Washington, United States | AFP | Doctors at Johns Hopkins University said Monday they have performed the world’s first total penis and scrotum transplant on a US military serviceman who was wounded in Afghanistan. The 14-hour operation took place on March 26, and was performed by a team of nine …
Read More »Sitting harms brain health
And it doesn’t matter how much exercise you put in Kampala, Uganda | CATHERINE PADDOCK | Too much sitting may not be good for the brain, according to a preliminary study of adults who have reached middle age and beyond. Researchers from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) discovered that …
Read More »THIS WEEK: 11 patients with abnormal heartbeat treated at Mulago
THIS WEEK: 11 patients with abnormal heartbeat treated at Mulago Kampala, Uganda | THE INDEPENDENT | Doctors at the Uganda Heart Institute corrected heartbeat anomalies in 11 patients in a medical procedure known as Radiofrequency Ablation (RFA). RFA is a medical procedure where part of the electrical conduction system of the …
Read More »Saudi women’s fitness centre shut over ‘indecent’ video
Riyadh, Saudi Arabia | AFP | Saudi sports authorities shut down a female fitness centre in Riyadh Friday over a contentious promotional video that appeared to show a woman in figure-hugging workout attire. “We are not going to tolerate this,” Saudi sports authority chief Turki al-Sheikh tweeted as he ordered …
Read More »Zimbabwe nurses stage public protest after being sacked
Harare, Zimbabwe | AFP | Scores of Zimbabwe nurses on Friday protested in Harare’s central city park after the government dismissed them for striking over low salaries and poor working conditions. The nurses, who wore their white uniforms, demanded the government reverse its decision to fire the majority of the …
Read More »MOTORING: AMG to ditch V12 engines
Kampala, Uganda | MOTORING GURU | Say it isn’t so! Mercedes-AMG expected to adopt hybrid turbo V8 as its flagship engine As the march of technology continues and emissions regulations begin to bite, automotive juggernauts will fall by the wayside. Case in point, the Mercedes-AMG M279 engine, known outside Benz nerd …
Read More »COMMENT: How corruption impedes healthcare
Today, some 800 million people spend at least 10% of their household budgets on health payments COMMENT | SANIA NISHTAR | Half of the planet cannot access essential health services. For many people, paying to see a doctor, obtaining medications, seeking family-planning advice, or even getting immunised against common illnesses is …
Read More »Zimbabwe sacks thousands of striking nurses
Harare, Zimbabwe | AFP | Zimbabwe has fired all nurses who went on strike to demand higher salaries, in a hardline response by the country’s new leadership to growing labour arrest. Several thousand nurses were sacked in a terse statement issued on Tuesday evening by Vice President Constantino Chiwenga, who …
Read More »Japan to trial ‘world’s first urine test’ to spot cancer
Tokyo, Japan | AFP | A Japanese firm is poised to carry out what it hailed as the world’s first experiment to test for cancer using urine samples, which would greatly facilitate screening for the deadly disease. Engineering and IT conglomerate Hitachi developed the basic technology to detect breast or …
Read More »Novartis to inject $100 mn into malaria drug research
Zurich, Switzerland | AFP | Swiss pharmaceutical giant Novartis on Tuesday announced $100 million of funding over the next five years for research into new treatments for malaria, a mosquito-borne disease with a devastating impact that killed 445,000 people in 2016. There were some 216 million cases of malaria worldwide in …
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