Another 41 people on a cruise ship off the coast of Japan have tested positive for the new coronavirus, bringing the total number of cases on board to 61.
Some 3,700 people are on board the Diamond Princess, which is quarantined in Yokohama for at least two weeks.
The checks began after an 80-year-old Hong Kong man who had been on the ship last month fell ill with the virus.
He boarded the cruise ship in Yokohama on 20 January and disembarked in Hong Kong on 25 January.
A separate cruise ship – the World Dream – has been quarantined in Hong Kong after eight former passengers caught the virus.
It has around 3,600 people on board, but none have tested positive so far.
The new cases on the Diamond Princess bring Japan’s number of confirmed cases to 86, the second highest figure after China.
“The results of the remaining 171 tests came out and 41 tested positive,” Japan’s Health Minister Katsunobu Kato said.
“Today they will be sent to hospitals in several prefectures, and we are now preparing for that.”
With the quarantine due to last until 19 February, there has also been concern over supplies of normal medicine to the ship.
One passenger has been waving a Japanese flag with the message “shortage of medicine”.
A Japanese TV crew on the shore responded with a banner asking: “What medicine?”
A passenger with a sign saying “shortage of medicine” onboard the Dream PrincessTwenty passengers diagnosed earlier have already been taken to hospitals.
The 61 confirmed patients are from:
- Japan: 28 people
- US: 11
- Australia, Canada: 7
- China: 3
- UK, New Zealand, Taiwan, Philippines, Argentina: 1
What is life like on board?
David Abel, from the UK, is a passenger on the Diamond Princess and is providing regular updates via Facebook
- “We are to monitor our temperatures on a regular basis, and if it’s increased above normal we are to contact the medical services onboard of the ship.”
- “Passengers in the small inside cabins have no window, there is no daylight, and no fresh air… but the captain has announced those passengers will be allowed access to open deck for exercise and fresh air.”
- “If we are permitted out on open deck, we have to wear a mask when we’re outside. We have to keep one metre apart from everyone else and are not allowed to congregate in groups.”
- “All of the luxury of having a steward come to make the bed and put a chocolate on the pillow – those days are gone. We have to take care of the cleanliness and hygiene of our own room.”
- “We’re going through all the clothes we put into our dirty wash bag and we’re just re-wearing them now. Our underwear we’re washing by hand – we don’t have anything other than hand soap.”
- “The first day in isolation, the supply of food wasn’t good. Now it’s superb.”
The new coronavirus can cause severe acute respiratory infection, which in some cases can be fatal. Most people infected are likely to recover though.
The centre of the virus is in the Chinese city of Wuhan, and most cases have been in the city and the surrounding province of Hubei.
New figures show the virus has killed 636 people and infected 31,161 in mainland China, the country’s National Health Commission’s said.
It has spread overseas with confirmed infections in at least 25 nations.
So far, there have been only two deaths outside of mainland China – one in Hong Kong and one in the Philippines.
Due to the global spread, the World Health Organization (WHO) has declared a global health emergency.
Health
40 Year Old Paralyzed Man Walks Again Using New AI implants That Connect His Brain With Spinal Cord
A 40-year-old man whose legs were paralyzed in a cycling accident 12 years ago can now walk thanks to implants in his brain and spinal cord.
In 2011, a cycling accident left Gert-Jan Oskam, with paralysed legs and partially paralysed arms, after his spinal cord was damaged in his neck. But these days, Oskam is back on his feet and walking, thanks to a device that creates a ‘digital bridge’ between his brain and the nerves below his injury.
The implant which works with Artificial intelligence has been life-changing, says Oskam.
“Last week, there was something that needed to be painted and there was nobody to help me. So I took the walker and the paint, and I did it myself while I was standing,” he says.
The device called a brain–spine interface — builds on previous work2 by Grégoire Courtine, a neuroscientist at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne and his colleagues. In 2018, they demonstrated that, when combined with intensive training, technology that stimulates the lower spine with electrical pulses can help people with spinal-cord injuries to walk again.
Oskam was one of the participants in that trial, but after three years, his improvements stagnated. He got a new system that makes use of the spinal implant that Oskam already has, and pairs it with two disc-shaped implants inserted into his skull so that two 64-electrode grids rest against the membrane covering the brain.
When Oskam thinks about walking, the skull implants detect electrical activity in the cortex, the outer layer of the brain. This signal is wirelessly transmitted and decoded by a computer that Oskam wears in a backpack, which then transmits the information to the spinal pulse generator.
