Questões de Inglês

    Zika virus

Key facts

  • Zika virus disease is caused by a virus transmitted by Aedes mosquitoes.

  • People with Zika virus disease usually have symptoms that can include mild fever, skin rashes, conjunctivitis, muscle and joint pain, malaise or headache. These symptoms normally last for 2-7 days.

  • There is no specific treatment or vaccine currently available.

  • The best form of prevention is protection against mosquito bites.

  • The virus is known to circulate in Africa, the Americas, Asia and the Pacific. 

Signs and Symptoms

  The incubation period (the time from exposure to symptoms) of Zika virus disease is not clear, but is likely to be a few days. The symptoms are similar to other arbovirus infections such as dengue, and include fever, skin rashes, conjunctivitis, muscle and joint pain, malaise, and headache. These symptoms are usually mild and last for 2-7 days.

Potential complications of Zika virus disease

  During large outbreaks in French Polynesia and Brazil in 2013 and 2015 respectively, national health authorities reported potential neurological and auto-immune complications of Zika virus disease. Recently in Brazil, local health authorities have observed an increase in Guillain-Barré syndrome which coincided with Zika virus infections in the general public, as well as an increase in babies born with microcephaly in northeast Brazil. Agencies investigating the Zika outbreaks are finding an increasing body of evidence about the link between Zika virus and microcephaly. However, more investigation is needed to better understand the relationship between microcephaly in babies and the Zika virus. Other potential causes are also being investigated.

Diagnosis

  Zika virus diagnosis can only be confirmed by laboratory testing for the presence of Zika virus RNA in the blood or other body fluids, such as urine or saliva.

Prevention

  This can be done by using insect repellent regularly; wearing clothes (preferably light-coloured) that cover as much of the body as possible; using physical barriers such as window screens, closed doors and windows; and if needed, additional personal protection, such as sleeping under mosquito nets during the day. It is extremely important to empty, clean or cover containers regularly that can store water, such as buckets, drums, pots etc. Other mosquito breeding sites should be cleaned or removed including flower pots, used tyres and roof gutters. Communities must support the efforts of the local government to reduce the density of mosquitoes in their locality.

Treatment

  Zika virus disease is usually relatively mild and requires no specific treatment. People sick with Zika virus should get plenty of rest, drink enough fluids, and treat pain and fever with common medicines. If symptoms worsen, they should seek medical care and advice. There is currently no vaccine available.

World Health Organization

Read the text below and answer question according to it.

Treating Alzheimer’s Disease
Are scientists close to finding a cure?

The number of Americans suffering from Alzheimer's, a degenerative brain disease, is projected to more than double by 2050, from 5.3 million today to 13.8 million. At the same time, as Baby Boomers age and medical expenses rise, the cost of treating and caring for people with the disease is expected to rise fivefold to $1.1 trillion. No treatment can yet prevent or cure Alzheimer's. However, advances in brain science and diagnostic technologies are creating breakthroughs unimagined even a few years ago. Rapidly expanding knowledge in genetics, neuroscience, biology and computing is leading to clinical trials on potential new drug therapies, research on how to prevent the disease and new tests to help diagnose it — perhaps even before symptoms appear. Scientists are debating whether the main hypothesis of what causes the disease — a buildup of amyloid protein into plaques that kill nerve cells in the brain — is correct. Patient advocates say federal Alzheimer's research is underfunded, but Congress is clearing the way for more research funds.

Disponível em: Acessado em 15 de outubro de 2015.

  The land of cocoa wants to be the land of the

chocolate too. Bahia wants to add value to the

cocoa plantations, which are regaining strength

in the south of Bahia. More than 40 local chocolate

[5] brands have appeared in Bahia in the last few

years. Most of them are of high quality with

higher concentration of the raw material. The new

entrepreneurs are focusing on this kind of market

because it moves more than R$ 12 billion per year

[10] in Brazil, which is the third largest consumer of

chocolate in the world.

CARVALHO, P. Chocolates from Bahia. In Bahia Oportunidades. Bahia: Governo da Bahia, 2015. p. 50. Adaptado.

