In view of the transport of sacrificial animals for Eidul Azha, The Health Department, the Health Department has put all hospitals and executive district officers on high alert for a possible outbreak of Congo fever and directed them to make arrangements to control the disease.
A spokesperson for the department said that the Crimean Congo Hemorrhagic Fever (CCHF) was a viral disease transmitted by ticks on animals. The ticks, living on the skin of sheep, goats, cattle and camels or in animal sheds, act as a vector for CCHF transmission. He said the disease could spread through contact with patients suffering from it.
The Health Department has issued a warning to doctors, nurses, paramedical staff as well as citizens to take precautionary measures against the disease and provide timely treatment to patients. He said that the CCHF could be transmitted from patient to doctor, therefore they should remain extremely careful.
The spokesman said that people trading in animals or looking after them should also be careful. Health EDOs have been directed to contact Livestock and Dairy Development Department officers regarding fumigation in cattle markets, slaughter houses, dairies, Gowala Colonies and sacrificial animals’ sale yards.
The spokesman advised traders to have their cattle checked by veterinary doctors so that transmission of CCHF could be prevented.
He advised doctors to follow case management guidelines in case a CCHF patient is brought to the hospital.
US professor delivers lecture on cancer staging
“Staging of cancer cells can help predict a patient’s chances of survival and selecting treatment options,” Alia Hussain, a professor of pathology at the University of Chicago, said on Friday.
She was giving a lecture at the University of Health Sciences (UHS) on Update In Classification, Molecular Biology and Staging of Sarcomas.
She said staging was a way of describing at what stage cancer cells were. She said staging could also explain if and where the cancer had spread.
“Doctors use diagnostic tests to determine the cancer’s stage,” she said. “Staging may not be complete until all tests are finished. Knowing the stage can help the doctor decide what kind of treatment is suitable. Staging also helps predict a patient’s chances of recovery.”
She said that a staging system was the standard way for a cancer care team to summarise the extent of the damage done to the organs by the disease.
She said TNM system had been approved by the American Joint Committee on Cancer for staging where ‘T’ stood for the size of the tumour, ‘N’ for nearby lymph nodes involved, and ‘M’ for metastasis.
Hussain is a graduate of King Edward Medical College. She is one of the authors of Robbins’s Textbook of Pathology, which is taught in medical schools across the world.
She has more than 126 publications to her credit.
Her specialities are surgical and pediatric pathology and pre-and post-transplant lung and heart biopsies.
On Friday, she was also appointed as UHS adjunct professor.
Published in The Express Tribune, September 14th, 2013.