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Sunday, April 3, 2011

The divorce of Guatemalan president Álvaro Colom and first lady Sandra Torres has been halted by a court after Torres said that she was divorcing her husband so she can run for president in the next election. The Guatemalan constitution bans the president’s close relatives standing for office.

A petition was taken to the court by a group of students, claiming the divorce is a “farce” that would bypass the constitution. Otto Perez Molina, the main opposition candidate, called the divorce electoral fraud. As first lady Torres has played a big role in politics during the presidency.

Mildred Roca, the judge overseeing the couple’s divorce hearing, reported receiving a threatening anonymous telephone call against granting the divorce. The caller described himself as from a “group defending the constitution”. During the call he threatened to execute her family should the divorce be granted.

President Colom has been married twice before and the first couple have been together for eight years.

Friday, September 1, 2006

A large clinical trial found that grass pollen tablets under the tongue (sublingual) are an effective treatment option for hay fever sufferers. The results have been published in this month’s edition of the Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology.

Tablets with grass pollen that dissolve quickly under the tongue may provide doctors with a better tool to fight the illness. The patient could take the pills at his own home, and after a while the symptoms may disappear completely and treatment can be ceased. Contrary to the current standard treatment, this therapy targets the immune system in such a way that it treats the cause and not just the symptoms.

634 patients from 8 countries participated in the trial. Half received Grazax^® tablets (a product of ALK-Abello, Hørsholm, Denmark), the other half placebo pills. The group receiving treatment showed fewer symptoms during hay fever season and consequently cut down on their medication use. Grazax^® also caused few and tolerable side effects such as itching and swelling in the mouth.

Combined with several earlier papers, these results provide a basis for ALK-Abello to apply for European approval of their drug. It has already been approved in Sweden, and the company will follow a Mutual Recognition Procedure hoping to get their product in European pharmacies by the end of 2006. The company will continue to fund further inquiries into Grazax^® and will keep collaborating with scientists from several European countries.

During hay fever season, patients develop a runny nose, swelling of the mucous membranes of the nose, sneezing and teary eyes, a condition doctors call allergic rhinoconjunctivitis. The condition seems to be increasingly frequent, with approximately 10% of the population suffering from grass pollen allergy. First-line treatment includes antihistaminics (like cetirizine or Zyrtec^®/Zyrlex^®) and steroid sprays, but results are often disappointing.

Long term results have been demonstrated for weekly shots with pollen extracts (a procedure called desensitization), but too many visits to the doctor make the process troublesome. Also, the patient has to wait some time before leaving the doctor’s office, due to the risk of developing a kind of shock state termed anaphylactic shock.

Wednesday, November 1, 2006

The first comprehensive global study of sexual behaviour, published today as part of The Lancet’s Sexual and Reproductive Health Online Series, found that people aren’t losing their virginity at ever younger ages, married people have the most sex, and there is no firm link between promiscuity and sexually transmitted diseases.

Experts say data gleaned from the study will be useful not only in dispelling popular myths about sexual behaviour, but in shaping policies that will help improve sexual health across the world. Researchers looked at previously published studies on sexual behaviour in the last decade.

Professor Kaye Wellings, of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicines, and her colleagues analysed data on sexual behaviour in the last decade from 59 countries.

The report also shows no support for the common notion that there is a culture of multiple sexual partners in countries with poor sexual health. Multiple sexual partners, it turns out, are more common in industrialised than in developing nations.

The study also found that contrary to popular belief, sexual activity is not starting earlier. Nearly everywhere, men and women have their first sexual experiences in their late teens; from 15 to 19 years old — with generally younger ages for women than for men, especially in developing countries.

“A single woman is more able to negotiate safe sex in certain circumstances than a married woman,” said Paul van Look, director of Reproductive Health and Research at the World Health Organisation, who was unconnected to the study and points out that “married women in Africa and Asia are often threatened by unfaithful husbands who frequent prostitutes”.

There is much greater equality between women and men with regard to the number of sexual partners in rich countries than in poor countries, the study found. This imbalance has significant public health implications. Because of the diversity of sexual habits worldwide, Wellings warns that no single approach to sexual health will work everywhere. “There are very different economic, religious and social rules governing sexual conduct across the world,” Wellings said.

For example, men and women in Australia, Britain, France and the United States tend to have an almost equal number of sexual partners. In contrast, in Cameroon, Haiti, and Kenya, men tend to have multiple partners while women tend only to have one.

Along with other industrialised countries, Australia was one in which having two or more sexual partners in the past year was comparatively common.

