Earth Essences.Com

France to test travellers from coronavirus high-risk countries

France will require on-the-spot Covid-19 tests for travellers coming from 16 countries where the virus is circulating widely, French Prime Minister Jean Castex said on Friday.France will require on-the-spot Covid-19 tests for travellers coming from 16 countries where the virus is circulating widely, French Prime Minister Jean Castex said on Friday.

Travellers from countries where the infection rate is deemed to be high will be subject to compulsory testing on arrival at French airports and sea ports, Castex told reporters, without naming the countries.

The tests will apply to "French citizens who live in these countries or citizens of these countries with an established residence in France" who will be the only ones allowed to enter, the prime minister added.

Travellers who test positive upon arrival will be required to enter quarantine, he said. 

French broadcaster BFM said the United States was included among the 16 countries.

Castex, who was speaking on the sidelines of a visit to Charles-de-Gaulle international airport, north of Paris, also warned French citizens against travelling to Spain's Catalonia amid a spike in infections there.

"Concerning the situation in Catatonia, which is displaying worsened indicators for infection, we strongly encourage French citizens to avoid going there until the health situation improves," Castex said.undefined. 

Regional authorities across Spain introduced fresh coronavirus restrictions on Thursday aimed at stamping out a surge in infections. France had said last weekend it had not ruled out closing the border between the two countries.

In Catalonia, nearly 8,000 cases were diagnosed in the 14 days up to Thursday – almost half of the 16,410 detected throughout the country – despite guidelines for residents of  regional capital Barcelona to stay at home.

Castex also said Paris was in discussions with the government in Madrid to limit flows of traffic from Spain into France as much as possible.

In France, the public health authority said on Thursday there had been a significant rise in confirmed, new cases of people suffering from Covid-19, as the number of deaths in the country edged up.

 Reference:FRANCE 24 3 days ago 25th July 2020

Blood test 'diagnoses cancer years before symptoms emerge'

A blood test could diagnose cancer years before signs of the disease emerge, research suggests.A blood test could diagnose cancer years before signs of the disease emerge, research suggests. Early detection maximises a patient’s hopes of survival, however, symptoms can often be mild, vague or even non-existent.

To help spot more cases, scientists from Fudan University in Shanghai collected blood samples from hundreds of seemingly healthy people.By picking up on tumour “signatures” in the bloodstream, the test detected five types of cancer in 95% of the participants who went on to develop the disease without any symptoms up to four years later.

Breast cancer cells could one day be manipulated to help treat tumours. While further studies are required, the scientists hope the blood test – called PanSeer – will one day be a “front-line screening”, like smears or mammograms.

One in two people born after 1960 in the UK will statistically develop cancer in their life.In the US, one in two males and one in three females alive today are expected to eventually be diagnosed. Spotting the disease early may enable doctors to remove it surgically or prescribe relatively mild drugs, while treatment options could be limited or more severe as it advances.

National cancer screening programmes are restricted to cervical smears, mammograms and colonoscopies.

To help catch the disease early, the Fudan scientists looked at participants of the Taizhou Longitudinal Study, who provided blood samples for long-term storage.Coronavirus could cause 35,000 'extra' cancer deaths

PanSeer looked for any “circulating tumour DNA methylation”, which has previously been shown to be a “promising cancer biomarker”. Methylation occurs when a substance called a “methyl group” is added to another molecule. When this occurs within tumour-suppressing genes, they can be “silenced”, triggering uncontrolled malignant growth.

.
Out of 605 asymptomatic participants, 191 were diagnosed with stomach, oesophageal, colorectal, lung or liver cancer four years later. Additional analysis was also carried out on 223 cancer patients. Results, published in the journal Nature Communications, revealed PanSeer detected five common types of cancer in 88% of the patients after they were diagnosed. It correctly picked up on non-cancer cases 96% of the time.

PanSeer also detected the disease in 95% of the asymptomatic participants who were later diagnosed, although the scientists stressed further studies are required to confirm this. Nevertheless, they believe their results “demonstrate cancer can be non-invasively detected up to four years before current standard of care”.

“What we showed is: up to four years before these people walk into the hospital, there are already signatures in their blood that show they have cancer,” explained study author Professor Kun Zhang from the University of California, San Diego, according to The Jerusalem Post. “That’s never been done before.”

Why naked mole rats are immune to cancer

Unlike other attempts to create a test via methylation, PanSeer reportedly only requires a small tube of blood.undefined. It also has the potential to detect the disease “regardless of the tissue-of-origin”.“We therefore envision a clinical context where PanSeer could be used as a first-line screen,” wrote the scientists.

