Global Health

The World Health Organization is launching a $100 million response plan to combat an "unprecedented" outbreak of Ebola in West Africa that has killed 729 people out of 1,323 infected since February.

Liberia has suspended all football activities in an effort to control the spread of the deadly Ebola virus.

There was a risk of infection because football is a contact sport, the football association said.

The number of people killed by the virus in West Africa has now reached 672, according to new UN figures.

A major regional airliner, Asky, said it had halted flights to the Liberian and Sierra Leonean capitals because of growing concerns about the virus.

By 2050, the number of people aged over 60 years is projected to be five times that in 1950 (credit: Luigi Fontana, Brian K. Kennedy, and and Valter D. Longo/Nature)

submitted by Luis Kun

kurzweilai.net - July 24, 2014

By 2050, the number of people over the age of 80 will triple globally, which could come at great cost to individuals and economies.

Unfortunately, medicine focuses almost entirely on fighting chronic diseases in a piecemeal fashion as symptoms develop, researchers writing in the journal Nature say. Instead, more efforts should be directed to promoting interventions that have the potential to prevent multiple chronic diseases and extend healthy lifespans.

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Nature - Medical research: Treat ageing

Health authorities at the John F. Kennedy (JFK) Medical Center in Sinkor have confirmed the closure of the hospital's emergency ward to the public following reports that the Ebola virus had spread.

Reports say nurses have been re-assigned on the regular ward. The hospital's emergency ward was shutdown following the death of a suspected Ebola patient (name withheld), who had been brought from the borough of New Kru Town last Thursday at the JFK...