health
China health chief warns against ‘skin-to-skin contact with foreigners’ amid first case of monkeypox
- Wu Zunyou, the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention’s chief epidemiologist, announced on Weibo on Saturday that China now has one case of monkeypox after it “slipped through the net” despite tight COVID-19 restrictions.
- Wu listed five recommendations in his Weibo post, with the first one igniting controversy on the social media platform.
- “To prevent possible monkeypox infection and as part of our healthy lifestyle, it is recommended that 1) you do not have direct skin-to-skin contact with foreigners,” he wrote.
- “This is a bit like when the pandemic began, when some people overseas avoided any Chinese people they saw out of fear," one user commented, criticizing Wu’s message. “I don't believe these two things have any scientific basis, they are too broad and will exacerbate public panic."
- "When the pandemic first began, some of our foreign friends stood up and used our own platforms to tell everybody, 'Chinese people are not the virus,'" another Weibo user wrote.
A senior Chinese health official recently warned people on social media not to touch foreigners as the country reported its first case of monkeypox.
In a Weibo post on Saturday, Wu Zunyou, the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention’s chief epidemiologist, announced that China now has one case of monkeypox that “slipped through the net” despite tight COVID-19 restrictions.
Organ donation in Vietnam becoming more accepted despite cultural taboo
- The Vietnam National Coordinating Center for Human Organ Transplantation revealed that nearly 50,000 people have registered for organ donation after death or brain death in the country.
- The figure shows a significant jump since the center was established in 2014 when most of the 200 registrants were its own officials, staff and medical workers.
- According to Center Director Dong Van He, the Vietnamese people’s belief that one needs an entire body to prepare for the afterlife has prevented many from choosing to become organ donors.
- However, stories about brainstem death donations might have helped change some perspectives on the taboo subject.
- He pointed out that the system of 22 organ transplant centers and hospitals nationwide must exert more effort in encouraging more brain-dead organ donations.
More and more Vietnamese people are willing to donate their organs after death, a transplantation center operating under the Ministry of Health revealed.
Officials at the Vietnam National Coordinating Center for Human Organ Transplantation shared during a meeting on Monday that a lot has changed since the center was established in 2014.
Video of 3-year-old boy using a stool to care for his dad, who is in a vegetative state, goes viral
- A video of a son helping his father went viral on Chinese social media after the 3-year-old boy’s mother, Liu Na, posted it on Douyin on March 27.
- Liu said that while she was on her lunch break, she checked in on her husband Ding Yong, who has been in a vegetative state since Feb. 27, 2020.
- The camera she installed in their house captured their son, nicknamed Tutu, helping his father adjust his head.
- “When Tutu was about to take a nap, he noticed his father’s head tilted to the side, so he went over to help him adjust it… He once told me, ‘I want to grow up to be Ultraman to protect dad,’” Liu shared.
A video of a 3-year-old boy standing on a stool while trying to help his sick father has gone viral on Chinese social media.
Liu Na, 31, did not expect that her video would go viral after she posted it on her Douyin account on March 27. The clip shows her son, nicknamed Tutu, climbing a stool to adjust his father’s head.
Shanghai woman in lockdown has to have her double eyelid surgery sutures removed at her complex’s gate
- A Shanghai woman waiting to have the sutures removed from a recent eyelid surgery found her residential complex unexpectedly under COVID-19 lockdown.
- After concerns about a prolonged lockdown, she asked her doctor, named Zhou, for help: “Do you think I can postpone the time to remove the sutures? I feel they have been embedded in my flesh.”
- The doctor told her that the sutures must be removed immediately and initially suggested that she ask someone in her complex to remove the stitches for her.
- Zhou, the woman’s doctor, eventually decided to come to her and remove the stitches at the gate of her residential complex.
An unexpected lockdown forced a Chinese woman to have the stitches of her eyelid surgery removed at the gate of her residential complex.
The woman, whose name was withheld in media reports, underwent double eyelid surgery at a cosmetic medical institute in the middle of March.
New COVID-19 test provides accurate results within 4 minutes, according to Chinese scientists
- Scientists from Fudan University in Shanghai have developed a portable test that utilizes an “electromechanical biosensor” to detect coronavirus infection in four minutes.
- Their trial involved 33 people with COVID-19 and 54 uninfected people, testing the technology against polymerase chain reaction (PCR) test results.
- They reported “perfect” overall agreement as SARS-CoV-2, one of the strains that causes COVID-19, was detected in all 33 positive cases and not once in the 54 negative cases.
A new portable test that detects coronavirus infection within a four-minute window has been developed by scientists in Shanghai.
The test is reportedly as accurate as a polymerase chain reaction (PCR) test. Using an electromechanical biosensor that analyzes genetic material from swabs, the molecular electromechanical system, or MolEMS, is seen as a promising alternative to the highly sensitive and highly specific PCR test.
New York Health Department releases its first-ever AAPI health report
The New York Health Department released its first-ever Asian American and Pacific Islander health report on Dec. 10.
New report: The NY Health Department is distinguishing AAPI health information by ancestry for the first time, giving a better look into the health and inequities of communities identifying as Asian and Pacific Islanders.
Report: Low-income Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders among those most negatively impacted by the pandemic
Low-income American Indian or Native Alaskan, Hawaiian and Pacific Islander households were among those who suffered the most negative economic impacts brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic, a recent national study found.
Bearing the brunt: According to the Asset Limited, Income Constrained, Employed (ALICE) analysis of National COVID Surveys, members of American Indian, Alaskan Native, Hawaiian and Pacific Islander (AIAN/H/PI) communities, along with Black and Hispanic demographics, suffered the highest percentage of job loss and health issues among all reporting ethnic groups in the United States.
South Asians carry a gene that doubles their risk of death from COVID-19, study finds
Most South Asians have a gene that doubles the risk of death due to respiratory failure from COVID-19, a new study from Oxford University shows.
Key findings: The study, which was published in Nature Genetics, found that 60% of people with South Asian ancestry carry a “higher-risk” version of a gene called LZTFL1. This version predisposes them to developing severe COVID-19.
April Koh, 29, becomes youngest woman to run a multi-billion-dollar startup
April Koh, CEO of Spring Health, has become the youngest woman to lead a multibillion-dollar company after the startup raised a $190 million Series C round, or $300 million total funding.
“Unicorn” services: The Series C round of funding raised Spring Health’s valuation to more than $2 billion, which makes it reach “unicorn” status, or a valuation of at least $1 billion, according to Fierce Healthcare.
Your Body Changed During the Pandemic and That’s Okay
As the world relaxes its COVID restrictions, hot vax summer draws nigh but not everyone is excited. There are those of us who are anxious, hesitant and scared because we might not look the same as we did before the pandemic.
Do my jeans even fit anymore? Did I grow another chin? I think I lost all the definition in my calves from not walking to the bus stop.
$300 Smart Ring May Detect Coronavirus 3 Days Before Symptoms Show
A smart ring that monitors the wearer’s overall health and reportedly detects early symptoms of COVID-19 is available for $300.
5 Asian American Fitness Accounts to Follow and Avoid that ‘Quarantine 15’
With the COVID-19 pandemic, closed gyms and at-home quarantines, it is more important than ever to take care of your health and fitness.
For those of us who are able to self-isolate at home during this time, it can be easy to put on that quarantine fifteen if you know what I mean (I know, I should drop a mixtape), and understandably so, since we are falling out of our normal routines of working out at the gym and staying fit. It is also important to recognize that many of us aren’t moving our bodies as much as usual as we don’t walk as much at home as we do in our normal day to day lives.
