Rollins College. Aerial Photo overlooking Lake Virginia. Photo: internet photo

The Rollins College is inviting applications for MBA International Student Scholarships. Early Advantage MBA applicants who are citizens of countries outside the United States may apply for these scholarships.

Rollins College is a private, coeducational liberal arts college, founded in 1885 and located in Winter Park, Florida along the shores of Lake Virginia.

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Dr David Margolis, ViiV Healthcare, USA

An injectable antiretroviral therapy (ART) consisting of two drugs (cabotegravir and rilpivirine) administered every four or eight weeks may be as effective as a daily oral dose of the drugs in maintaining viral suppression in patients with HIV, according to a new phase 2 trial published in The Lancet.

In the study, patients were given injectable ART as a maintenance therapy over 96 weeks once they had achieved viral suppression after 20 weeks of daily oral medication.

In Uganda many patients have complained of not being comfortable in swallowing the ARV drugs with some reports indicating some patients abandon treatment along the way.

However, reports suggest that the potential for a long-acting injectable ART could ease the burden faced by people living with HIV of having to take daily oral medication lifelong to manage the disease. Phase 3 trials are ongoing and are needed to confirm the results, and further trials will be needed in wider groups of patients to generalise the findings.

The trial is presented at the International AIDS Society meeting in Paris, France.

An estimated 36.7 million people worldwide are living with HIV, and advances in ART have led to improved survival and quality of life for people with HIV. However, current treatment requires taking a daily dose of medication lifelong, and poor compliance can result in treatment failure or the emergence of drug-resistant mutations. Long-acting injectable drugs potentially offer a more convenient way of managing the disease.

“Adherence to medication remains an important challenge in HIV treatment. Long-acting injectable ART could provide some patients with a more convenient approach to manage HIV infection that avoids daily oral dosing, and the need to keep, store, and transport medications as they go about their daily lives,” explains author of the LATTE-2 study Dr David Margolis, ViiV Healthcare, USA.

“The introduction of single tablet medication represented a leap forward in ART dosing, and long-acting antiretroviral injections may represent the next revolution in HIV therapy by providing an option that circumvents the burden of daily dosing. The results through to 96 weeks with this two-drug regimen are encouraging, and we now need further research, including the ongoing phase 3 trial, to confirm these findings,” Dr Margolis adds.

HIV injectable drugs

According to the report, the  trial began with an induction phase in order to identify any potential adverse events to the drugs before administering a long-acting injectable. 309 participants were included in the initial induction phase of the trial, during which they were given daily oral doses of cabotegravir (30mg) and abacavir-lamivudine (600mg-300mg) over 20 weeks.

The majority of participants tolerated the drugs and reached viral suppression (plasma HIV-1 RNA less than 50 copies per mL) and was therefore eligible to enter the maintenance phase.

286 participants were included in the maintenance phase, where they were randomly assigned to receive injectable cabotegravir plus rilpivirine at 4-week intervals (115 patients), at 8-week intervals (115 patients) or continue on the daily oral dose of cabotegravir and abacavir-lamivudine (56 patients).

32 weeks after randomisation, viral suppression was maintained in 91% (51/56) of patients in the oral medication group, 94% (108/115) in the 4-week group, and 95% (109/115) in the 8-week group.

At 96 weeks, viral suppression was maintained in 84% (47/56) of patients in the oral medication group, 87% (100/115) in the 4-week group, and 94% (108/115) in the 8-week group.

Pain at the site of the injection was the most commonly reported adverse event (97% of patients in the 4-week group, and 96% in the 8-week group). Most reactions were mild or moderate and lasted an average of 3 days. In total, 2 of 230 (<1%) patients receiving the injectable two-drug regimen discontinued due to injection intolerance.

Other adverse events reported included nasopharyngitis, diarrhoea, and headache, and rates were similar in all three groups. A total of 11 patients (4%) developed an adverse event during the maintenance phase which led to withdrawal from the study: 8 patients (7%) in the 4-week group, two (2%) in the 8-week group, and one (2%) in the oral treatment group. Two deaths occurred during the study: one from a motor vehicle accident, and the other following an epileptic seizure which was not thought to be due to the treatment.

The trial was done at 50 sites in the USA, Germany, Canada, Spain, France and Germany. Although it included patients from five countries, most (91%) of the participants were male. Also, participants were only eligible for the trial if they had a CD4+ cell count of at least 200 cells per mm3, which does not necessarily represent the global population living with HIV. Further research in more diverse groups of patients is now needed.

Professor Joe Eron, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, USA, author of the study, says: “The results of LATTE-2 show that a long-acting injectable antiretroviral regimen has the potential to be both highly effective and well tolerated over a long period of time. These data provide a strong foundation for the ongoing and planned phase 3 trials which will hopefully lead to an effective, well tolerated alternative to daily antiretroviral therapy.”