The previous device “was more of a pre-programmed stimulation” that generated robotic stepping movements, says Courtine. “Now, it’s completely different, because Gert-Jan has full control over the parameter of stimulation, which means that he can stop, he can walk, he can climb up staircases.”
“The stimulation before was controlling me and now I am controlling stimulation by my thought,” says Oskam. “When I decide to make a step, the simulation will kick in, as soon as I think about it.”
After around 40 rehabilitation sessions using the brain–spine interface, Oskam had regained the ability to voluntarily move his legs and feet. That type of voluntary movement was not possible after spinal stimulation alone, and suggests that the training sessions with the new device prompted further recovery in nerve cells that were not completely severed during his injury. Oskam can also walk short distances without the device if he uses crutches.
Bruce Harland, a neuroscientist at the University of Auckland in New Zealand, says that this continued improvement in spinal function is great news for anyone with a spinal-cord injury, “because even if it’s a longer-term chronic injury, there’s still a few different ways that healing could happen”.
“It’s certainly a huge jump” towards improved function for people with spinal-cord injuries, says neuroscientist Anna Leonard at the University of Adelaide in Australia. And, she says, there is still room for other interventions — such as stem cells — to improve outcomes further. She adds that although the brain–spine interface restores walking, other functions such as bladder and bowel control are not targeted by the device. “So, there’s certainly still room for other areas of research that could help progress improvements in outcomes for these other sort of realms,” she says.
Minister of Science Technology and Innovation, Adeleke Mamora, has announced that his ministry has developed sickle cell and venom vaccines.
Speaking on Monday, December 12, at the 10th edition of the PMB Administration Scorecard Series (2015-2023), Mamora said the ministry achieved the use of local herbs for the production of drugs for sickle cell as the country had a high number of people with sickle cell anaemia, Daily Trust reports.
Also announcing some of the achievements of his ministry, Mamora added;
“There is also the development of an anti-venom vaccine, an anti-penic that reduces fat in the body.
“The Ministry, through Raw Materials Research and Development Council’s programme on development of the dairy sector, introduced the technology of increasing daily milk yield from our cows from 1-1.5 litres of milk per cow to over 15 litres per cow in a day.
“The National Space Research and Development Agency is working to establish a Space Museum and Planetarium that is expected to realise about N30 billion, boost tourism activities, provide 5000 direct jobs; 20,000 indirect jobs and improve the teaching of STI.
“Our future is full of optimism as long as we keep faith and leverage on the enormous power of STI coupled with demand-driven R&D programmes and projects.
“The fourth industrial revolution will register Nigeria’s presence and effective participation if we sustain and escalate current commitment and interest in research and innovation as principal push factors for technological advancement.
“We need courage, discipline and focus on fundamental principles of the culture of result-based management logical framework where all policy implementation efforts will produce outcomes.”
The Nigeria Tobacco Control Alliance (NTCA) has said that an estimated 28, 000 people die in Nigeria annually, due to tobacco use, while warning that compliance of regulations on other substances that contain tobacco like Shisha and snuff is at an all time low.
Speaking at a press conference in Abuja on Tuesday, November 8, Akinbode Oluwafemi, Chairman, of NTCA, said recent survey showed increase in the compliance level on cigarette packs, but a reduction in compliance level of snuff and shisha.
“As an Alliance, we have continued to work to strengthen the gains made so far on the policy. Therefore, as recently as October 2022, we commissioned a survey to ascertain the compliance level of the policy on all tobacco products in the country. The survey was carried out in Ekiti, Adamawa, Cross River, Abia, Abuja and Kano.”
“When results from this survey were compared with results from a similar survey we conducted in 2021, the results showed a significant increase in the compliance level on cigarette packs, with an estimated 90% compliance.”
“However, it is deeply concerning to find out that other tobacco products such as snuff and shisha (which has become notoriously popular among young people) have no graphic health warnings and still carry the outdated text warnings. The compliance level of this group of tobacco products is estimated to be below 10%”, he said.
“We therefore call on the Nigeria Police Force, Federal Ministries of Health and Environment, the National Security and Civil Defense Corps and all agencies charged with monitoring and enforcing of the National Tobacco Control Act to wake up to their responsibilities.
“Enforcement agencies must particularly monitor and enforce the policy on all tobacco products, not only on cigarette packs.”
“Also, policy implementation cannot continue to be centered in the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja, and Lagos. A good policy is not only good for urban centres. There is need to take enforcement of the graphic health warnings policy to Nigeria’s hinterlands to ensure compliance. We note that it is possible that non-compliant products may be moved far inland where enforcement is low or non-existent”, he said.
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