Congo: Ebola suspected in second area/ Seven hours sleep a night helps reduce heart problems

September 25, 2007

Congo: Ebola suspected in second area

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http://www.usatoday.com/news/health/2007-09-21-congo-ebola_N.htm?csp=34

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KINSHASA, Congo (AP) — Medical officials in Congo suspect that an Ebola outbreak has spread from the spot where the disease was first identified to a neighboring province, officials said Friday.

Samples from two cases suspected as Ebola from Congo's Kasai Oriental province have been sent to a lab in the United States for testing, said Dr. Benoit Kebela, secretary general of Congo's health ministry.

Ebola has so far been confirmed only in neighboring Kasai Occidental province, where at least five samples have tested positive. About 40 samples are still pending.

WHO stressed no case had been confirmed outside Kasai Occidental.

"In a situation where people are on the lookout and are hypersensitive to anything that sweats and bleeds, we would expect to hear about suspect cases like this," said Gregory Hartl, a WHO spokesman in Geneva.

At least 167 people have died — though it is not clear how many of Ebola — in the affected region of Kasai Occidental over the last four months, and nearly 400 have fallen ill, according to Congolese health officials.

Diagnosis is difficult. Cases of shigella, a diarrhea-like disease, and typhoid have been confirmed among those sickened in Kasai Occidental. At the early stages, both diseases have symptoms similar to Ebola.

It is the first major outbreak of Ebola in years. Teams have arrived from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control to help and the World Health Organization has put out a call for doctors.

"There are lots of suspected cases because of the fear that has taken over Kasai Occidental and almost the whole country, but all fevers with blood are not Ebola," Kebela noted.

Kebela said the latest samples came from the area around the village of Mwene Ditu, about 100 kilometers south of the provincial capital of Mbuji-Mayi and more than 300 kilometers from the village of Kampungu — the site of the confirmed cases. A train line that runs between the two provinces passes through Mwene Ditu, but Kebela said he did not know of any contact between the infected people in Mwene Ditu and people in Kampungu.

The government has quarantined the area around Kampungu.

Ebola quickly kills up to 90% of those infected through massive blood loss, and has no cure or treatment. It is spread through direct contact with the blood or secretions of an infected person, or objects that have been contaminated with infected secretions.

Congo's last major Ebola outbreak struck in Kikwit in 1995, killing 245 people. Kikwit is about 185 miles from the site of the current outbreak.

WHO says more than 1,000 people have died of Ebola since the virus was first identified in 1976 in Sudan and Congo. Primates, hunted by many central Africans for food, can carry the virus.

Seven hours sleep a night helps reduce heart problems

By JENNY HOPE - More by this author » Last updated at 08:49am on 25th September 2007

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/health/healthmain.html?in_article_id=483683 & in_page_id=1774 & ICO=HEALTH & ICL=TOPART

Getting enough sleep can be difficult for many juggling the demands of work, leisure and family.

But experts said yesterday that those who clock up seven hours of shut-eye a night can slash the risk of health problems. Those who manage fewer hours double the risk of heart problems, warn researchers. scroll down for more

Sleeping yourself to good health: those people who can clock up seven hours of shut-eye a night can slash the risk of health problems

Long-term studies show that those who drop down to five hours or fewer face a 70 per cent extra risk of dying from all causes. They also face twice the risk of death from a cardiovascular problem. However, getting more than seven hours can also be a risk, according to the study by the University of Warwick and University College London. Those who slept for eight hours or more a night were more than twice as likely to die as those who had not changed their habits. The study looked at how sleep patterns affected death rates among 10,308 subjects, mainly white-collar civil servants. Researchers examined data for 1985-8 and for those still alive in 1992-3. Once adjustments were made for factors such as age, smoking and illness, the study was able to isolate the effect of changes in sleep patterns. The average night's sleep is seven hours but around a third of adults in Britain regularly sleep five hours or fewer a night. Professor Francesco Cappuccio, of the University of Warwick medical school, said: "Fewer hours of sleep and greater levels of sleep disturbance have become widespread in industrialised societies. "This change, largely the result of sleep curtailment to create more time for leisure and shiftwork, has meant that reports of fatigue, tiredness and excessive daytime sleepiness are more common. Sleep represents the daily process of physiological restitution and recovery, and lack of sleep has far-reaching effects. "Our findings indicate that consistently sleeping around seven hours per night is optimal for health." He said insufficient sleep was a risk factor in weight gain, high blood pressure and type 2 diabetes. But it is unclear how sleeping too long could cause ill-health, he added, although possible causes included depression and low socio-economic status. Last week, researchers showed that children who did not get enough sleep were more likely to become obese as adults.