The Malaysian Insider :: Features
The Malaysian Insider :: Features |
| Deadly new virus is well adapted to infect humans, study finds Posted: 19 Feb 2013 01:18 AM PST LONDON, Feb 19 — A new virus that emerged in the Middle East last year and has killed five people is well adapted to infecting humans but could potentially be treated with drugs that boost the immune system, scientists said today.  Symptoms of both NCoV and SARS include severe respiratory illness, fever, coughing and breathing difficulties. — AFP pic In one of the first published studies about NCoV, which was unknown in humans until it was identified in September 2012, researchers said it could penetrate the lining of passageways in the lungs and evade the immune system as easily as a cold virus can. This shows it "grows very efficiently" in human cells and suggests it is well equipped for infecting humans, said Volker Thiel of the Institute of Immunobiology at Kantonal Hospital in Switzerland, who led the study. NCoV was identified when the World Health Organisation issued an international alert in September saying a completely new virus had infected a Qatari man in Britain who had recently been in Saudi Arabia. Coronaviruses are a family of viruses that includes those that cause the common cold as well as the one that caused SARS — which emerged in China in 2002 and killed about a 10th of the 8,000 people it infected worldwide. Symptoms of both NCoV and SARS include severe respiratory illness, fever, coughing and breathing difficulties. Of the 12 cases confirmed so far, four were in Britain, one was a Qatari patient in Germany, two were in Jordan and five in Saudi Arabia. POSSIBLE TREATMENT Scientists are not sure where the virus comes from, but say one possibility is it came from animals. Experts at Britain's Health Protection Agency say preliminary scientific analysis suggests its closest relatives are bat coronaviruses. What is also unclear is what the true prevalence of the virus is — since it is possible that the 12 cases seen so far are the most severe, and there may be more people who have contracted the virus with milder symptoms so are not picked up. "We don't know whether the cases (so far) are the tip of the iceberg, or whether many more people are infected without showing severe symptoms," said Thiel, who worked with a team of scientists from the Netherlands, Switzerland, Germany and Denmark. "We don't have enough cases to have a full picture of the variety of symptoms." Thiel said that although the virus may have jumped from animals to humans very recently, his research showed it was just as well adapted to infecting the human respiratory tract as other coronaviruses like SARS and the common cold viruses. The study, published in mBio, an online journal of the American Society for Microbiology, also found that NCoV was susceptible to treatment with interferons, medicines that boost the immune system and which are also successfully used to treat other viral diseases like Hepatitis C. This opens up a possible mode of treatment in the event of a large-scale outbreak, the scientists said. Thiel said that with the future of the virus uncertain, it was vital for laboratories and specialists around the world to cooperate swiftly to find out more about where it came from, how widespread it was, and how infectious it might be. "So far it looks like the virus is well contained, so in that sense I don't see any reason for increased fear," he said. — Reuters |
| Senegal women told ‘all black’ is beautiful — and healthy Posted: 19 Feb 2013 12:57 AM PST DAKAR, Feb 19 — Outraged by adverts urging women to bleach their skin, a spontaneous movement has emerged in Senegal arguing that black is beautiful — and to act otherwise is to risk one's health.  A taxi passes by a Nuul Kukk, meaning "all black," citizen's movement poster which reads "Black is so Beautiful!" on October 10, 2012 in Dakar. — AFP pic The posters promised "rapid action" and "results in 15 days". They showed before and after pictures of a young woman who started out black and ended up with fair skin through de-pigmentation, locally known as "kheessal" or bleaching. "We were scandalised (by a poster) suggesting that black is not beautiful because it recommends that young women should transform themselves in a fortnight," said Aisha Deme, who runs the cultural website Agendakar.com. "In a spontaneous response, we wanted to elevate the black woman and we launched "Nuul Kukk", which means "all black", the young woman added, a flower pinned in her mass of frizzy hair. So the campaigners put up their own posters in the Senegalese capital, this time showing a proud black woman. The work was done for free by fashion photographer Stephane Tourne and advertising professionals. The Nuul Kukk campaign, which is highly active online and has its own website, Twitter feed and Facebook page, features local stars, including the rapper Keyti, the stylist Dior Lo and women's rights activist Kine Fatim Diop. The campaign is also backed by dermatologist Fatimata Ly, who has been fighting the "kheessal" practice for 10 years as part of the International Association for Information on Artificial Depigmentation. For Ly, skin bleaching is a public health concern because "in the general population, 67 in every 100 women practice artificial de-pigmentation." These products reduce the body's ability to "defend itself against (various) infections", and they also "have broader effects on health, such as diabetes and high blood pressure," she added. 'We have to fight' The skin-lightening phenomenon exists in several sub-Saharan African countries and in the black diaspora. In Senegal, "it is mainly a feminine practice, even if you find it among men in some particular groups, such as performers," Ly said. Whitening creams, milks and gels contain substances initially intended for therapeutic purposes, such as corticosteroids and hydroquinone, and should only be prescribed by doctors, according to Ly. "Unfortunately, you can find them all across the Senegalese market. They are products that are very accessible," she said. At between one euro (RM3.90) and 1.5 euros per product — five or six times cheaper than in a chemist's shop — they are also affordable, Ly said as she showed pictures on her computer of the damage caused by bleaching products, ranging from swollen legs, bruises and open wounds to blemished skin and burns. Women are nonetheless drawn to the products because they believe they will make them more beautiful, according to researchers and doctors, and Deme says it's an uphill battle to convince women otherwise. "Today's society imposes criteria for beauty on us... Everybody promotes women with fair skin: the papers, magazines, video clips," said Deme. "What we recommend today is just to stop de-pigmentation. We should stop importing these products and selling them, so that there are no more scandalous advertisements," she added. "It will take as much time as it takes, it will be long, but we have to fight." — AFP/Relaxnews |
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