Lives Grow Longer, and Health Care’s Challenges Change
Jeremy N. Smith
July 16, 2015

   If you’re living with multiple ailments, you’re not alone. According to an analysis published last month in the British medical journal The Lancet, 2.3 billion people, almost one-third of humanity, suffered from five or more health problems in 2013. More than 80 percent of those people were younger than 65 years old. And between 1990 and 2013, the number of people in developed countries who suffered from 10 or more ailments increased by 52 percent.
     These figures, based on some 36,000 sources of health data gathered for an international study called the Global Burden of Disease, are only approximate. But they provide the most complete picture yet of a global population’s need for increasingly complex care. Two or three generations ago, communicable diseases and problems in pregnancy and early childhood were the leading health concerns in all but the wealthiest countries. Now, after decades of economic development, rising aid money for health, and medical advances, these problems predominate only in sub-Saharan Africa, and life expectancy averages 71 years worldwide. But progress carries a price: The longer people live, the more health problems – and simultaneous health problems – they tend to suffer.
    The most common ailments worldwide include irondeficiency anemia, hearing loss, low back pain and diabetes, each affecting more than 400 million people, according to the study. How many health clinics, charities, governments or global public health agencies are prepared to diagnose and treat a deaf person suffering from diabetes, anemia and low back pain, for decades? “The transition in terms of illness patterns has happened very quickly, but the health system transition has not,” said Dr. Rifat Atun, director of the global health systems cluster at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. “We have individuals from a very young age living with an illness, disease or disability for 30, 40, or 50 years – and they will have not just one, but multiple conditions, and multiple consequences of these conditions. And health systems are not really set up to manage this.”
    In low - and middle - income countries, aid efforts and government programs still concentrate almost exclusively on communicable diseases and problems of pregnancy and early childhood, though close to 75 percent of deaths in these countries are now caused by noncommunicable diseases and injuries. Even in wealthy countries, most funding goes to those diseases and injuries that kill people rather than much more common conditions that cause long-term illness and disability. And maladies are usually addressed one by one, if at all, rather than as a cluster.
    India, where life expectancy at birth is now 66 years old, exemplifies all these trends. Deaths from tuberculosis, pneumonia, diarrheal diseases and preterm birth complications have all fallen sharply – in total, these diseases today kill fewer than 2 million Indians annually, according to Global Burden estimates. Meanwhile, in 2013, approximately 239 million Indians were migraine sufferers, 60 million had diabetes, 37 million had anxiety disorders and 26 million had osteoarthritis. Yet people with these conditions – and often all of them at once – have gotten little aid or attention. …
    Karl Hofmann’s nonprofit, PSI, which supports 15,000 health care providers in 65 countries, has expanded its offerings in the last decade to include screenings for hypertension, cervical cancer and gender-based violence along with childhood vaccinations and family planning services. Still, Mr. Hofmann observed, someone entering even the best health clinic or hospital with multiple chronic sources of disability is unlikely to have all of his or her conditions addressed comprehensively – in India or in the United States. “The transcendent challenge in the coming decades is trying to deal with the human reality of the health consumer, or patient, rather than the vertical, disease-specific issues.”
    The longer the status quo continues, the greater the cost – both human and financial. “This is a major societal challenge,” said Dr. Atun of Harvard. “It puts pressure on not just the health systems, but also the entire economy.” Given how many people are suffering from simultaneous health problems, and the resultant loss of productivity to society, “the issue is not whether or not, but how rapidly can we transition health systems,” he concluded.
    Policy makers, public health professionals and physicians can take inspiration from their remarkable past triumphs. Globally, age-standardized death rates fell 24 percent between 1990 and 2013. If new programs can reduce nonfatal ailments at the same rate over the next two decades, billions of people will benefit for a lifetime.
(www.nytimes.com. Adapted.)

