Tag Archives: health risk

U.S. East Coast to feel blast of arctic air that chilled Midwest

Pedestrians make their way along the Michigan Avenue in Chicago, Illinois, U.S.

By Timothy Mclaughlin

CHICAGO (Reuters) – Residents of the U.S. East Coast on Thursday felt a blast of arctic air that earlier swept across the Midwest, with a large swath of the country now under a wind-chill advisory and Boston facing possible record-low temperatures on Friday.

The arctic air began blowing south from Canada into the Midwest earlier this week, prompting authorities to warn of the risk of frostbite and hypothermia.

The frigid air spread to the East Coast on Thursday, with the National Weather Service forecasting temperatures in New York City around 25 degrees Fahrenheit (minus-4 degrees Celsius) and similar cold in other cities including Philadelphia, Washington and Boston.

“The coldest of the arctic air is just now arriving onto the East Coast,” meteorologist Patrick Burke of the Weather Prediction Center said in a telephone interview.

Temperatures might drop enough in Boston that on Friday it could approach a record low, Burke said. Other areas along the East Coast as far south as Norfolk, Virginia, will also be unusually cold.

Residents in Chicago faced temperatures in the single digits and a wind chill of minus-16 degrees Fahrenheit (minus-27 degrees Celsius) on Thursday morning, according to the National Weather Service.

Around 150 schools in the Chicago area were closed or scheduled to open late, due to the cold. Chicago Public Schools were in session and opened on time, according to a statement.

“Chicago’s cold goes beyond the physical level of coldness. It pinches your soul,” Twitter user Ivan Korkes wrote.

A woman whose body was found outside in St. Paul, Minnesota, on Monday has been determined to have died of hypothermia, according the Star Tribune newspaper, which cited the medical examiners’ office.

Connecticut Governor Dannel Malloy said in a statement he would activate the state’s severe cold weather protocol beginning on Thursday evening, directing state officials to work with shelters to bring in homeless people.

Cold temperatures in the Midwest were expected to persist on Thursday, with certain areas from North Dakota to western Pennsylvania under wind chill advisories, Burke said.

The heaviest snowfall in the nation on Thursday will be around the Great Lakes in Michigan where up to 10 inches (25 cm) of snow was expected, and in parts of the U.S. West where a storm is pushing inland from the Pacific Coast, Burke said.

The Sierra Nevada mountain range in California and the mountains around Yellowstone National Park in Wyoming could receive more than two feet (61 cm) of snow, Burke said.

(Reporting by Alex Dobuzinskis in Los Angeles and Timothy Mclaughlin in Chicago; Editing by Will Dunham)

Study confirms ZIKA causes brain birth defects, questions remain

Physiotherapist Leal does exercises with Lucas, 4-months old, who is Miriam Araujo's second child and born with microcephaly in Pedro I hospital in Campina

By Kate Kelland

LONDON, Sept 15 (Reuters) – Early results from a crucial case-control study in Brazil have confirmed a direct causal link between Zika virus infection in pregnant women and the brain damaging birth defect microcephaly in their babies, scientists said on Thursday.

But while preliminary findings from the first 32 cases involved in the study confirm causality, the researchers said, the true size of the effect will become clear only after full analysis of all 200 cases and 400 controls.

The study, published in The Lancet Infectious Diseases journal, was requested by the Brazilian health ministry to investigate the causes of the microcephaly epidemic that the World Health Organization (WHO) declared an international public health emergency earlier this year.

The outbreak of Zika, a mosquito-borne disease, was detected last year in Brazil, where it has been linked to more than 1,700 cases of microcephaly, a birth defect marked by small head size that can lead to severe developmental problems. The virus has since spread rapidly through the Americas and Caribbean.

While the WHO and other disease experts had said there was strong scientific consensus that Zika and microcephaly were linked, evidence until now has been largely circumstantial.

MISSING PIECE OF JIGSAW

Laura Rodrigues, a professor at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine who worked on this study, said its results were “the missing pieces in the jigsaw” proving the link.

The research followed and compared pregnancies that resulted in healthy babies with those that resulted in cases of microcephaly – looking for signs that the Zika virus is passed onto fetuses who develop the defect.

It covered all babies born with microcephaly delivered in eight public hospitals in Brazil’s north-eastern Pernambuco State between January 15 and May 2 this year. For each case, two controls were added. These were the first two babies born the following morning without microcephaly in one of the hospitals.

After taking samples and conducting brain scans, the researchers found that 41 percent of mothers of babies with microcephaly tested positive for Zika infection in blood or cerebrospinal fluid samples, compared with none of those whose babies did not have microcephaly.

A high proportion of mothers of both microcephaly and non-microcephaly babies also tested positive for another mosquito-borne virus, dengue fever, as well as other infections such as herpes, rubella and toxoplasma.

“Our findings suggest Zika virus should be officially added to the list of congenital infections,” said Thália Velho Barreto de Araújo of Brazil’s Pernambuco University, who also worked on the research team. “However, many questions still remain to be answered – including the role of previous dengue infection.”

Rodrigues warned that preliminary analyzes should be viewed with some caution, since they can overestimate the strength of a link. “When complete, the study, along with other ongoing research, will provide vital information on any role co-factors might have in the epidemic,” she said.

(Editing by Ralph Boulton)