Hepatitis B Vaccination in the City

I have been seeing a lot of banners around our city stating that they offer Hepa B vaccination services, but yes, for a fee.

Vaccination for hepatitis B is like around PhP 1,500 (US$1= PhP 43 something). If you are an average worker earning minimum (PhP 250.00), you definitely will not be able to take advantage of the vaccination program and will just leave everything to faith.LOL.
Well, I mean, no wonder diseases around infest the poor. I mean, they do not have an immediate access to medicines and vaccinations due to the fact that they cannot afford it. They would rather buy themselves food instead of buying them a vaccine that confer them the needed protection against vaccine-preventable life-threatening diseases like Hepatitis B.

Well, I would not want to believe that life is unfair and people are not created equal but I am hoping that governments around the globe will include free adult immunization program as part of their health programs for the masses - at least just on the basic-health services.

Sorry...

As with most of my other blogsites, I would like to apologize for not being able to update my blog for almost a month now. My mom's health predicament made me so much busy and rendered me incapable to do other things, hence my blogs slept. :)

Now that everything came back to normal, I promise to update my blogs. Be sure to check my other blogs as well. My main blog keeps the regular update because I can usually write almost anything in there, unlike this blog which caters only for health issues related HIV and AIDS.

You can check on my other blogs by clicking on the blogsites under the MY BLOGS on the right side of this blogscreen. Thanks!

Insurmountable Pain

I haven't been able to write something in my blog for the past 8 days due to my mom being at ICU at St. Raphael Foundation and Medical Center. She suffered massive blood loss because her lung tissues collapsed due to frequent coughing and add to that - infections. Now that her immune system dropped, she suffered from secondary bacterial infections such as Tuberculosis (TB), pneumonia, sepsis, a type of infection of the blood, which are now under control. But she is still being observed at the ICU and will yet to wait as to when she will leave ICU and be sent to an ordinary patient room though.

My heart bleeds everytime I see her suffering. This incident has caused my mother, me and my family a lot - emotionally, physically, mentally and all that stuff. I had to ask for all of my relatives' help just to buy my mom her medicine since I already run out of budget and all of my savings are gone for the hospital had to cancel all medicine supplies for my mom since our bill is getting really high and that I have to buy everything that she needs from dextrose, medicines, and all the liquid solutions that she needs while she is in ICU.

I am asking all your help to please pray for my mom and my family. May God help us to get through all this soon enough and help my mom recover completely. Thank you so much for reading. Thank you so much...

Jules

Grapefruit to Replace Hepatitis C Drugs?

I was reading this article online from What Doctors Don't Tell You and it tickled me into thinking about the research paper I made at University of the Philippines, Open University at Los Baños, Laguna regarding Bitter Gourd as possible cure for a number of communicable diseases such as Hepatitis B, HIV/AIDS, and cancer.

The article talks about the medicinal properties of grapefruit that is similar to those of the powerful anti-viral drugs which are used for treatments for hepatitis C. The Journal of the American Medical Association pointed out that a typical grapefruit contains flavonoid and naringenin, which have the ability to inhibit the ability of a hepatitis C virus to replicate and thereby continue destroying tissues. These are also the two main ingredients which gives the fruit its bitter taste.

Well, sounds like a nice idea and it really was nice-to-know information. I always believe that people should start going back to basics since some fruits, vegetables, and herbs contain ingredients that have the potential to cure but cannot serve such function if they are not contained in their natural host (that is, the ingredient is not taken from its original source) since most of substances that have substantial medicinal properties have synergystic properties as well, that is, they cannot function well or its effect will not be as effective as when you take it from the original source.

What do you guys think about herbs? How about starting to cure the person's "mind" before curing the person physically as some of the diseases on the planet are more of psycho-somatic in nature or the so-called "its all in the mind" attitude? What do you think?

Health-Risk for Travellers: Hepatitis A, Hepatitis B and Tyhpoid Fever

Travel is exciting since you get to see places and enjoy the pleasure of meeting new people, and experiencing the joy of making new friends. Well, inspite of the good things that travelling gives people, there are also risk associated with it.

Yes, diseases. As people,from all walks of life travel from place to place, the movement of diseases increases proportionately. A person who appears healthy and was never diagnosed for any diseases before he begins travelling might manifest diseases along the course of his/her stay on a certain place and any contact that that person does will affect, on a larger part, the overall health of the people around him/her. If that person is infected by a communicable disease/s chances are there lies the risk of infecting, the immediate people around him/her (if not all).

