Aster Medical Journal (AMJ) Volume 2 Issue 5-6

Ten plus months, and a million and more deaths. People around the world are now longing for closure of the new ‘normalcy’ imposed on them. The world waits in fortitude for the end of it, even if everyday life will never be quite the same as it was before we were introduced to COVID-19. So, more than six months after WHO has declared COVID-19 a pandemic, when, and how will the end of the pandemic be? Searching out historical analogies to find a perspective on the current reality may be reassuring when facing the question of ‘when or how a pandemic will end.’ Medical historians have documented a lot about the 1918 pandemic and its culmination. When enough people get immunity, the contagion will gradually die out because it's harder…

A pandemic has two typical endings. One, a medical ending where the curve flattens, and rates of incidence and death plummet. Two, the social ending, where the fear factor about the outbreak wanes and the people learn to live with a disease, opting out of panic mode. But this does not signify a medical ending by any means. For the people, the ending they look for is social; for the health professionals, it is both. But beyond the when and how of it, what really signifies the end of a pandemic. Who gets to decide the end, and for whom does it end? How does that happen? Stephen Morse, an epidemiologist at Columbia University, comments thus on the end of an epidemic, "You can't sign a treaty with a virus,…

Two Americans and a British scientist have been awarded the Nobel prize in medicine for their groundbreaking work on blood-borne hepatitis, a health problem that causes cirrhosis and liver cancer around the world. Harvey J Alter at the US National Institutes of Health in Maryland, Charles M Rice from Rockefeller University in New York, and Michael Houghton, a British virologist at the University of Alberta in Canada, discovered the hepatitis C virus, a major cause of liver inflammation. The three researchers share the 10m Swedish kronor award (?870,000) that was announced on Monday by the Nobel assembly from the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm. The World Health Organization estimates that more than 70 million people are infected with hepatitis C, with 400,000 dying each year from related conditions such as cirrhosis…

The CDC released a report describing a "multisystem inflammatory syndrome in adults" or (MIS-A), months after a similar condition was reported in children. MIS-A is a severe illness that targets multiple organs and causes increased inflammation in the body, the report said. And with both syndromes, many patients either test positive for SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, or have antibodies against it, indicating recent infection. Currently, MIS-A appears rare, like its counterpart in children. The new CDC report identifies around two dozen cases of MIS-A. Still, the new report, published in the CDC journal Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, urges doctors to consider a diagnosis of MIS-A in adults with compatible signs and symptoms.…

Africa is free from wild poliovirus, the World Health Organization (WHO) announced on 25 August — leaving just two countries where the virus remains endemic, Afghanistan and Pakistan. The Africa Regional Certification Commission, an independent body responsible for overseeing the eradication of polio, has certified that all 47 countries in the WHO’s Africa Region have eradicated the virus after a long programme of vaccination and surveillance. There is no cure for the disease, which can cause irreversible paralysis and can be fatal if breathing muscles are affected, but vaccination can protect people for life. The certification is a “historic” achievement, says Pascal Mkanda, coordinator of the polio-eradication programme at the WHO Regional Office for Africa in Brazzaville, Republic of Congo.…

Hadia Mundri, South Sudan, 2018 Four-month-old Hadia was born with spina bifida, hydrocephalus (fluid in the brain) and club foot. Sophia, a community rehabilitation expert, is showing her mother, Zaina, a treatment called the Ponseti method, which uses stretches and casts to correct Hadia’s feet. Birth defects like Hadia’s often result from a lack of folic acid during early pregnancy. Hydrocephalus, which causes the child’s head to swell, is common in parts of South Sudan, but a sense of stigma surrounding the condition can deter parents from seeking treatment. Surgery and physiotherapy can help, although access may be hard, and better nutrition – like adding folic acid supplements to staple foods – can prevent it The winner of the Wellcome Photography Prize 2020 Medicine in Focus category by Julia Gunther…