“Initial results show promising neuron spike detection,” Musk said in a post on social media platform X on Monday.

Spikes are activity by neurons, which the National Institute of Health describes as cells that use electrical and chemical signals to send information around the brain and to the body.

The US Food and Drug Administration had given the company clearance last year to conduct its first trial to test its implant on humans. In September, Neuralink said it received approval for recruitment for the human trial for paralysis patients.

The study uses a robot to surgically place a brain-computer interface (BCI) implant in a region of the brain that controls the intention to move, Neuralink said previously, adding that its initial goal is to enable people to control a computer cursor or keyboard using their thoughts alone.

The implants’ “ultra-fine” threads help transmit signals in participants’ brains, Neuralink has said.

The first product from Neuralink would be called Telepathy, Musk said in a separate post on X.

The startup’s PRIME Study is a trial for its wireless brain-computer interface to evaluate the safety of the implant and surgical robot.

Neuralink did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for further details.

The company has faced calls for scrutiny regarding its safety protocols. Reuters reported earlier this month that the company was fined for violating US Department of Transportation (DOT) rules regarding the movement of hazardous materials.

The company was valued at about $5 billion last June, but four lawmakers in late November asked the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission to investigate whether Musk had misled investors about the safety of its technology after veterinary records showed problems with the implants on monkeys included paralysis, seizures and brain swelling. – Rappler.com

Some researchers, campaigners and governments see e-cigarettes, or vapes, as a key tool in reducing the death and disease caused by smoking. But the UN agency said “urgent measures” were needed to control them.

Citing studies, it said there was insufficient evidence that vapes helped smokers quit, that they were harmful to health and that they could drive nicotine addiction among non-smokers, especially children and young people.

More 13-15 year olds are using vapes than adults in all WHO regions helped by aggressive marketing, it continued.

“Kids are being recruited and trapped at an early age to use e-cigarettes and may get hooked to nicotine,” said Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, WHO Director-General, urging countries to implement strict measures.

The WHO called for changes, including bans on all flavoring agents like menthol, and the application of tobacco control measures to vapes. Those include high taxes and bans on use in public places.

The WHO has no authority over national regulations, and only provides guidance. But its recommendations are often adopted voluntarily.

The WHO and some other anti-tobacco organizations are pushing for stricter regulations on newer nicotine products, taking aim at the alternatives on which some cigarette giants like Philip Morris International PM.N and British American Tobacco BATS.L are basing their future strategies.

Tobacco company Imperial Brands IMB.L and vape firm ANDS said vapes pose significantly lower health risks than tobacco and help reduce its harms, while flavors are key in encouraging smokers to switch – a position shared by some tobacco control advocates.

“Regulating vapes like cigarettes would only serve to reinforce misunderstandings about the relative risks of vaping and send the wrong message to smokers,” said Marina Murphy, senior director of scientific and medical affairs at ANDS, adding the WHO’s position was “detached from reality”.

The WHO said while long-term health risks were not understood, vapes generated some substances known to cause cancer, posed risks to heart and lung health and could affect brain development in young people. – Rappler.com

At the COP28 conference in Dubai, more than 120 nations signed a declaration to boost health-related climate finance, but the document made no mention of fossil fuels – the main source of climate-warming emissions.

Climate campaigners, researchers, and health policymakers said phasing out the use of fossil fuels was vital to saving millions of lives each year and called on governments to address the link between emissions and air quality, and include measurable goals or targets.

“We need to integrate climate change as a core component to enable us, as the first-line responders, to respond, detect, and treat climate-related health impacts,” said Omnia El Omrani, a climate and health policy expert from Egypt.

Despite an increase globally in illnesses and deaths linked to fossil fuel burning such as asthma, lung infections, and respiratory diseases, he said health authorities in many countries do not connect the trend to greenhouse gas emissions.

An estimated 5.13 million excess deaths per year globally are attributable to ambient air pollution from fossil fuel use and therefore could potentially be avoided by phasing out fossil fuel, according a new study published November by the British Medical Journal.

Despite that, the issue was missing from two-thirds of the national climate plans submitted to the United Nations, known as nationally determined contributions, according to an October report by the Global Climate and Health Alliance (GCHA).

“The threats to health resulting from climate change are immediate and present. However, for too long, health has been a footnote to climate discussion,” the head of the World Health Organization, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, said at the first ever Health Day at COP28 in Dubai, calling for countries to include health in their climate action plans.

