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health, Page 4

UK cost agency endorses Novartis heart drug for some patients

Novartis's big new drug hope Entresto has been recommended for use in some patients with heart failure by Britain's cost agency NICE, which said on Friday it believed the treatment was a cost-effective option. Entresto has a list price of 1,194 pounds ($1,809) a year in Britain, or less than half the price of $4,560 charged by Novartis in the United States. The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) said Entresto was suitable for a subset of heart failure patients whose hearts were particularly poor at pumping blood.

Sierra Leone celebrates end of Ebola epidemic

By Umara Fofana FREETOWN (Reuters) – Residents of Sierra Leone's capital held a candlelit vigil and celebrations to mark the end of an Ebola epidemic that has killed almost 4,000 people including more than 220 health workers since it began last year. Following 42 days with no new cases, the West African nation's epidemic was declared over on Saturday at a ceremony attended by President Ernest Bai Koroma and U.N. World Health Organization (WHO) representative Anders Nordstrom. Thousands of people gathered overnight around the Cotton Tree, a massive tree in the centre of Freetown, for a candlelit vigil organised by women's groups to pay tribute to health workers who lost their lives.

There’s little evidence to help avoid stress fractures

By Roxanne Nelson (Reuters Health) – Although there are plenty of opinions about what causes tiny, painful stress fractures in the bones of regular runners, a new review of existing research finds solid evidence for only two risk factors. Having had a stress fracture in the past raised the risk of having them again by five-fold and being female more than doubled it, researchers reported in the British Journal of Sports Medicine.

CVS: ‘all bets are off’ for new cholesterol drug contracts

CVS Health Corp, the No 2 manager of drug benefit plans for U.S. employers and insurers, will wait until a second new cholesterol-lowering drug is approved by regulators before negotiating for price discounts or adding either of the much pricer new drugs to its list of covered medications. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration in July approved Regeneron Pharmaceuticals Inc and Sanofi SA’s Praluent, which works by blocking a protein called PCSK9 that helps “bad” LDL cholesterol stay in the bloodstream. An FDA decision on a second PCSK9 inhibitor, Amgen Inc’s Repatha, is expected later this month.

Outbreak of Legionnaire’s Disease Sickens 31 in NYC

An outbreak of Legionnaire’s disease has infected at least 31 in New York City and health officials are racing to figure out the cause. The deaths of two patients who also had Legionnaire's disease are being investigated by health officials. Officials from the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene are combing the center of the outbreak in the South Bronx to search for the source of the dangerous outbreak.

FDA approves Otsuka and Lundbeck’s schizophrenia treatment

(Reuters) – The U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved Danish drugmaker H. Lundbeck A/S and Japan’s Otsuka Pharmaceutical Co Ltd’s Rexulti, an anti-psychotic drug used to treat schizophrenia. The drug, brexpiprazole, was also approved as an adjunctive therapy for major depressive disorder (MDD), a serious psychiatric condition that can lead to persistent feelings of sadness, frustration or anger, the health regulator said on Friday. Otsuka Pharmaceutical is a unit of Otsuka Holdings Co Ltd. The agency based its decision on seven clinical trials, three of which examined the drug’s effect on schizophrenia and four testing it as an adjunctive therapy for MDD.

Suspected Congo Ebola victims test negative for the virus

Six hunters in the Democratic Republic of Congo who fell sick and were suspected to have Ebola have tested negative for the virus, the health minister said on Saturday. The government and World Health Organization investigated a possible outbreak about 270 km (170 miles) northeast of the capital when the hunters developed Ebola-like symptoms after eating an antelope that appeared to be sick when they killed it. “All of the samples are negative … There is not an Ebola epidemic,” Health Minister Felix Kabange said in an interview on state-run television.

South Korea reports two more deaths in MERS outbreak, three new cases

SEOUL (Reuters) – South Korea's health ministry reported on Monday two more deaths in the country's Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) outbreak, bringing the number of fatalities to 27. The ministry also confirmed three new cases, taking the total to 172 in an outbreak that is the largest outside Saudi Arabia. The new fatalities were aged in their 80s with pre-existing health problems, according to the health ministry. (Reporting by Ju-min Park; Editing by Richard Pullin)

Free animations spread lifesaving tips via smartphones

By Daniel Gaitan (Reuters Health) – Impoverished communities across the globe are receiving lifesaving tips for dealing with disease, draught and depression from short, user-friendly videos that are free online. Agriculture animations, for example, show how to build raised planting beds using layers of animal manure, vegetation and soil, or how to install drip irrigation systems to help conserve water. The free videos – more than 40 at this point – are produced by Scientific Animations Without Borders, or SAWBO (http://bit.ly/1ff4sqK), which was founded in 2011 by Barry Pittendrigh and Julia Bello-Bravo of the University of Illinois at Urbana Champagne.

South Korea conducts experimental plasma therapy on MERS patients

By Jack Kim SEOUL (Reuters) – Two South Korean hospitals are conducting experimental treatment on Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) patients, injecting them with blood plasma from recovering patients, the health ministry said on Tuesday, as four new cases were reported. The procedure has been conducted on two consenting MERS patients in addition to existing care, the ministry's head of public health policy, Kwon Jun-wook, told a media briefing. “There is insufficient clinical basis about the result of plasma treatment among experts in the country,” Kwon said, but added: “The ministry has deep confidence in the medical staff on the direction of the treatment.” Plasma treatment was previously used in SARS patients with some positive results in seriously ill patients that led to a decrease in the death rate by up to 23 percent, Kwon said.