Well, Hepatitis A, Hepatitis B, and Tyhpoid Fever are just some of the few diseases that are rapidly moving around the planet. But the good thing is, all of these diseases are vaccine-preventable. Health is always our best resource for a good life. One may realize that money is meaningless once we get sick. But then again, we need money to support our hospitalization if in case we fall ill to any of the diseases around. =)

According to my readings, travellers abroad are always advised to take on a vaccine program that would immunize a person from the notorious diseases plaguing humanity, especially if a person is travelling to Asia where all the diseases mentioned above (Hepatitis A, Hepatitis B, Tyhpoid Fever) are endemic (prevalent).

I am not sure if the Philippines has it. I mean, if the appropriate government agency in the Philippines is becoming effective of their mandated task to inform people about the health dangers there is in travelling and advise them to undergo appropriate vaccination programs against the diseaess endemic to the place they will visit. I have never been out of the country though. Do all travel agencies here in the Philippines provide health advisories to their clients when they schedule them for a flight and advise them to take on a vaccination program that will protect them against all possible diseases endemic to that place? Well, what say you? :)

Vietnam to Provide 5-in-one Vaccine by 2009

Vietnam is doing a great job in setting up a plan to provide free 5-in-one vaccine that would provide immunization to 5 of the known debilitating diseases namely: polio, whooping cough, tetanus, Haemophilus Influenzae type B (Hib) and Hepatitis B.

Vietnam's National Expanded Programme of Immunisation (EPI) sought the help of Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunisation (GAVI) to support the said program by coming up with ways on how to produce the said consolidated vaccine. Vietnam is considering vaccinating 1.5 million children under the said program (EPI).

Canadian Hepa B Treatment Program

The Canadian government has unveiled a health program that benefits individuals suffering from chronic hepatitis b. According to Canada's British Columbian government, there are around 300,000 to 600,000 individuals living with such condition and such numbers continue to rise and that Asian Pacific Islanders covers the highest percentage of the pie.

The provincial governmetn supports two drug treatment programs namely adefovir (marketed under the Brand name Hepsera) and entecavir (marketed as Baraclude). The estimated budget allocation is around $3 Million annually.

Each treatment program has corresponding treatment guide and each drug has its own program that deals with any incidence of virus drug resistance. The Vancouver Sun has more.

No Exercise and Frequent Fast Food Meals Not Good to Liver

If you think that chronic inactivity and eating fast food meals will save you time and money instead of going to a good restaurant or not cooking your own meal at home is healthy, Well, think again. The journal Gut provided the result of one of their experimental researches on the effect of eating too much fast food meals and inactivity to the liver.

The result of the research states that unhealthy lifestyle can take its toll on the liver which is indicative of certain proteins like alanine aminotransferase (ALT) and detected in the blood stream. Damaged liver cells produce specific proteins and secrete them in the blood stream. These molecules are detected through blood chemistry checks. The Hepatitis B Foundation posted the article on its site. Read more at Science Daily.

State Crisis due to Medical Malpractice Issue at Endoscopy Center of Southern Nevada in Las Vegas

It was such a tragedy as I may say that more than 40,000 patients may have been exposed to have various communicable diseases like Hepatitis B, C, or HIV in an Endoscopy Center of Southern Nevada in Las Vegas for several of the nurses anesthesiologists there have inadvertently reused the syringes for administering anesthesia so thousands of patients who go there everyday to undergo certain invasive medical procedure.

It was sad to note that a couple of nurses, 5 so far, have volunteered to give up their licenses due to the said negligence and violation of medical ethics among nurses. Healthline.com provides more information about this issue and how to contact the Southern Nevada Health District's hotline for further advise regarding this issue.

Hepatitis Outbreak due to Unsafe Medical Practices

Considering the multiple ways on how one might get infected with hepatitis b, there also seems to be some connection on nurses/doctor-patient care which might expose patients to these communicable diseases.

There are multiple incidence where doctors, nurses and anesthesiologists were reported to have inadvertently exposed patients to these types of diseases due to unsafe medical practices like the reuse of syringes and other medical devices.

We know that used, and disposable medical devises such as syringes should not in any way, be reused for the purpose of cost-savings practices or any other reasons so to speak. Read what American Association of Nurse Anesthetists (AANA) has to say regarding this issue.