Study questions if violent video games lead to acts of violence

Researchers have found that patients with peripheral artery disease or stroke were less likely to receive recommended treatments to prevent heart attack than those with coronary artery disease. All three are types of atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease.

Depending on the location of the blockage, atherosclerosis increases the risk for three serious conditions: coronary artery disease, stroke and peripheral artery disease.

"Our study highlights the need for public health campaigns to direct equal attention to all three major forms of atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease," said senior study author Erin Michos from the Johns Hopkins University in the US.

"We need to generate awareness among both clinicians and patients that all of these diseases should be treated with aggressive secondary preventive medications, including aspirin and statins, regardless of whether people have heart disease or not," Michos added.

Since atherosclerosis can affect arteries in more than one part of the body, medical guidelines are to treat coronary artery disease, stroke and peripheral artery disease similarly with lifestyle changes and medication, including statins to lower cholesterol levels and aspirin to prevent blood clots.

Lifestyle changes include eating a healthy diet, being physically active, quitting smoking, controlling high cholesterol, controlling high blood pressure, treating high blood sugar and losing weight.

What was unclear was if people with stroke and peripheral artery disease received the same treatments prescribed for those with coronary artery disease.

This study compared more than 14,000 US adults enrolled in the 2006-2015 Medical Expenditure Panel Survey, a national survey of patient-reported health outcomes and conditions, and health care use and expenses.

Slightly more than half of the patients were men, the average age was 65, and all had either coronary artery disease, stroke or peripheral artery disease.

These individuals were the representative of nearly 16 million US adults living with one of the three forms of atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease.

Compared to participants with coronary artery disease, participants with peripheral artery disease were twice more likely to report no statin use and three times more likely to report no aspirin use.

Additionally, people with peripheral artery disease had the highest, annual, total out-of-pocket expenditures among the three atherosclerotic conditions.

The findings showed that participants with stroke were more than twice as likely to report no statin or aspirin use.

Moreover, those with stroke were more likely to report poor patient-provider communication, poor health care satisfaction and more emergency room visits.

"Our study highlights a missed opportunity for implementing life-saving preventive medications among these high-risk individuals," Michos said.

The study was presented in the virtual conference at the American Heart Association's Quality of Care & Outcomes Research Scientific Sessions 2020.

After admitting that the world may have a COVID-19 vaccine within one year or even a few months earlier, the World Health Organisation (WHO) on Friday said that UK-based AstraZeneca is leading the vaccine race while US-based pharmaceutical major Moderna is not far behind.

WHO Chief Scientist Soumya Swaminathan stated that the AstraZeneca's coronavirus vaccine candidate is the most advanced vaccine currently in terms of development.

"I think AstraZeneca certainly has a more global scope at the moment in terms of where they are doing and planning their vaccine trials," she told the media.

AstraZeneca's Covid-19 vaccine candidate developed by researchers from the Oxford University will likely provide protection against the disease for one year, the British drug maker's CEO told Belgian radio station Bel RTL this month.

The Oxford University last month announced the start of a Phase II/III UK trial of the vaccine, named AZD1222 (formerly known as ChAdOx1 nCoV-19), in about 10,000 adult volunteers. Other late-stage trials are due to begin in a number of countries.

Last week, Swaminathan had said that nearly 2 billion doses of the COVID-19 vaccine would be ready by the end of next year.

Addressing the media from Geneva, she said that "at the moment, we do not have a proven vaccine but if we are lucky, there will be one or two successful candidates before the end of this year" and 2 billion doses by the end of next year.

Scientists predict that the world may have a COVID-19 vaccine within one year or even a few months earlier, said the Director-General of the World Health Organization even as he underlined the importance of global cooperation to develop, manufacture and distribute the vaccines.

However, making the vaccine available and distributing it to all will be a challenge and will require political will, WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said on Thursday during a meeting with the European Parliament's Committee for Environment, Public Health and Food Safety.

One option would be to give the vaccine only to those who are most vulnerable to the virus.

There are currently over 100 COVID-19 vaccine candidates in various stages of development.

New Delhi, Mar 16: A recent survey across 140 districts of the country shows that about 54 per cent of Indians are finding travelling to be unsafe as the deadly coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic sweeps globally.

The big worry that people have is community transmission, something that researchers from around the world have approximated at 10 per cent of total infections and more common in places like Wuhan in China, South Korea, Iran and Italy.

The months of March to June have historically been high travel season for most Indians, largely due to the summer vacations in schools. "But it seems that Indians do not want to take a chance with this rather scary virus and are either cancelling or postponing their travel plans," concluded the survey by LocalCircles.

The survey gathered more than 22,000 responses from participants in tier one, two and three cities. It said 48 per cent Indians plan to cancel their international business travel for the next four months.

Besides, nearly 38 per cent of respondents said they had to pay cancellation fee to the website, travel agent, airline or railways.

"These are testing times for the entire travel and tourism industry -- airlines, hotels, travel agents as well as small tour and taxi operators. The best solution at this point is to adjust cost structures, stay flexible and work with a collective approach to minimise the period of impact to both citizens and business," said LocalCircles.