Rising temperatures are also pushing mosquito-borne diseases such as dengue, chikungunya, Zika, yellow fever, and malaria into regions that were not previously affected by them, Tedros said.

‘Glaring omission’

Climate campaigners also criticized the failure of some high-emitting nations such as India, Russia, Saudi Arabia, and South Africa to endorse the COP28 Health Declaration on Climate and Health.

“[That] carries huge consequences for the populations of those countries in addition to the emissions that need to be addressed globally,” said Jess Beagley, policy lead for the GCHA, a coalition of health nongovernmental organizations and health professionals.

The alliance called the declaration’s failure to mention fossil fuels a “glaring omission.”

It did include the announcement of $1 billion in pledges from governments, charities, and development banks to mobilize finance for climate and health in developing countries, where climate-related health risks are especially high.

The funding initiative includes $300 million from the Global Fund, $100 million from the Rockefeller Foundation to support climate and health solutions, and a 54-million-pound ($69 million) pledge from the British government.

At present, health-focused climate action only receives 2% of adaptation funding and 0.5% of climate funding.

Health and climate campaigners say that is nowhere near enough to tackle the growing burden of tropical diseases as the world warms, along with other climate-driven health threats including malnutrition, malaria, diarrhea, and heat stress.

But climate finance to ramp up cleaner energy access to people across the world must be stepped up, a push that would bring immediate health benefits with it, campaigners say.

About four out of every five families in Africa still cook with polluting stoves, said Fatih Birol, executive director of the International Energy Agency.

Access to cleaner cooking alternatives could dramatically slash emissions – and improve air quality, said Birol, calling on richer nations to fund just transition initiatives in poorer nations.

Tedros urged the world’s health sector, which accounts for about 5% of global emissions, to lead by example on reducing its carbon footprint.

“The health workforce is one of the largest in the world, present in almost every community,” he told journalists.

“We have a role to speak up on behalf of the populations we serve to raise ambition for a cleaner, greener, and healthier future.” – Rappler.com

$1 = 0.7865 pounds

These are just a few of the ways that public health has been impacted and compounded by climate change – a focus for the first time ever at the annual United Nations climate summit COP28.

Government ministers are expected to discuss ways they can protect people from climate-driven health threats, which now threaten to undo decades of progress in public health.

From 2030, experts expect that just four of these threats – malnutrition, malaria, diarrhea, and heat stress – will push global death tolls up by 250,000 per year, according to the World Health Organization (WHO).

“Extreme weather events are becoming extreme health events,” said Martin Edlund, chief executive officer of global health nonprofit Malaria No More.

Here’s how climate change is harming people’s health across the world today, and what countries might expect in the future.

Vector-borne diseases

Mosquitoes that carry viruses including dengue, malaria, West Nile, and Zika are shifting into new parts of the world as warmer temperatures and heavy rain create more hospitable conditions for them to breed.

Reported dengue cases have grown from around half a million in 2000 to more than 5 million in 2019, according to the WHO.

Just this year, cases in Brazil are up 73% against the five-year average, said Edlund, with Bangladesh suffering a record dengue outbreak.

Climate change is also having an unpredictable impact on malaria, with 5 million more cases registered in 2022 than the previous year – reaching a total of 249 million, the WHO’s World Malaria Report found.

Floods in Pakistan last year, for example, led to a 400% increase in malaria cases in the country, the report said.

The disease has also spread into the highlands of Africa that previously had been cold for mosquitoes.

Two new malaria vaccines expected to be available next year offer some hope of combating the scourge.

Murky waters

Storms and flooding wrought by climate change are allowing other infectious water-borne diseases to proliferate as well.

After decades of progress against cholera, an intestinal infection spread by contaminated food and water, case numbers are rising again, including in countries that had all but extirpated the disease.

Without treatment, cholera can kill within hours.

In 2022, 44 countries reported cholera cases, a 25% increase over 2021, according to the WHO, which noted the role played by cyclones, floods, and drought in cutting off access to clean water and helping bacteria to thrive.

Recent outbreaks have also been far deadlier, with fatality rates now at the highest recorded level in over a decade, the WHO said.

Diarrhea, too, receives a boost from climate change, with increasingly erratic rainfall – resulting in either wet or dry conditions – yielding a higher risk, research has found.

Diarrhea is the world’s second leading cause of death among children under 5, after pneumonia, claiming the lives of more than half a million kids every year.

