Health & Fitness

POMPEII, Italy — On a recent morning at the necropolis of Porta Sarno, just outside Pompeii’s eastern edge, Mattia Buondonno gingerly raised a protective tarp covering a tomb discovered last year. According to the inscription on the tomb’s pediment, its occupant was a freed slave named Marcus Venerius Secundio, who became rich and “organized performances in Greek and Latin that lasted four days,” Buondonno, a Pompeii tour guide, read, translating from the Latin. Inside the tomb, believed to date to just decades before the eruption of Mount Vesuvius that smothered Pompeii in A.D. 79., archaeologists had discovered one of the best preserved skeletons ever found. “It’s odd for that time. Normally adults were cremated,” Buondonno said. But the tomb was important for other reasons, too. “Rece...

Australian regulators have approved a simple drug combination as an effective cure for a form of malaria in children ages 2 to 16, opening the door to approvals in other countries and heralding a new weapon in the battle against a deadly disease. The drug is a single dose of tafenoquine (brand name Kozenis), administered along with the traditional chloroquine treatment. The approval was announced on Monday by the nonprofit Medicines for Malaria Venture, which helped develop the drug. Tafenoquine, made by GlaxoSmithKline, can cure a type of malaria caused by Plasmodium vivax, which is most common in South and Southeast Asia, South America and the Horn of Africa. The drug will be submitted for approval in nine countries, as well as to the World Health Organization, according to George Jago...

Image An isolation facility for Covid-19 patients being built in Hong Kong, next to a bridge linking the city with Shenzhen in mainland China, on Friday.Credit...Kin Cheung/Associated Press Hong Kong is struggling to get a handle on its worst coronavirus outbreak since the start of the pandemic, warning that it doesn’t have the testing capacity to carry out the strict strategy handed down by Beijing. In Shenzhen and Shanghai, in mainland China, officials imposed restrictions on millions of people within days of local outbreaks in order to test every single resident. But Hong Kong’s chief executive, Carrie Lam, noted on Monday that her city doesn’t have the same ability. “Hong Kong is very different from many mainland cities and therefore we cannot have any comparison,” Mrs. Lam to...

SAN FRANCISCO (KRON) — Scientists are learning more about a new COVID variant that has been detected — it’s called ‘Deltacron.’ It’s a combination of genes from both delta and omicron varaints. KRON4 spoke with local infectious disease specialists about the new variant, and why the World Health Organization has just acknowledged it. Deltacron first appeared in January, but now there have been more cases. On Wednesday, the WHO decided to start tracking it, but they’re not calling it a variant of concern yet. Bay Area cities end vaccination mandate “It’s got features of omicron and features of delta,” said Professor of Infectious Diseases at UC Berkeley Doctor John Swartzberg. Because of that, the new variant has been dubbed “deltacron” — al...

The new Omicron sub-variant is almost as infectious as measles, one of the most contagious diseases in human history, a top epidemiologist has warned. The new variant - named deltacron - that combines mutations from both Omicron and Delta has been detected in a number of areas of France and it understood to have been circulating in the populace since January. Professor Adrian Esterman, a former World Health Organisation (WHO) epidemiologist, told ABC news, that although the new sub-variant is not any more severe than Omicron, it is more transmissible. He said: “That means we’re going to see case numbers skyrocketing.” On his Twitter account, he added: “Omicron BA.2 is about 1.4 times more infectious than BA.1. The basic reproduction number (R0) for BA.1 is about 8.2, making R0 for BA....

The number of COVID-positive patients in Los Angeles County hospitals continues to fall, declining by another 28 people to 537, according to the latest state numbers out today. Of those patients, 107 were in intensive care, the same as Saturday’s total. The county’s COVID hospitalizations haven’t been this low since July 2021. The total has been declining steadily since reaching more than 4,800 in mid-January, at the height of the Omicron-fueled winter surge. On Saturday, the county reported 1,029 new cases of COVID-19 and 52 additional deaths related to the coronavirus, bringing its cumulative totals to 2,811,864 cases and 31,275 fatalities. The rolling seven-day average daily rate of people testing positive for the virus was 0.7% as of Saturday, according to the Los Angeles C...

The novel coronavirus continues to circulate around the country, infecting thousands of people even as restrictions have ended across multiple states. What to know: Getting infected with COVID-19 is still possible in the United States, despite high levels of natural immunity and protection from COVID-19 vaccines. Symptoms:  Dr. Allison Arwady, Chicago Department of Public Health commissioner, said back in January that there was one common COVID-19 symptom people experienced early on during their infection — sore throat. “Especially in people who we’re seeing these more mild breakthrough infections, we are definitely seeing sore throat be a predictor in that group,” Arwady said, per NBC Chicago. More early symptoms: Dr. Patricia Williams...

As the leading cause of death in both men and women, there's no shortage of ways that heart disease can take its toll—from heart attacks to stroke. So, when it comes to living your healthiest life, keeping up your cardiovascular health is paramount. Now, experts are warning that many people neglect to do one thing before bed which may affect their heart health. Read on to find out which nightly habit is a heart health must, and why some people are at greater risk of a problem. RELATED: Drinking Too Much of This Popular Beverage Can Ruin Your Heart, Experts Warn.ae0fcc31ae342fd3a1346ebb1f342fcb ShutterstockBrushing and flossing your teeth is a simple and effective way to keep bacteria at bay. "Without proper oral hygiene, bacteria can reach levels that mig...

TICKBORNE DISEASES AND WHAT TO LOOK OUT FOR IF YOU GET BIT. QUICK STEAT DEPARTMENT SAYS8% 5 OF PENNSYLVANIA’S MOST COMMON LIKEEG L TICKS ARE INFECTED WITH SOME SORT OF ILLNESS, INCLUDING LYME DISEASE ANDHE T RARE BUT DANGEROUS DEER TICK VIRUS. >> IT IS ALARMING TO SEE THE INFECTION RATES OF THESE HOTSPOTSOR F DEER TICK VIRUS INCREASE THAT MUCH. >> THE PREVIOUS HIGHEST INFECTION RATE FOUND AT A SINGLE LOCATION IN PENNSYLVANIA WAS 11%. THIS YEAR, TEEHR SESIT HAD AN INFECTION RATE EXCEEDING 80% OF TICKS SAMPLED. THIS RATE IS ALARMING, BUT UNCOMMON ACROSS THE STE.AT >> I REALLY, REALLY BELIEVE DEER TICK VIRUS IS CIRCULATING THROUGHOUT THE COMMONWEALTH AT VERY LOW LEVELS. EXPERTS CONTINUE TO STRESS THE PREVALENCE OF LYME DISEASE IN THE STATE. >> PENNSYLVANIA ...

The fatal overdose rate among Black people surpassed that for white people in the first year of the pandemic, as an increasingly lethal drug supply and Covid-19’s destabilizing effects exacted a heavy toll on vulnerable communities in the U.S. The proliferation of the potent opioid fentanyl, and a pandemic that has added hazards for people who use drugs, are driving new records in U.S. overdose deaths, and Black communities have been hit especially hard. Black people often have uneven access to healthcare including effective drug treatment, putting them at high risk, researchers and public-health experts say.