Americas > Health

Health in Americas

  • Healthcare Property holds benefits for Africa

    CANADA, 2017/08/20 As Africa tries to build up a listed real estate industry, healthcare real estate investment trust (REITs) become additional attractive on the continent. They would formalise an industry with much potential, advises Ortneil Kutama, Africa Property News Media Director. “REITs are well structured and provide investors with tax benefits and regular gain in theory as long as they make consistent profits,” Kutama said. Nations like South Africa, Kenya, Ghana, Morocco and Nigeria, which have growing populations, improving hospitals and healthcare industries, could gain capital boost. If the hospitals in these nations were listed, investors could bring that major capital boost.
  • US Healthcare Inefficiency: Evidence From International Prescription Drug Data

    UNITED STATES, 2017/05/29 Despite higher per capita healthcare spending, US health outcomes compare poorly with other developed nations. One potential reason is that the US healthcare system creates incentives that promote the faster adoption of medical technologies with minimal benefits. This column tests this claim using data on the quality and diffusion of new pharmaceuticals in the US and four other nations. The results suggest that compared to Australia, Canada, Switzerland, and the UK, low-quality drugs diffuse additional quickly in the US relative to high-quality drugs.
  • Brazilian scientists break genetic code of Zika protein

    BRAZIL, 2017/04/30 Brazilian researchers have described the three-dimensional structure of the NS5 protein responsible for the replication of Zika virus in infected cells — an significant step towards developing an antiviral drug. To do this, they stimulated a bacterium to produce large quantities of the NS5 protein, which were again purified and separated from the other substances produced by the bacteria. The researchers again transformed copies of the protein into crystals and mapped the spatial location of the 9,600 atoms that form its structure.
  • Flu season: Ways for travelers to protect themselves from springtime bugs

    WORLD, 2017/03/05 Compared to recent years, the 2016-2017 flu season, presently at its peak, is shaping up to be relatively severe. In the US, the flu hospitalization rate was 29.4 per 100,000 people the week of Feb. 10, compared to a rate of 5.1 per 100,000 people during a comparable week in 2016, and pneumonia and mortality rates have presently passed epidemic thresholds. For those taking chance of off-season deals and Spring Break vacations to travel in March, this trend may be particularly alarming – next all, experts say crowded spaces, new germs, recirculated air, and jet lag can make travelers additional vulnerable to the flu.
  • Zika: New cases of the virus break out in Florida as authorities hoped for all clear

    UNITED STATES, 2016/11/30 New cases of Zika virus have broken out in Florida, just as the authorities were hoping to declare the national free of the terrifying bug that causes brain deformities in foetuses and newborn babies. With additional than 15 million visitors each year, Better Miami and its beaches are part the world's top vacation spots. Tourist numbers are down, and though blaming other factors, the Government is very keen for the red-zone travel warning for pregnant women to be lifted.
  • Health remains priority for work of Gates foundation in Africa

    UNITED STATES, 2016/07/22 Bill Gates said health would remain a priority for the work of his foundation in Africa and it faced a struggle to bring down the rate of new HIV infections in the world's poorest continent. Speaking to Reuters in the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa, Gates said the foundation planned to spend $5 billion in Africa in the next five years. The Horn of Africa country is one of the biggest recipients of funds from the foundation.
  • This revolutionary Bolivian hospital is changing how women give birth

    BOLIVIA, 2016/07/20 Under the dim hospital light, a midwife, a doctor, a pregnant woman, and her mother silently ponder what they should do with a baby that fiercely resists coming out of the womb. The longer the labor, the additional dangerous it gets, and it has been almost a full day since the woman arrived here at the hospital. In Bolivia, which has the second-highest maternal mortality rate in South America, such a delay is a mortal threat. But here, in the high Andean plateau, hours from any major hospital, the mother is in very good hands. The pregnant woman at no time wanted to go to the hospital. The night before, her mother called Doña Leonarda, the midwife, or partera, to attend the delivery according to traditional Aymara customs. Doña Leonarda was working at the hospital today, so the woman reluctantly came here. Lying on her back, eyes wide open, the mother looks terrified. A young nurse turns to the physician, Dr. Henry Flores, and asks whether she should call the ambulance and take the woman to La Paz for a C-section. "That would be unwise," Flores answers in a smooth, low-pitch tone. It would take additional than two hours to get to the capital city and that could be too risky, too late for her. Her pain is increasing and she is by presently dilated. The doctor measures her contractions and tells the nurse to give the woman an IV solution. "It's only vitamins," Doña Leonarda says. But she knows better: they are dripping a painkiller into a plastic bag hanging from a pole — one of the few traces of modernity in this small chamber of the rural hospital. Three deep breaths later Dr. Flores makes a decision.
  • Dominica reports first confirmed case of the Zika virus

    DOMINICAN REPUBLIC, 2016/03/20 Dominica has reported its initial case of the mosquito-borne Zika virus. Health Minister Dr. Kenneth Darroux said yesterday that it was a locally transmitted case, since the person who was infected had no history of travel outside the island in the recent completed. “To date, a total of 13 samples have been tested for Zika virus with only one being positive,” he said.
  • Brazil allocates $2.8 mn for Zika research fund

    BRAZIL, 2016/03/14 Brazil is pumping in $2.8 million to fund research aimed at defeating the Zika virus.
  • Healthcare In Peru Public-Private Partnership helps pioneer health project

    PERU, 2016/02/03 Peru has consistently ranking amongst the top nations in the region in its execution of Public-Private Partnerships (PPPs). Today Peru is extending the reach of its PPPs into from presently on an extra critical area that has a direct impact on people’s lives: healthcare It’s no secret that Peru is home to one of the majority attractive investment climates in all of Latin America. Over the completed decade, it has received additional than $70 billion in foreign direct investment , making it a leader on the continent. Globally significant mega projects, such as the proposed railway that will link Peru’s Pacific port through the Amazon to the Atlantic Coast of Brazil, have drawn attention worldwide. The volume and the pace of work have accumulated in recent years, as Peru’s government continues to build capacity for critical public- private partnerships (PPPs).