Extreme heat and smoky skies

Heat stress – one of the more obvious health impacts of global warming – is projected to impact hundreds of millions of people as temperatures continue to climb through the next few decades.

With the world already about 1.1°C (2°F) warmer than the average preindustrial temperature, people in 2022 experienced about 86 days on average of dangerously high temperatures, a report from the Lancet medical journal found last month.

If the world warms by 2°C above preindustrial levels, the report said, yearly heat deaths could more than quadruple.

A July study in the journal Nature Medicine estimated that some 61,000 people died during European heat waves in the summer of 2022.

The heat has also made forests drier, fueling extreme wildfires that have swept across large swathes of the world in recent years.

During the decade starting in 2010, more than 2 billion people were exposed to at least one day per year of unhealthy air pollution from fire smoke, according to a September study in the journal Nature. That was up by 6.8% compared with the previous decade.

In the United States, wildfire air pollution now kills somewhere between 4,000 and 28,000 people annually, according to the American Thoracic Society. – Rappler.com

Health authorities have not detected any unusual or novel pathogens, the WHO later said, and doctors and public health researchers say there is no evidence for international alarm.

Authorities in Taiwan, however, this week advised the elderly, very young and those with poor immunity to avoid travel to China.

The following is what we know about the surge in illness in the world’s second most populous country so far, and why experts think there is no need to panic.

What is happening on the ground?

The rise in respiratory illnesses comes as China braces for its first full winter season since it lifted strict COVID-19 restrictions in December last year.

The spike in illness came into the spotlight when the WHO asked China for more information last week, citing a report by the Program for Monitoring Emerging Diseases (ProMED) on clusters of undiagnosed pneumonia in children.

Some social media users have also posted photos of children receiving intravenous drips in hospital, while media in cities such as Xian in the northwest have posted videos of crowded hospitals, fanning concerns potential strains on the healthcare system.

How big is the surge?

The National Health Commission told a news conference on November 13 that there was an increase in incidence of respiratory disease without providing further details.

WHO China told Reuters in an email that “Chinese health authorities advised that the current numbers they are observing is not greater than the peak in the most recent cold season prior to the COVID-19 pandemic.”

What pathogens are circulating?

The data suggests the increase is linked to the lifting of COVID-19 restrictions along with the circulation of known pathogens such as mycoplasma pneumoniae, a common bacterial infection that typically affects younger children and which has circulated since May.

Influenza, respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) and adenovirus have been in circulation since October.

IS mycoplasma pneumoniae a big worry?

One concern about the surge in respiratory illness is mycoplasma pneumoniae, which has also spiked in other countries.

Maria Van Kerkhove, COVID-19 Technical Lead at the World Health Organization told reporters on Wednesday that mycoplasma pneumonia is not a reportable disease to the WHO, and it was on the rise for the last couple of months but now appears to be declining.

“We’re following up through our clinical networks and working with clinicians in China to better understand resistance to antibiotics, which is a problem across the world, but is a particular problem in the Western Pacific and South East Asia region,” she said.

Rajib Dasgupta, an epidemiologist and professor of community health at Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi, told Reuters in some cases there may be serious complications from infection caused by mycoplasma pneumoniae, but most people will recover without antibiotics.

Why experts aren’t concerned?

Doctors in China and experts abroad are not too worried about the situation in China, noting many other countries saw similar increases in respiratory diseases after easing pandemic measures.

“The cases that we are seeing is nothing unusual at the moment, because it’s still the same cough, colds, fever presentation, and the good thing about it is that it’s actually treatable,” said Cecille Brion, head of the pediatrics department at Raffles Medical Group Beijing.

Van Kerkhove said that the rise in cases was expected.

“We are seeing, in general, an increase in respiratory infections around the world. We do tend to see increases in children because they’re the school-aged children, and in the northern hemisphere it’s the autumn already. We’re entering the winter months,” she said. – Rappler.com

Life expectancy at birth for 2022 newborns was 77.5 years, up from 76.4 in 2021 but still lower than the 78.8 years expected for those born in 2019, data from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) suggests.

It will take “some time before we’re back to where we were in 2019, before the pandemic,” said Elizabeth Arias, a CDC researcher who worked on the report.

The study estimated babies’ life expectancy if mortality conditions when they were born were to persist throughout their lives.

“There were positive outcomes all around… all the groups by race and sex experienced increases in life expectancy,” Arias said.

