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Nurses To Stage Massive Protest At County Vote To Save San Leandro Hospital - Tuesday
Registered nurses, healthcare workers and community leaders will hold a major protest rally Tuesday at noon, outside of the Alameda County Administration building. The action, one of many occurring over the last two months, is being held on the day that the board is scheduled to vote on Sutter Health"s plan to rebuild Eden Medical Center in Castro Valley as a luxury hospital with all private rooms and 48 fewer beds. It is likely that approval will result in closure of the 122-bed San Leandro Hospital, also owned and operated by Sutter.
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Cardiovascular Medication Costs In Canada Double
The number of prescriptions in Canada for cardiovascular medications has been increasing over the past decade, with a 200% increase in costs, found a new study in CMAJ (Canadian Medical Association Journal). In 2006, total costs of cardiovascular medications exceeded $5 billion, with statins accounting for almost 40% of the expenditure.
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Greater Risks For Patients With Heart Attacks Posed By Crowded Emergency Departments
Patients with heart attacks and other forms of chest pain are three to five times more likely to experience serious complications after hospital admission when they are treated in a crowded emergency department (ED), according to a new study published in the journal Academic Emergency Medicine. The authors say that this dramatic difference in rates of serious complications underscores the need for action on the part of hospital administrators, policymakers and emergency physicians to find solutions to what has been termed "a national public health problem." More than six million patients per year come to U.S. emergency departments with chest pain.
Medical Devices

Fungi Pathogenic To Insects Are New Tool In Fight Against Chagas Disease

Entomopathogenic fungi may be a safe and efficient means of controlling Triatoma infestans, the bug that helps spread Chagas disease, according to new research conducted in Argentina. The study, published May 12 in the open-access journal PLoS Neglected Tropical Diseases, shows the success of the fungi to kill bugs resistant to current control methods. Chagas disease is the most relevant parasitic disease in Latin America, being a major burden that affects mostly poor human populations living in rural areas. The parasite Trypanosoma cruzi is mainly transmitted through blood-feeding triatomine bugs; in the southern Cone of South America the most prominent vector is Triatoma infestans. Current control strategies based on residual chemical insecticide application are threatened by the emergence of pyrethroid resistance. The researchers, led by Patricia Juç¡rez, performed both laboratory and field experiments showing that the entomopathogenic fungus Beauveria bassiana is virulent against bug populations from pyrethroid-resistant foci in the Argentina/Bolivia border. An attraction-infection trap was developed and tested during a 15-day period in field assays performed in two rural villages, demonstrating that more than 50% of the bugs detected were killed by fungal infection. By existing vector population models, the bug population reduction was estimated to reduce the risk of acquiring the parasite infection. This approach might also prove useful at different settings, e.g. peridomiciliary environments where current tactics and procedures are reported to fail, and rural communities located in remote areas inaccessible to sanitary control teams. The authors emphasize that these results might help to provide a safe and efficient alternative to overcome bug pyrethroid-resilience in the short term, and might be useful to control other Chagas disease vectors as well. Financial Disclosure: Partial financial support came from the Pan American Health Organization/World Health Organization/Special Program for Research and Training in Tropical Disease (A20433), the Agencia Nacional de Promocion Cientifica y Tecnologica, Argentina (PICT 01-14174), and the Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Cientificas y Tecnicas (CONICET), Argentina, to MPJ. The funders had no role in the study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript. Competing Interests: NP, SJM, JRG, and MPJ have a patent pending on a blood-sucking insect trap, and a method to detect and control those insects. Citation: "Control of Pyrethroid-Resistant Chagas Disease Vectors with Entomopathogenic Fungi." Pedrini N, Mijailovsky SJ, Girotti JR, Stariolo R, Cardozo RM, et al. (2009) PLoS Negl Trop Dis 3(5): e434.doi:10.1371/journal.pntd.0000434 PLoS Neglected Tropical Diseases


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