Breakthroughs Today

  Because of the unverified safety of all Covid-19 vaccines available today, there is a need to balance the great optimism in most reports with the stark facts of reported adverse effects and current levels of acceptance among citizens in different countries. By definition, vaccination protects the person from targeted viruses by initiating immune response using non-virulent materials from the target virus. Consequently, if infection occurs, the person should have already developed antibodies and immune elements that destroy the invading viruses.  That is the expectation on any vaccine. A vaccine that does not protect against the target virus is not an effective vaccine. A vaccine that does not reliably protect is not a reliable vaccine. (All information in this article may not be updated quickly. However, at the time of writing, these facts can be verified in news reports from reliable sources.) ENGLAND Christian Yates (University of Bath) reported in Scitech Daily that within 28 days

According to the Philippine HIV and AIDS Registry, cases of HIV infection in the Philippines breached the 10,000 milestone since it started compiling data in 1984. With the total of 278 new cases recorded in July, total recorded HIV infections in the country reached 10,242. [ Read Report ]

The Philippine Department of Health (DOH) reported that cases of leptospirosis nationwided increased by more than 200 percent in just 10 months this year. Almost half (43.61%) reported cases came from western Visayas. [ READ MORE ]

Leslie Ann del Barrio and colleagues at the Philippine Carabao Center confirmed the water buffalo, popularly known in the country as carabao , descended from swamp buffalos native in China. Through a molecular analysis of gene-carrier mitrochondrial DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid), Del Barrio sample carabaos from Cagayan (Luzon), Batangas (Luzon), Bohol (Visayas), and Bukidnon (Mindanao), and their genetic sequences are much the same as the maternal swamp buffalos of China. ( Read more . )

The Department of Health (DOH) announced on 25 November 2010 that new HIV infections reached 1,305 cases from January to October this year. Sex between men, according to an Agence France-Presse report, accounted for nearly 80 percent of all cases mentioned. More than half of those infected aged between 20 and 29. Eleven percent got transmitted through needle-sharing among drug users. One percent came through mother-to-child transmission in pregnancy. Among all countries in Asia, country coordinator of UNAIDS Teresita Marie Bagasao was quoted saying, only the Philippines and Bangladesh had cases increasing as others stayed stable or decreasing. [ Report ]

The National Epidemiological Center (NEC) of the Department of Health (DOH) announced that dengue fever cases in the Philippines went up 135.14 percent only for a period running from January through September 25 this year. Last year, there were only 42,075 dengue cases nationwide. At present, the cases have reached 98,934 and apparently still counting with the remaining three months to go before 2010 ends. NEC warned that areas with more rains must brace for a possible second of dengue among them.

"THE reward for work well done," wrote researcher and virologist Jonas Salk, "is the opportunity to do more." And the reward for doing more, and longer hours of work, let me add, will impact on your health in ways you may not desire. Philippine working hours are considered worldwide as long working hours compared to the standard 40 hours per week [in other countries]. Even without overtime, Filipino workers regularly log excess hours each week. But that is also common worldwide. Studies found associations between long working hours and many risk factors such as... ( Read more. ) (This article appears in Sun.Star Cebu newspaper on 26 May 2010.)

Exactly one month (31 days) after the Philippines reported its first H1N1 confirmed case on May 22, one Filipino citizen died from the flu. The Department of Health (DOH) announced on June 22 the death of Philippines' first victim of the worldwide pandemic swine flu virus H1N1. The victim was a 49-year-old female, resident of Sta. Rosa, Laguna, and a worker at the House of Representatives in Quezon City. She attended the seminar of the committee affairs department from June 15 to 16 in an unreported venue, and fell ill the following day. Her companion in the seminar also fell ill. Other attendees of that seminar can be reasonably considered infected too. She has also travelled to Kalinga together with officemates. She died on June 19 due to acute myocardial infarction, which is characterized by sudden chest pain, shortness of breath, nausea, vomiting, palpatations, and sweating. She displayed flu-like symptoms on June 17, two days before her death. Considering the incubation of aro