Life expectancy increased over 2021 levels by the most for American Indian and Alaska Native non-Hispanic newborns, by 2.3 years, from 65.6 to 67.9, followed by an increase of 2.2 years for Hispanic newborns from 77.8 to 80.

Black non-Hispanic Americans, who were disproportionately impacted by the pandemic, had life expectancy increase by 1.6 years, from 71.2 to 72.8, resulting primarily from decreases in mortality due to COVID-19, followed by declines in deaths from heart disease, homicide, diabetes, and cancer.

Life expectancy increased by 1 year for Asian non-Hispanic infants to 84.5 years, and by 0.8 year for White non-Hispanic babies to 77.5.

In all groups, previous declines in mortality due to COVID-19 explained more than 80% of the increases in life expectancy, according to the report.

Declines in deaths from heart disease, unintentional injuries, cancer, and homicide also contributed to longer life expectancy overall, but their impact varied.

In the American Indian and Alaska Native population and the Hispanic population, for example, increases in life expectancy would have been greater if not for offsetting increases in mortality due to unintentional injuries.

Improvements in life expectancy for non-Hispanic Black babies were offset by increases in mortality due to perinatal conditions, congenital malformations, kidney disease, nutritional deficiencies, and legal intervention, a reference to deaths due to injuries inflicted by police or other law enforcement agents.

As usual, life expectancy remains longer for females. In 2020, the difference between the sexes reached 6 years, a level not seen since 1996. In 2022, that gap had narrowed to 5.4 years, down from 5.8 years in 2021.

The data for 2022 is provisional, meaning that it may change and has several limitations, including a difference in timeliness in submitting death certificates by some jurisdictions. – Rappler.com

In the six months since the surgery, performed during a partial face transplant, the grafted eye has shown important signs of health, including well-functioning blood vessels and a promising-looking retina, according to the surgical team at NYU Langone Health.

“The mere fact that we transplanted an eye is a huge step forward, something that for centuries has been thought about, but it’s never been performed,” said Dr. Eduardo Rodriguez, who led the team.

Until now, doctors have only been able to transplant the cornea, the clear front layer of the eye.

The recipient of the eye, Aaron James, is a 46-year-old military veteran from Arkansas who survived a work-related high-voltage electrical accident that destroyed the left side of his face, his nose, his mouth and his left eye.

The transplant surgery took 21 hours.

Initially, doctors were just planning to include the eyeball as part of the face transplant for cosmetic reasons, Rodriguez said during a Zoom interview.

“If some form of vision restoration occurred, it would be wonderful, but… the goal was for us to perform the technical operation,” and have the eyeball survive, Rodriquez added.

Whatever happens going forward will be monitored, he said.

Presently, the transplanted eye is not communicating with the brain through the optic nerve.

To encourage healing of the connection between the donor and recipient optic nerves, surgeons harvested adult stem cells from the donor’s bone marrow and injected them into the optic nerve during the transplant, hoping they would replace damaged cells and protect the nerve.

Transplantation of a viable eye globe opens many new possibilities, Rodriguez said, even if sight is not restored in this case.

Other research teams are developing ways to connect nerve networks in the brain to sightless eyes through insertion of electrodes, for example, to allow vision, he said.

“If we can work with other scientists that are working on other methods of restoring vision or restoring images to the visual cortex, I think we’re one step closer,” Rodriguez said.

James, who had retained vision in his right eye, knew he might not regain vision in the transplanted eye.

The doctors “never expected it to work at all, and they told me that from the get-go,” he said.

“I told them, ‘even if I can’t see… maybe at least you all can learn something to help the next person.’ That’s how you get started,” he said. “Hopefully this opens up a new path.”

James might still regain sight in the transplanted eye, Rodriguez said.

“I don’t think anyone can claim that he will see. But by the same token, they can’t claim that he will not see,” Rodriguez said. “At this point, I think we’re pretty happy with the result that we were able to achieve with a very technically demanding operation.” – Rappler.com

The small, flat oval insects have caused a panic in France, where reports of outbreaks on trains and in cinemas have raised worries about the impact on tourism and the Paris Olympics, which start in less than a year. Britain too has seen a jump in enquiries about the pests.

In South Korea, about 30 cases of suspected infestations have been reported nationwide, including at a traditional Korean spa called “jjimjilbang” in Incheon, west of Seoul, and a college dorm in the southeastern city of Daegu, officials said.

The prime minister’s office on Tuesday launched a four-week campaign with inspections of public facilities and pest control measures.

