansou told a briefing in Geneva.
The Independent
6 hours ago
- The Independent
The vaccine that could lower the risk of dementia by 20 per cent
Over the past two centuries, vaccines have been critical for preventing infectious diseases. The World Health Organization estimates that vaccination prevents between 3 million and 5 million deaths annually from diseases like diphtheria, tetanus, influenza, measles and, more recently, COVID-19. While there has long been broad scientific consensus that vaccines prevent or mitigate the spread of infections, there is new research suggesting that the therapeutic impact might go beyond the benefit of preventing infectious diseases. An April 2025 study published in the prominent journal Nature found tantalizing evidence that the herpes zoster – or shingles – vaccine could lower the risk of dementia in the general population by as much as 20%. We are a team of physician scientists with expertise in the clinical and basic science of neurodegenerative disorders and dementia. We believe that this study potentially opens the door to other breakthroughs in understanding and treating dementia and other degenerative disorders of the brain. A role for vaccines in reducing dementia risk? One of the major challenges researchers face when trying to study the effects of vaccines is finding an unvaccinated 'control group' for comparison – a group that is similar to the vaccine group in all respects, save for the fact that they haven't received the active vaccine. That's because it's unethical to assign some patients to the control group and deprive them of vaccine protection against a disease such as shingles. The Nature study took advantage of a policy change in Wales that went into effect in 2013, stating that people born on or after September 2, 1933, were eligible for the herpes zoster vaccination for at least a year, while those born before that cutoff date were not. The vaccine was administered to prevent shingles, a painful condition caused by the same virus that causes chickenpox, which can lie dormant in the body and be reactivated later in life. The researchers used the policy change as a natural laboratory of sorts to study the effect of shingles vaccination on long-term health outcomes. In a statistically sophisticated analysis of health records, the team found that the vaccine reduced the probability of getting dementia by one-fifth over a seven-year period. This means that people who received the shingles vaccine were less likely to develop clinical dementia over the seven-year follow-up period, and women benefited more than men. The study design allowed researchers to compare two groups without actively depriving any one group of access to vaccination. The two groups were also of comparable age and had similar medical comorbidities – meaning similar rates of other medical conditions such as diabetes or high blood pressure. Results from this and other related studies raise the possibility that vaccines may have a broader role in experimental therapeutics outside the realm of infectious diseases. These studies also raise provocative questions about how vaccines work and how our immune system can potentially prevent dementia. How vaccines might be protective One scientific explanation for the reduction of dementia by the herpes zoster vaccine could be the direct protection against the shingles virus, which may play a role in exacerbating dementia. However, there is also the possibility that the vaccine may have conferred protection by activating the immune system and providing 'trained immunity,' in which the immune system is strengthened by repeated exposure to vaccines or viruses. The study did not differentiate between different types of dementia, such as dementia due to Alzheimer's disease or dementia due to stroke. Additionally, researchers cannot draw any definitive conclusions about possible mechanisms for how the vaccines could be protective from an analysis of health records alone. The next step would be a prospective, randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled study – the 'gold standard' for clinical trials in medicine – to directly examine how the herpes zoster vaccine compares with a placebo in their ability to reduce the risk of dementia over time. Such studies are necessary before any vaccines, as well as other potential therapies, can be recommended for routine clinical use in the prevention of dementia. The challenges of untangling dementia Dementia is a major noncommunicable disease that is a leading cause of death around the world. A January 2025 study provided updated figures on lifetime dementia risk across different subsets of the U.S. population. The researchers estimate that the lifetime risk of dementia after age 55 is 42% – more than double earlier estimates. The dementia risk was 4% by age 75, and 20% by age 85, with the majority of risk occurring after 85. The researchers projected that the number of new cases of dementia in the U.S. would double over the next four decades from approximately 514,000 cases in 2020 to 1 million in 2060. Once considered a disease largely confined to the developed world, the deleterious effects of dementia are now apparent throughout the globe, as life expectancy increases in many formerly developing countries. While there are different forms of dementia with varying clinical manifestations and underlying neurobiology, Alzheimer's disease is the most common. Prospective studies that specifically test how giving a vaccine changes the risk for future dementia may benefit from studying patient populations with specific types of dementia because each version of dementia might require distinct treatments. Unfortunately, for the past two to three decades, the amyloid hypothesis of Alzheimer's disease – which posits that accumulation of a protein called amyloid in the brain contributes to the disorder – dominated the scientific conversation. As a result, most of the efforts in the experimental therapeutics of Alzheimer's disease have focused on drugs that lower the levels of amyloid in the brain. However, results to date have been modest and disappointing. The two recently approved amyloid-lowering therapies have only a minimal impact on slowing the decline, are expensive and have potentially serious side effects. And no drug currently approved by the Food and Drug Administration for clinical use reverses the cognitive decline. Studies based on health records suggest that past exposure to viruses increases the risk of dementia, while routine vaccines, including those against tetanus, diphtheria, pertussis, pneumonia, shingles and others, reduce the risk. Innovation and an open mind There is sometimes a tendency among scientists to cling to older, familiar models of disease and a reluctance to move in more unconventional directions. Yet the process of doing science has a way of teaching researchers like us humility, opening our minds to new information, learning from our mistakes and going where that data takes us in our quest for effective, lifesaving therapies. Vaccines may be one of those paths less traveled. It is an exciting possibility that may open the door to other breakthroughs in understanding and treating degenerative disorders of the brain. Anand Kumar is a Professor and Department Head of Psychiatry at the University of Illinois Chicago. Jalees Rehman is Department Chair and Professor of Biochemistry and Molecular Genetics at the University of Illinois Chicago.
