Health

The deadly H5N1 bird flu virus has spread more aggressively than ever before in wild birds and marine mammals since arriving in South America in 2022, raising the risk of it evolving into a bigger threat to humans, according to interviews with eight scientists. Of more immediate concern is evidence the disease, once largely confined to bird species, appears to …

SEOUL: South Korea said on Monday it had started procedures to suspend the medical licences of 4,900 junior doctors who have resigned and stopped working to protest government medical training reforms, causing healthcare chaos. The walkout, which started Feb 20, is over government plans to sharply increase the number of doctors, which it says is essential to combat shortages and serve South …

The US Food and Drug Administration approved Novo Nordisk’s weight-loss drug Wegovy on Friday for lowering the risk of stroke and heart attack in overweight or obese adults who do not have diabetes. Novo’s widely used diabetes drug Ozempic and weight-loss drug Wegovy, both chemically known as semaglutide, belong to a class of drugs called GLP-1 agonists. Originally developed for …

RAWALPINDI: Commissioner Rawalpindi Aamir Khattak emphasised the importance of taking early preventive measures to stop the spread of dengue as only four cases have been reported since Jan 1. Commissioner Rawalpindi, while presiding over the anti-dengue meeting at the deputy commissioner’s office, stated that the people who neglect and violate the SOPs endanger others life; therefore, strict legal action will …

LAHORE: In a remarkable feat, surgeons have successfully performed Pakistan’s first ‘split-liver transplant’ as well as the country’s first pancreatic transplant at the Pakistan Kidney and Liver Institute and Research Centre (PKLI) Lahore. According to experts, around 8,000 patients need liver transplant surgeries due to liver failure or liver cancer annually in Pakistan. Dean and Chief Executive Officer PKLI&RC Dr …

Roche and partner Alnylam said on Tuesday their experimental drug against high blood pressure was shown to work when used in combination with the standard of care in a phase 2 trial. Full results of the Phase 2 KARDIA-2 trial, testing the twice-a-year injection zilebesiran, would be presented at the American College of Cardiology Annual Scientific Session in Atlanta on …

KARACHI: Two Pakis­tani businesswomen have been recognised by Forbes in its ‘100 Most Powerful Businesswomen 2024’ list. The two women on the list are former Unilever Pakistan CEO Shazia Syed and PureHealth co-founder Shaista Asif. The criteria cited by Forbes in the compilation of the list included the leaders’ tangible impact on the region and the market that she serves, alongside their respective achievements and performance …

SYN TASH: In the Tian-Shan mountains of Kyrgyzstan, villagers have made an artificial glacier to provide water for their drought-hit farms. Standing on the ice hillock, farmer Erkinbek Kaldanov said he was optimistic about harnessing nature to counteract climate change. “We won’t have any more problems with water,” said the farmer, who was worried for his sheep last year after …

RARITAN: Johnson & Johnson announced today that following a priority review, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved RYBREVANT (amivantamab-vmjw) in combination with chemotherapy (carboplatin-pemetrexed) for the first-line treatment of patients with locally advanced or metastatic non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) with epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) exon 20 insertion mutations as detected by an FDA-approved test. This …

PARIS: Extraction of Earth’s natural resources could surge 60 per cent by 2060, imperilling climate goals and economic prosperity, the UN said on Friday, calling for dramatic changes in energy, food, transport and housing. Enormous expansion of infrastructure, energy demand and consumer consumption over the last half century, particularly in wealthier countries, has driven a tripling of the world’s use …