“Public anxiety is inevitable as reports continue to come in,” Park Ku-yeon, first deputy chief of the Office for Government Policy Coordination, who heads the team in change of the campaign, told a meeting.

Park singled out small dorm rooms known as “gosiwon” and single-room households as most vulnerable, calling for support from district authorities.

The wingless insects hide in mattresses and bedding and feed on blood, typically biting at night.

South Korea’s hotel and tour industry is stepping up vigilance with distribution of repellent and training for staff.

Lotte Hotels and Resorts, a hospitality arm of Lotte Corp 004990.KS, said it had not found any infestations but issued guidelines to all branches and it plans to disinfect bedding, mattresses, carpets and sofas.

“We’re trying to take strong precautionary steps,” a Lotte Hotel official told Reuters.

Authorities in the capital, Seoul, said metro operators would disinfect trains more frequently and gradually replace fabric seats with plastic ones.

Drivers have to disinfect their taxis twice a day and control measures are also being implemented on buses. – Rappler.com

Mercelita “Merci” Jandayan-Labial, a graduate school professor at the Capitol University (CU) in Cagayan de Oro, is a breast cancer survivor who spent more than P2 million to combat the disease.

The day she received her breast cancer diagnosis, a rollercoaster of emotions overwhelmed her. With unwavering faith, solid family support, and a wide network of friends, she faced breast cancer head-on.

But to her, cancer is just a word.

Merci told Rappler, “Breast cancer is not a sentence because it does not put a period to our being. It didn’t stop my being. It probably slowed down my life, but it didn’t put an end to it. It is just a word because cancer had only been part of my ongoing journey. How we make meaning of the word all depends on us. How we battle against cancer is our call.”

HER2 positive

Merci received a diagnosis of breast cancer Stage 2B. Her mammogram results indicated a Breast Imaging-Reporting and Data Systems (BI-RADS) 5 malignancy, a highly suspicious type of cancer requiring immediate action – in her case, the removal of her breasts.

In search of a second opinion, Merci consulted another doctor, hoping that there might be some discrepancy and that her life could return to normal as she had hoped when she first heard the initial diagnosis.

Unfortunately, nothing changed. Clarity emerged as the doctor conducted a fine needle aspiration biopsy (FNAB) to confirm whether it was cancerous before proceeding with breast surgery.

She said, “I held on to the hope that it would yield a negative result, but it showed I was positive of having ductal carcinoma. I had breast cancer!”

To make matters worse, her tumor was HER2 positive, independent, aggressive, and metastatic, requiring targeted therapy to slow or eliminate the growth of cancer cells in her lymph nodes.

Costly treatment

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), the annual cost of cancer care in the Philippines is P35.3 billion.

In Merci’s case, the cost of the targeted therapy drug was astronomical. Merci had to raise P122,000 every 21 days for her 18 treatment cycles, amounting to P2.4 million for the entire treatment.

Her heart also needed to be strong enough to endure the potential side effects of the treatment.

In March 2015, Merci spent P145,000 on a mastectomy.

Following the surgery, she underwent the systemic chemotherapy protocol AC-TH, consisting of eight cycles, followed by 33 days of radiotherapy and, finally, targeted therapy infusion.

Throughout her treatment, Merci suffered hair loss, physical weakness during each cycle, and daily radiation, all while grappling with various mental health issues and the constant concern of raising the funds to complete her treatment.

With limited financial resources, Merci began crowdfunding to finance her treatment.

Fortunately, her family, relatives, friends, and professional network responded to her plea, and the pooled resources covered her treatment, which extended for over a year.

A portion of the financial aid came from various government agencies tasked with assisting Filipinos in need of medical treatment.

However, accessing financial aid from these public institutions involved extensive documentation and lengthy processes.

Regrettably, what these agencies could provide was largely insufficient to cover the entire treatment protocol for those without a network as extensive as Merci’s.

Eight years since her diagnosis, Merci has moved forward. She now owns a review center and remains an active speaker and presenter.

She is also a member of Thrive CDO, a breast cancer awareness advocacy group in Cagayan de Oro City.

Leading cause of death

It was different for Arki who didn’t make it.

Upon learning of her breast cancer diagnosis, she kept it a secret, sharing it with only a few close friends. Not even her children or husband were aware until she reached the metastatic stage in 2017.

