Two flu outbreaks active at Island Health facilities as flu cases rise in B.C. - CHEK News

The World Health Organization (WHO) launched a new five-year strategy for its Hub for Pandemic and Epidemic Intelligence, charting a path towards a world where every country can detect and understand emerging health threats within 24 hours of their appearance by 2030. Strengthening rapid detection is a cornerstone of global health security, helping countries contain outbreaks before they escalate into larger epidemics or spread internationally. The Hub’s strategy aims to equip every country with the capabilities needed to rapidly identify and understand emerging health threats, thus supporting them in developing the systems, capacities and partnerships necessary to prevent outbreaks from escalating into epidemics or pandemics. Speaking at the opening of the World Health Summit in Berlin, in the presence of Germany’s Parliamentary State Secretary at the Federal Ministry of Health, Georg Kippels, WHO Director-General Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus reflected on the Hub’s achievements in the five years since its creation. "Five years after its establishment, the WHO Hub for Pandemic and Epidemic Intelligence has become an integral part of the global health security system," he said.

Bioengineer.org news storyFor people living with HIV, modern antiretroviral therapy can suppress the virus to levels below what standard laboratory tests can detect. Yet some patients on long-term treatment experience a curious phenomenon: a single test result showing a small, transient amount of virus in the blood, followed by an immediate return to undetectable levels. These events, known as viral blips, have puzzled clinicians and researchers for years, raising questions about whether they represent harmless statistical noise, brief bursts of viral production from hidden reservoirs, or early warnings of impending treatment failure. A new nationwide Swedish study, published in BMC Infectious Diseases, offers one of the most comprehensive answers to date. Drawing on the Swedish national InfCareHIV cohort, researchers analyzed data from 4,210 treatment-naïve adults who began antiretroviral therapy from 1 January 2007 onward, with follow-up data extracted through 30 September 2020. The median observation time was 5.5 years, with some individuals followed for as long as 13.7 years.

European Medical Journal news storyPeople living with HIV may experience subtle changes in heart muscle function even when conventional measures of cardiac performance remain normal, according to findings from a systematic review and meta-analysis. Researchers identified significantly impaired global longitudinal strain (GLS) among people with HIV compared with HIV-uninfected individuals, despite preserved left ventricular ejection fraction (LVEF) in both groups. The findings suggest that speckle-tracking echocardiography (STE) could provide additional information about early myocardial dysfunction in this population. Read the full news story here.

Among cancer patients, the high financial cost of cancer care is a prevalent problem. This financial burden is also associated with potentially harmful behavioral strategies that patients might use to cope with costs, such as delaying or forgoing treatment and skipping medications. Collectively, researchers refer to this impact as financial toxicity.