• 07
  Nov
  2011

• WHO Worries About the Increased Use of Infant Formula Among Asians

  
  Filed Under: Blogging
  Author: YourGuy
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Most countries in Asia are currently doing better than their counterparts in Europe and America. This has lead to an increase in the demand for international travel health insurance among Asians who travel abroad. It seems the tables have turned and now the top travelers are from China and India. Based on their support for global health insurance and a desire to see the world, they are contributing immensely to the global economy and spreading of wealth, so to speak.
However, one big problem as noted by the World Health Organization is a new tendency to prefer infant formula instead of natural mother’s milk. It’s the same for an increase in fast food diets as compared to home cooking. These are signs of progress but not in a good way.
The efforts of WHO to promote breast feeding has been compromised because of heavy advertising that appeal to new mothers. The promise of having a star baby or a genius makes new mothers turn away from breast milk to formula. WHO is urging Asian officials to prevent misleading ads that would be detrimental to the health of young infants.
The latest study shows that mothers who shift to infant formula show a 5.8 chance of baby deaths and illnesses in the first two months.  Influence from TV and radio ads have also shown that more mothers stop nursing their babies whether or not they can afford the cost of feeding infant formula or not.  It is perceived as the “more modern” method of caring for a baby.

• 30
  Oct
  2011

• New Measles Outbreak After 15 Year Lull

  
  Filed Under: Blogging
  Author: YourGuy
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When a report came out earlier this year about a link between autism and the measles vaccination, parents began to think twice about the MMR (Measles-Mumps-Rubella) shots and booster shots.  Thus when an unvaccinated student traveled overseas, he ended up getting sick and contaminating 9 others when he got back. Without the shots and the international health insurance, the local government ended up spending $300,000 just to stop the contamination from spreading. If the student got booster shots as well as international travel health insurance, the results would probably have been different.

In the first place, the report linking autism to the MMR shots is unsubstantiated. There is no proof to this allegation or no study that can even slightly confirm the possibility of a link. The measles outbreak included having to quarantine almost 185 people who were believed to have had close contact with the student. The same situation is happening in Canada with an outbreak of 757 cases because of unvaccinated persons.

Over the years the MMR vaccination has significantly caused the incidents of measles to drop from 4 million to a less than 70 a year. Thus, the outbreak is cause for alarm and a warning sign for parents to think again about having their children given the MMR vaccine.

• 21
  Oct
  2011

• WHO Predicts Malaria Gone In 10 Years

  
  Filed Under: Blogging
  Author: YourGuy
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The World Health Organization (WHO) feels that malaria, which has been with us for the past 50,000 years, may soon be permanently eradicated in 10 years. This is big boost for tourism and international health insurance because it would be one less worry for travelers. As many already know, one cannot travel to certain countries without taking note of the possibility of contracting malaria. This is why worldwide health insurance is always stressed when planning a trip overseas.
The current place that has known cases of malaria are the sub-Saharan African region with more than 780,000 people dying in the year 2009 alone! Other countries are in Asia, South America, the Caribbean, the Pacific, and Middle East.
In 2007 up to today more than 10 countries have been declared malaria-free like Morocco and Armenia.  A country can apply with WHO to get certified to be malaria-free, but they have to show proof of zero cases as well as efforts by the government to continue to fight malaria through the dissemination of tools that can be used to defeat malaria. The problem with this disease is that it can come back without warning if guards are let down. Traditional methods are mosquito nets and a malaria vaccine which is now going through final testing in Africa.

• 15
  Oct
  2011

• Eradicating TB Once and For All … or Not?

  
  Filed Under: Blogging
  Author: YourGuy
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The World Health Organization (WHO) has announced that cases of tuberculosis (TB) are decreasing worldwide. The drug used to eradicate the virus is successful but more funds are needed to bring the drug to impoverished countries. For travelers, this should be fantastic news even if they have their international medical insurance to protect them. TB is contagious and the international travel health insurance will not be able to stop a person from getting infected unless he has taken the preventive drug.

WHO announced also that 8.8 million people got sick with TB last year, 2010. This is lower than the 2005 figure of 9 million cases. But guess what? At the same time that WHO was having its press conference; researchers were revealing in a study published by the British Medical Journal that TB can be caused by too much smoking. And these researchers reveal that is smoking is not controlled and allowed to grow at its current rate, there will be at least 18 million new cases of TB!

Translated, this means smokers are at risk for TB and the expected deaths from TB by 2050 computed at the current number of smokers in the world will reach 40 million. They say that according to WHO statistics, about 20% of the world’s population smokes tobacco, and the numbers are rising especially in poorer countries. These are the very same countries that cannot afford the drugs to treat TB. On a more frightening scenario based on the most pessimistic analysis, it is possible for the world to experience more than 34 million cases and over 114 million deaths from TB caused by smoking. The link between smoking and TB is that smokers have weaker lungs and cannot fight off the infection well.