Arki chose herbal supplements and adopted a healthier diet in the hope of returning to normal life. Her religious beliefs and financial capacity influenced her choices.

In early 2018, due to unbearable pain, Arki finally sought medical intervention. Sadly, one month later, she passed away.

Breast cancer remains the leading cause of death among women worldwide and in the Philippines, despite innovative treatment protocols being available.

It accounted for 685,000 or 15.5% of the total 4.4 million cancer deaths among females worldwide and 9,926 or 21.8% of the 45,560 cancer deaths in the Philippines in 2020.

Globally, among all cancer types, breast cancer had the highest incidence, with 2.3 million cases, making up 11.7% of the 19.3 million new cases, according to the WHO in 2020.

Over a five-year period, its prevalence reached 7.9 million or 15.4% of the total 50.5 million cases.

In a report released in May 2023, the Philippine Statistics Office (PSO) recorded 63,377 deaths, accounting for 10.2% of neoplasms or cancer-related diseases from January to December of the previous year.

Cancer ranked as the second leading cause of death in the country in 2022, following ischemic heart disease.

Dr. Wilfredo Liangco of Medical Center Manila said that in 2017, the country had the highest prevalence of breast cancer among 197 countries.

More than half, or 53%, of breast cancer cases in the country are diagnosed in Stages III and IV, while only 2%-3% of cases are diagnosed in Stage 1.

The survival rate in high-income countries is 90%, while in low-income countries, it ranges from 40% to 66%. The discrepancy reflects the differences in breast cancer awareness, screening practices, and the accessibility of innovative treatments between high-income and low-income countries.

Cancer centers

When Merci and Arki were diagnosed with breast cancer, there was no cancer control law yet. It was only enacted as the National Integrated Cancer Control Act (RA 11215) in February 2019, during the administration of former president Rodrigo Duterte, with its Implementing Rules and Regulations (IRR) coming out in August 2019.

The law has led to the opening of more cancer centers in public hospitals in the country and has established systematic financial support for cancer patients’ care.

Negotiating for the prices of targeted therapy drugs is also part of the cancer care programs.

Dr. Alfonso Nuñez III, interim executive director of the Philippine Cancer Center, said the law has introduced measures to support the financial needs of cancer patients in the country. This includes the establishment of a Cancer Assistance Fund (CAF) and a Cancer Supportive Care and Palliative Care Medicines Access Program (CSPMAP).

According to Dr. Nuñez, CSPMAP is a social protection initiative aimed at providing equitable access to the entire cancer care continuum for indigents, protecting them against financial hardship.

Through this program, patients can access a range of cancer medications, including chemotherapy drugs and other supportive medications, required during the course of cancer treatment.

CAF supports CSPMAP by covering diagnostic and therapeutic procedures for patients accessing cancer care for early detection, rapid diagnosis, treatment, and care.

While there are still barriers and gaps in the screening program, data collection, research, supportive and palliative care, and survivorship care for managing cancer, measures have been identified and employed to ease the burden of cancer treatment.

In terms of Cancer Care Centers, the Southern Philippines Medical Center (SPMC) in Davao City is one of the 11 advanced comprehensive cancer specialty centers established in the country.

It primarily serves patients from the Davao region and other areas in Mindanao, being the only one of its kind in Mindanao.

Dr. Kenny Jun Demegillo, the training officer of the medical oncology section of SPMC, said the SPMC Cancer Institute offers sub-specialty training in medical, surgical, pediatric, and radiation oncology, as well as hospice and palliative care.

Among the 13 basic comprehensive cancer centers in the country, four are located in Mindanao. These are the following:

Northern Mindanao Medical Center in Cagayan de Oro City
Davao Regional Medical Center in Tagum City, Davao del Norte
Cotabato Regional Medical Center in Cotabato City
Zamboanga Medical City Medical Center in Zamboanga City

These cancer centers have made it easier for indigents and those from remote areas to access treatment facilities. – Rappler.com

(This story is supported by a grant from the Philippine Press Institute, Novartis, and ICanServe Foundation.)

The British drugmaker’s shot, called Arexvy, met the primary goal in the Phase-III trial of eliciting an immune response in adults of the reported age group who are at an increased risk of catching the virus due to certain underlying medical conditions, the company said on Wednesday.

RSV typically causes cold-like symptoms, but is a leading cause of pneumonia in toddlers and the elderly.

The shot has already been approved in the United States, Europe, Japan and other countries to protect adults aged 60 years and older. – Rappler.com