Single men and women in Africa were fairly sexually inactive: only two-thirds of them reported recent sexual activity, compared with three-quarters of their counterparts in developed countries.

In what researchers said was proof the sexual double standard was still strong, more men than women reported having more than one partner.

“These findings beg the question of who the men are having sex with,” they wrote.

Italy had one of the lowest percentages of men who had sex before age 15 (4 per cent), compared to 18 per cent in the United States and 30 per cent in Brazil and the Dominican Republic. The researchers said early initiation was more likely to be non-consensual, unsafe and generally to be regretted later.

The study suggests that unequal treatment of girls and women as the major sexual-health issue.

The researchers call for providing sexual health services to unmarried young women, supplying condoms, decriminalizing commercial sex and homosexual sex, and prosecuting the perpetrators of sexual violence.

Experts say data gleaned from the study will be useful not only in dispelling popular myths about sexual behaviour, but in shaping policies that will help improve sexual health across the world.

“There’s a misperception that there’s a great deal of promiscuity in Africa, which is one of the potential reasons for HIV/AIDS spreading so rapidly,” said van Look

Fewer than half of unmarried non-virgins reported having sex in the past month.

Some of the major findings the survey found were:

• School-based sexual education delays and does not hasten onset of sexual activity.
• First sexual experience is often forced or sold.
• Marriage is no safeguard of sexual health. It is more difficult for married women to negotiate safe sex and condom use than it is for single women.
• Condom use is increasing, but condom-use rates remain low in many developing countries.
• Among girls who marry at a very young age, “very early sexual experience within marriage can be coercive and traumatic.”
• While there is no major trend toward earlier sexual experience, a trend toward later marriage has led to an increase in premarital sex.
• Public health measures to improve sexual health should focus not only on individual behaviours but also on broader issues such as gender, poverty, and mobility.
• Public-health messages intended to reduce sexual risk-taking “should respect diversity and preserve choice.”
• Monogamy is the dominant pattern in most parts of the world. Men report more multiple partnerships than do women. Such men are more likely to live in developed nations.

Friday, March 26, 2021

On Tuesday, higher than average amounts of precipitation have ceased in New South Wales (NSW), south of Queensland, and north-east of South Australia. Over the course of the prior five days, these heavy rains caused floods and hazards to farms and dwellings, with up to a month quantity of rainfall falling within 48 hours on Monday and Tuesday in some areas, notably 150mm of rain at the Great Dividing Range, Bureau of Meteorology (BoM) reported.

On Tuesday, BoM said the situation reportedly started to ease, with rains moving towards the east, but emphasised the water levels were continuing to rise in some areas and many flood alerts remained active. Meteorologists said the eastern areas may clear from floodwater quickly, the other regions to the west of the Great Dividing Range would be affected for much longer, potentially weeks or months before the water levels come back to normal. Thick fog was likely to occur at approximately this coming weekend as air temperatures drop below dew point at night and mist may develop, meteorologists warned, as News.com.au reported.

In Taree, NSW, ABC News reported multiple cows rescues in rivers and in the surf, and an instance of a dwelling being reportedly swept from premises on a wedding day of its owners. ABC News reported a farmer losing his animals and his house at Mid-North Coast. Of residential areas, Hawkesbury continued to experience raising levels of flood as of Monday. Ian Wright, a researcher from Western Sydney University, commented saying the floods in Hawkesbury are dangerous due to the terrain and rigorous water supply from adjacent rivers to the area, citing a related publication about it by the State Emergency Service.

On Monday, NSW Police has rescued a 80-year old woman trapped in a car at River Road, Wyong, Central Coast, with the car subsequently falling into the river shortly after the rescue was completed.

Local authorities warned people to stay away from flooded areas. Bureau of Meteorology issued Road Weather Alert for Sydney for all suburbs on Monday. Government agencies, including Disaster recovery officer Simon Oliver, from the Department of Primary Industries, said the government would offer support to people affected by the flood. Oliver said, “While it’s still early days, we are planning to provide support including emergency fodder as well as support for those who need to move or dispose of stock [animals].”

BoM reported the weather may clear on Wednesday as a warmer, drier mass of air was expected to increase, with a coastal low entering Bass Strait on Wednesday.

Since March 16, Australian BoM has issued severe weather, marine wind, hazardous surf, and numerous minor to major flood warnings for the affected areas. La Niña was nearing its end, with the effects persisting in late March and early April, Bureau of Meteorology reported last week.