Health Highlights: Dec. 1, 2014

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Here are some of the latest health and medical news developments, compiled by the editors of HealthDay:

WHO Misses Dec. 1 Ebola Targets

The World Health Organization will fall short of its Dec. 1 targets to control the Ebola outbreak in West Africa.

By that date, the agency wanted to have a patient isolation rate of 70 percent and to have safe burials of 70 percent of victims in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone, the three hardest-hit countries, the Associated Press reported.

However, those targets will be achieved only in Guinea. In Liberia, only 23 percent of Ebola patients are isolated and only 26 percent of required burial teams are operational. In Sierra Leone, the rates are 40 percent and 27 percent, respectively.

Meeting the Dec. 1 goals would be “really pushing the system hard,” Dr. Bruce Aylward, director of WHO’s Ebola response, said in October.

“If we don’t do it in 60 days and we take 90 days: No. 1, a lot more people will die that shouldn’t; and No. 2, we will need that much more capacity on the ground to be able to manage the caseload,” said Aylward, the AP reported.

The first cases of Ebola were reported in March and the outbreak was declared a public health emergency in August. More than 16,000 people have been sickened and nearly 7,000 of them have died.

In recent weeks, Ebola cases appear to be falling or stabilizing in Liberia and Guinea, but there has been a spike in cases around Sierra Leon’s capital and a district in the country’s north, the AP reported.

WHO’s failure to meet its Dec. 1 targets suggests the outbreak could widen as resources become even more stretched, according to an expert.

“We need to redouble our efforts to see what we can do to reduce the spread and catch up with the virus,” he said. “Right now, it doesn’t look good,” Oyewale Tomori, of Redeemer’s University in Nigeria, who sits on WHO’s Emergency Ebola committee, told the AP.

However, other experts suggest the WHO’s Dec. 1 targets weren’t significant.

“You want to isolate 100 percent of patients with Ebola and have 100 percent safe burials,” Sebastian Funk, director of the Centre for the Mathematical Modeling of Infectious Diseases at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, told the AP. “Getting to 70 percent doesn’t really mean a lot.”

By Jan. 1, the WHO wants to isolate all Ebola patients and have safe burials for all victims.

“We hope that what we’re seeing in Liberia will continue, but unfortunately what can happen with Ebola is that it can go to new countries, as it has already to Mali,” Dr. David Heymann, an Ebola expert who previously worked for the WHO, told the AP.

“The most dangerous thing would be if people now think Ebola is over and become complacent,” he added.

Pointing to a decline in cases, the United States recently announced it was reducing the size and number of Ebola clinics it had initially pledged to build in Liberia, the AP reported.

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U.S. Supreme Court Hears Case on Job Protections for Pregnant Workers

Job protections for pregnant workers will be the focus of a case to be heard by the U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday.

Peggy Young sued United Parcel Service under the federal Pregnancy Discrimination Act after the company placed her on unpaid leave when she got pregnant and her doctor recommended she avoid lifting heavy items.

“I lost my health benefits,” Young told The New York Times. “I lost my pension. And I lost my wages for seven months. And my disability benefits.”

The Supreme Court’s decision in Young’s case could affect millions of working women, who account for 47 percent of the U.S. labor force and often work during and late into pregnancy.

Women are the only or main income earners in 40 percent of U.S. families with children, a Pew Research Center study says. A decision on whether employers must make accommodations for pregnancy workers will have a major impact on many families, women’s groups say.

Starting in January, UPS will change its policy and offer light duty to pregnant women. However, the old policy “was lawful and consistently applied to our workers,” UPS spokeswoman Kara Ross told The Times.

The Supreme Court has ruled against women’s rights groups in a number of recent cases on equal pay, medical leave, abortion and contraception, and the groups hope this case will halt that losing streak.

“We’ve had some very big disappointments recently, but I’m hoping it won’t be a uniform set of experiences,” Marcia Greenberger, a co-president of the National Women’s Law Center, told The Times. “I hope Peggy Young will break the mold.”

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FDA Panel Mulls Lifting Ban on Gay Men as Blood Donors

The U.S. government’s ban on any blood donations from men who’ve had sex with men will be discussed by a Food and Drug Advisory panel during a two-day meeting that begins Tuesday.

The panel’s conclusions will help inform the FDA — which regulates blood donations — as it considers whether to lift the total ban.

The ban was implemented more than three decades ago over fears about HIV, the virus that causes AIDS. However, there are growing calls from gay rights activists, medical groups and lawmakers to repeal the ban because it is outdated and discriminatory, the Washington Post reported.

Recently, a Department of Health and Human Services advisory group said the ban should be replaced with a 12-month deferral period, which would prohibit blood donations from men who have sex with men in the past year.

That recommendation, along with input from its own advisory panel, will be considered by the FDA, the Post reported.

“They really are out of step with the rest of the world,” Glenn Cohen, a Harvard Law School professor, told the Post. In a recent article in the Journal of the American Medical Association, Cohen and two colleagues urged the federal government to adopt a new policy.

A number of countries have dropped total bans and replaced them with shorter deferral periods, Cohen said. For example, gay men in Australia, Britain and Japan who want to donate blood must have been abstinent for a year.

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