“Any patient testing positive on PanSeer would then undergo a more expensive reflex blood test and/or follow-up imaging to allow tissue of origin mapping.” Scans or biopsies could then confirm the disease, they added. Reference:

Yahoo News: Alexandra Thompson 20 hrs ago: 27th July 2020

Morocco shuts down major cities after spike in Covid-19 cases

Morocco will stop people entering and leaving some of its biggest cities from midnight to contain a surge in COVID-19 cases, the interior and health Ministries said on Sunday.

The cities to be locked down include the economic powerhouse of Casablanca as well as Tangier, Marrakech, Fez and Meknes.

The country eased a nationwide lockdown a month ago, though international flights are still suspended except special flights by national airlines carrying Moroccans or foreign residents.

On Sunday, the health ministry said 633 new COVID-19 cases were recorded, one of the biggest daily rises so far, bringing the total number of confirmed infections to 20,278, with 313 deaths and 16,438 recoveries.undefined

Morocco has carried out 1.1 million tests and has made mask-wearing mandatory. It has extended an emergency decree, until August 10, giving authorities leeway in restoring restrictive measures on a region-by-region basis depending on developments in the epidemic.

The government expects Morocco to record a budget deficit of 7.5% of gross domestic product this year, and the economy to shrink by 5%. 

 Reference: France 24 NEWS WIRES 1 day ago 27th July 2020

North Korea puts border city in lockdown over suspected Covid-19 outbreak

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un placed the city of Kaesong near the border with South Korea under total lockdown after a person was found with suspected COVID-19 symptoms, saying he believes “the vicious virus” may have entered the country, state media reported Sunday. 

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un placed the city of Kaesong near the border with South Korea under total lockdown after a person was found with suspected COVID-19 symptoms, saying he believes “the vicious virus” may have entered the country, state media reported Sunday. 

If the person is officially declared a virus patient, he or she would be the North’s first confirmed coronavirus case. North Korea has steadfastly said it has no single virus case on its territory, a claim questioned by outside experts. 
The lockdown was declared Friday afternoon.

The Korean Central News Agency said the suspected case is a runaway who had fled to South Korea years ago before illegally crossing the border into the North early last week.
KCNA said respiratory secretion and blood tests showed the person “is suspected to have been infected" with the virus.

It said the suspected case and others who were in contact as well as those who have been to Kaesong in the last five days were placed under quarantine. 

Describing its anti-virus efforts as a “matter of national existence,” North Korea earlier this year shut down nearly all cross-border traffic, banned foreign tourists and mobilized health workers to quarantine anyone with symptoms. But the Kaesong lockdown is the first such known measure taken in a North Korean city to stem the pandemic. 

Foreign experts say a coronavirus outbreak in North Korea could cause dire consequences because of its poor public health care infrastructure and chronic lack of medical supplies. 
Kaesong, a city with an estimated 200,000 people, is located just north of the heavily fortified land border with South Korea.

It once hosted the Koreas’ jointly run industrial complex, which remains stalled since 2016 amid nuclear tensions. Last month, North Korea blew up an inter-Korean liaison office in Kaesong to protest a campaign by South Korean activists who have been sending anti-Pyongyang leaflets across the border. 

During an emergency Politburo meeting Saturday, Kim also declared a state of emergency in the Kaesong area and "clarified the determination of the Party Central Committee to shift from the state emergency anti-epidemic system to the maximum emergency system and issue a top-class alert,” KCNA said.

It quoted Kim as saying that there was “a critical situation in which the vicious virus could be said to have entered the country." Kim said he took “the preemptive measure of totally blocking Kaesong City and isolating each district and region from the other within July 24 afternoon just after receiving the report on it,” according to KCNA.

The Politburo meeting also discussed the “loose guard performance” at the border area where the suspected case crossed over to North Korea. 

KCNA said that Kim and other leaders were briefed on the results of an intensive investigation of a military unit responsible for the border crossing case and discussed administering “a severe punishment." 

More than 33,000 North Koreans have fled to South Korea over the past 20 years to avoid poverty and political suppression, mostly via the long, porous border with China. But it's rare for North Korean refugees to return to their homeland by crossing the mine-strewn inter-Korean border.

The South Korean government has no immediate comments on the North Korean announcement. 

“Blaming an alleged return defector for bringing COVID-19 into the country is likely intended to shift blame for spread of the virus away from China and Pyongyang and on to Seoul,” Leif-Eric Easley, a professor at Ewha University in Seoul, said. 

“This may also be a tactic for ratcheting up diplomatic pressure on (South Korea) and trying to further dissuade North Koreans from defecting to the South,” he said.