Some Silent Signs You Might Have Diabetes

New studies show a shocking 25 percent of people with type 2 diabetes don't even know it. You're taking more bathroom breaks; You've lost a little weight; You feel shaky and hungry; You're tired all the time; You're moody and grumpy, Your vision seems blurry; Your cuts and scrapes heal more slowly; Your feet tingle; You're more prone to urinary tract and yeast infections. If you experience some of these subtle signs and symptoms, talk to your doctor about getting tested. Diabetes has plenty of early signs, but they're subtle enough that you might not notice."It's not like you wake up one day and all of a sudden you're thirsty, hungry, and going to the bathroom all the time," says Melissa Joy Dobbins, RD, a certified diabetes educator in Illinois and a spokesperson for the American Association of Diabetes Educators. "It picks up gradually." Indeed, "most people are unaware that they have diabetes in its early or even middle phases," says Aaron Cypess, MD, assistant professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School and staff physician at Joslin Diabetes Center. Just because you're not keyed in, it doesn't mean you're immune from problems associated with diabetes. The longer you go without controlling diabetes, the greater your risk for heart disease, kidney disease, amputation, blindness, and other serious complications. "We recommend that people with risk factors for diabetes, such as a family history or being overweight, get evaluated on a regular basis," Dr. Cypess says. If you've been feeling off, talk to your doctor about getting a simple blood test that can diagnose the disease. And pay attention to these subtle diabetes signs and symptoms. When you have diabetes, your body becomes less efficient at breaking food down into sugar, so you have more sugar sitting in your bloodstream, says Dobbins. "Your body gets rid of it by flushing it out in the urine. That's why you're going to the bathroom a lot." Most patients aren't necessarily aware of how often they use the bathroom, says Dr. Cypess. "When we ask about it, we often hear, 'Oh yeah, I guess I’m going more often than I used to,'" he says. But one red flag is whether the need to urinate keeps you up at night. Once or twice might be normal, but if it's affecting your ability to sleep, that could be a symptom to pay attention to. It's not uncommon for patients to suddenly feel unsteady and immediately need to reach for carbs, says Marjorie Cypress, a nurse practitioner at an endocrinology clinic in Albuquerque, New Mexico, and 2014 president of health care and education for the American Diabetes Association. "When you have high blood sugar, your body has a problem regulating its glucose," she explains. "If you've eaten something high in carbohydrates, your body shoots out a little too much insulin, and your glucose drops quickly. This makes you feel shaky, and you tend to crave carbs or sugar. This can lead to a vicious cycle."Of course you're exhausted every now and then. But ongoing fatigue is an important symptom to pay attention to; it might mean the food you're eating for energy isn't being broken down and used by cells as it's supposed to. "You're not getting the fuel your body needs," says Dobbins. "You're going to be tired and feel sluggish." But in many cases of type 2 diabetes, your sugar levels can be elevated for a while, so these symptoms could come on slowly.

By Lauren Gelman

http://www.rd.com/health/conditions/signs-diabetes/ acesso no dia 17 de dezembro de 2015 e editado.

Some Silent Signs You Might Have Diabetes

New studies show a shocking 25 percent of people with type 2 diabetes don't even know it. You're taking more bathroom breaks; You've lost a little weight; You feel shaky and hungry; You're tired all the time; You're moody and grumpy, Your vision seems blurry; Your cuts and scrapes heal more slowly; Your feet tingle; You're more prone to urinary tract and yeast infections. If you experience some of these subtle signs and symptoms, talk to your doctor about getting tested. Diabetes has plenty of early signs, but they're subtle enough that you might not notice."It's not like you wake up one day and all of a sudden you're thirsty, hungry, and going to the bathroom all the time," says Melissa Joy Dobbins, RD, a certified diabetes educator in Illinois and a spokesperson for the American Association of Diabetes Educators. "It picks up gradually." Indeed, "most people are unaware that they have diabetes in its early or even middle phases," says Aaron Cypess, MD, assistant professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School and staff physician at Joslin Diabetes Center. Just because you're not keyed in, it doesn't mean you're immune from problems associated with diabetes. The longer you go without controlling diabetes, the greater your risk for heart disease, kidney disease, amputation, blindness, and other serious complications. "We recommend that people with risk factors for diabetes, such as a family history or being overweight, get evaluated on a regular basis," Dr. Cypess says. If you've been feeling off, talk to your doctor about getting a simple blood test that can diagnose the disease. And pay attention to these subtle diabetes signs and symptoms. When you have diabetes, your body becomes less efficient at breaking food down into sugar, so you have more sugar sitting in your bloodstream, says Dobbins. "Your body gets rid of it by flushing it out in the urine. That's why you're going to the bathroom a lot." Most patients aren't necessarily aware of how often they use the bathroom, says Dr. Cypess. "When we ask about it, we often hear, 'Oh yeah, I guess I’m going more often than I used to,'" he says. But one red flag is whether the need to urinate keeps you up at night. Once or twice might be normal, but if it's affecting your ability to sleep, that could be a symptom to pay attention to. It's not uncommon for patients to suddenly feel unsteady and immediately need to reach for carbs, says Marjorie Cypress, a nurse practitioner at an endocrinology clinic in Albuquerque, New Mexico, and 2014 president of health care and education for the American Diabetes Association. "When you have high blood sugar, your body has a problem regulating its glucose," she explains. "If you've eaten something high in carbohydrates, your body shoots out a little too much insulin, and your glucose drops quickly. This makes you feel shaky, and you tend to crave carbs or sugar. This can lead to a vicious cycle."Of course you're exhausted every now and then. But ongoing fatigue is an important symptom to pay attention to; it might mean the food you're eating for energy isn't being broken down and used by cells as it's supposed to. "You're not getting the fuel your body needs," says Dobbins. "You're going to be tired and feel sluggish." But in many cases of type 2 diabetes, your sugar levels can be elevated for a while, so these symptoms could come on slowly.

By Lauren Gelman

http://www.rd.com/health/conditions/signs-diabetes/ acesso no dia 17 de dezembro de 2015 e editado.