Reuters Health News Summary

08/02/2016 8:59

Following is a summary of current health news briefs.

Virus hits Australian women water polo team

Four members of the 'Aussie Stingers', Australia's women's Olympic water polo team, face 48 hours in medical isolation after suffering an attack of gastroenteritis on their way to Rio. The team of 13 players were due to land in Brazil on a delayed flight from Rome, where they had been training for the Games, later on Monday.

Florida travel warning issued for pregnant women after more Zika cases

U.S. health officials warned pregnant women to avoid traveling to a neighborhood in Miami on Monday after Florida said it had 10 more cases of Zika caused by the bite of local mosquitoes, bringing the total to 14. At the request of Gov. Rick Scott, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is sending in a special emergency response team of eight disease experts to assist Florida in its investigation.

GSK and Google parent forge $715 million bioelectronic medicines firm

GlaxoSmithKline and Google parent Alphabet's life sciences unit are creating a new company focused on fighting diseases by targeting electrical signals in the body, jump-starting a novel field of medicine called bioelectronics. Verily Life Sciences - known as Google's life sciences unit until last year - and Britain's biggest drugmaker will together contribute 540 million pounds ($715 million) over seven years to Galvani Bioelectronics, they said on Monday.

Theranos CEO faces critics, presents new product plans

The chief executive of embattled Theranos Inc on Monday presented plans for a new product and said the blood testing company was working diligently to rectify all of its outstanding issues involving its product and laboratory operations. CEO Elizabeth Holmes described new technologies that she said were "distinct from the operations of our clinical laboratories" that have come under scrutiny - part of a presentation before some 2,650 scientists at the American Association for Clinical Chemistry meeting in Philadelphia.

Regional coordination cuts time to heart attack treatment

(Reuters Health) - By coordinating emergency resources, an experimental U.S. program got more heart attack patients treated promptly, researchers say. Before the program started, 50 percent of people who showed up at hospitals got artery-opening therapy within the recommended window of time. The percentage increased to 55 percent after the program, researchers report.

Zika an excuse for top ranked players, says golfer Van Zyl

South African Jaco Van Zyl, who sat out the year's last major, the PGA Championship, to prepare for the Olympics, says the world's top-ranked golfers are using the Zika virus as an excuse to dodge the Rio Games. World number one Jason Day of Australia, American world number two Dustin Johnson and number three Jordan Spieth and fourth ranked Northern Irishman Rory McIlroy all removed their names from Olympic consideration citing the risk of contracting the Zika virus.

Express Scripts says Valeant, Lilly, Bristol drugs to lack coverage

Express Scripts Holding Co said on Monday it would add a handful of medicines in 2017 to its list of drugs that are excluded from insurance coverage, including treatments for arthritis and psoriasis, while several other medicines will be removed from the exclusion list. The nation's largest pharmacy benefit manager has been excluding medicines from its coverage list since 2014, citing concern about costs to its health insurers and corporate customers. The 2017 excluded medicines list will entail 85 drugs, it said, compared with 87 in 2016.

Pfizer's revenue, profit edge past estimates

Pfizer Inc reported better-than-expected quarterly revenue and profit, driven by sales of newer drugs and the acquisition of hospital products company Hospira. The largest U.S. drugmaker's revenue rose about 11 percent to $13.15 billion in the second quarter, edging past the average analyst estimate of $13.01 billion.

UK court says state health system can fund preventative HIV drug

A high court judge ruled on Tuesday that an HIV pill to prevent infection can be funded by the state health service in England, in a victory for AIDS campaigners who have been calling for its widespread use. So-called pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) against HIV, using Gilead Sciences' medicine Truvada, can cut the risk of getting the virus during sex by more than 90 percent, according to clinical studies.

China's 'mosquito factory' aims to wipe out Zika, other diseases

Every week, scientists in southern China release 3 million bacteria-infected mosquitoes on a 3 km (two-mile) long island in a bid to wipe out diseases such as dengue, yellow fever and Zika. The scientists inject mosquito eggs with wolbachia bacteria in a laboratory, then release infected male mosquitoes on the island on the outskirts of the city of Guangzhou.

08/02/2016 8:59