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Bird flu researchers agree to 60-day halt
- Two separate teams of researchers, one in The Netherlands and the other in the United States, found ways late last year to engineer the H5N1 virus so that it was transmitted among mammals, something that has previously been rare.
- Until now, bird flu has been rare in humans, but particularly fatal in those who do get sick. H5N1 first infected humans in 1997 and has killed more than one in every two people that it infected, for a total of 350 deaths.
- The concern is the virus could mutate and mimic past pandemic flu outbreaks such as the “Spanish flu” of 1918-1919 which killed 50 million people, and outbreaks in 1957 and 1968 that killed three million.
Beware! Dentures may eat into foodpipe
- Technically, dentures are meant to facilitate eating. But often, problems begin when parts of dentures land up being food.
- “When a bit of the denture, or a small-enough denture is swallowed, it can either lodge in the windpipe or the food pipe, causing problems both ways,”
- While swallowing such foreign objects is common among children, the reduction in sizes of dentures is increasing the chances of adults swallowing bits of dental acrylic too
- The windpipe is a dangerous area for a denture to slip into, it can cause choking and even death. If it enters the foodpipe, it is set on a long course down the gastro intestinal system, where it may get stuck
- For instance, a 53-year-old male patient found a denture missing and got it replaced. However, nearly 28 days later, he began showing symptoms and later, the denture had to be surgically removed. Typically symptoms of dentures entering the GI system include difficulty in swallowing, discomfort in the throat and a sticky feeling, also in the throat.
- Patients can even complain of chest pain, fever, and difficulty in breathing.
- Sometimes an X-ray may not be able to pick up the fragment, as acrylic (the material dentures are made of) are radio opaque.