Writing in a linked Comment, Professor Mark A. Boyd, University of Adelaide, Adelaide, Australia, and Professor David A. Cooper from the Kirby Institute, University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia, say:

“While injectable ART might be attractive for some or perhaps many people living with HIV (….), there will inevitably be a trade-off between the convenience of not having to adhere to oral therapy and the inconvenience and discomfort associated with injectable long-acting ART. It is possible that injectable ART will be more attractive the less one must be injected. This is particularly the case in the current era when oral therapy is administered as one pill, once daily, and (at least in Australia) people living with HIV can be dispensed anywhere from 2 to 6 months’ supply of ART at a time. This scenario, compared with having to seek health care to be injected on a monthly basis, might make the injectable option seem less convenient than conventional oral therapy for some people. This is compounded by the fact that health-care systems are generally not configured to facilitate regular, recurrent injections in a timely and convenient way to people who are well. Changing this will take innovation, political will, and time.”

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Both candidates go into the debate at the back of a grueling campaign trail that has left them traverse the country racking up votes. It also comes on the back of Democrat candidate Hilary Clinton suffering a major health setback after collapsing on September 11 2016 during a memorial for the 9/11 victims, something which rival candidate Donald Trump may get straight into knowing his love for pouncing on anything.

Podium and stage in final settings ahead of the showdown today night

Hilary Clinton comes into the debate with a slight lead of 2.1% into the polls and will look to gain more ground over bullish candidate Trump who has massively hit out at Hilary Clinton on his twitter handle over various claims throughout the campaign.

Crooked Hillary’s bad judgement forced her to announce that she would go to Charlotte on Saturday to grandstand. Dem pols said no way, dumb!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 24, 2016

Donald Trump faces a huge challenge of convincing Americans of mixed colour race as he has widely spoken out against Blacks, Muslims and Latino societies living in America and voters will wait to see how he manages to counteract this issue if it comes up for query during the debate.

Video below of Donald Trump lashing out at a #BlackLivesActivist at one of his campaign stops.

Click to stream and watch today’s debate 

A live audio stream is also available for those who would prefer to listen in to the debate

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Photo: Echwalu Photography

Malaria is a mass killer that every family in Africa dreads. In 2013 statistics showed that about 3.2 billion people – almost half of the world’s population – were at risk of malaria. There were about 198 million malaria cases and an estimated 584 000 malaria deaths; of these 90%  occured in sub-Saharan Africa. This is according to World Health Organization (WHO) statistics that continue to state that pregnant women are at high risk of dying from the complications of severe malaria. Malaria is also a cause of spontaneous abortion, premature delivery, stillbirth and severe maternal anaemia, and is responsible for about one third of preventable low-birth-weight babies.

Pregnant women are more susceptible than the general population to malaria. However, there is good news on the malaria front: researchers at Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine (LSTM), working with colleagues of the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in Kenya and USA, and from the Kenya Medical Research Institution have found that a new drug may be more effective at preventing malaria in pregnant woman, especially where there is resistance to current treatments.

The study noted that WHO currently recommends that women in areas of stable malaria transmission receive intermittent preventative treatment in pregnancy (IPTp) with the antimalarial drug sulfadoxine-pyrimethamine (SP), however high levels of resistance from the malaria parasite to this drug threatens its efficacy. This study looked at two alternatives to the recommended treatment strategy, intermittent screening with malaria rapid diagnostic tests (RDTs) and treatment of RDT-positive women with the new drug dihydroartemisinin-piperaquine (ISTp-DP); and intermittent preventative treatment with dihydroartemisinin-piperaquine (IPTp-DP). It was found that there were more instances of malaria with ISTp-DP compared to the existing IPTp-SP strategy, however there was a much lower instance of malaria in the IPTp-DP treated group.

This equated to an 84% reduction in the incidence of clinical malaria during the pregnancy, a 68% reduction in the risk of malaria infection at delivery and a 22% lower risk of anemia at delivery. IPTp-DP was also associated with up to 75% lower risk of stillbirths and early infant mortality than with SP. The drug was safe and very well tolerated by pregnant women.

Malaria in pregnancy remains a significant public health problem, and in areas of high resistance to sulfadoxine-pyrimethamine it is clear that an alternative treatment is needed. Our study showed that test and treat approaches are not a suitable alternative, at least not with the current generation of rapid diagnostic tests which still miss many infections, however it is a positive sign that prevention with the new drug dihydroartemisinin-piperaquine fared well in the study, and could be a promising alternative to SP following further investigation. – Senior author on the study and head of the Malaria in Pregnancy (MiP) Consortium, Professor Feiko ter Kuile.

With this study, the good news of pregnancy can be enjoyed be African women because the fear of malaria would be reduced.

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BABY WALKERS: Many parents in Uganda, Africa, America, Asia, Latin America, and Europe use baby walkers in order to help their babies to walk fast.

However the latest research raises concerns about the walker. According to a United States of America (USA) based study; locomoto milestones and baby walkers cross section study, established that the use of baby walkers delays the child’s ability to walk independently by a few weeks.

The research reveals that walkers tend to have an abnormal gait at first, though it resolves with time. In addition, the walker increases the risk of injuries. The researchers so they advise parents and guardians to shun the use of baby walkers.

Ends

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The congressionally mandated Diversity Immigrant Visa Program is administered on an annual basis by the Department of State and conducted under the terms of Section 203(c) of the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA). Section 131 of the Immigration Act of 1990 (Pub. L. 101-649) amended INA 203 and provides for a class of immigrants known as “diversity immigrants.” Section 203(c) of the INA provides a maximum of 55,000 Diversity Visas each fiscal year to be made available to persons from countries with low rates of immigration to the United States. Fifty-five thousand immigrant visas are set aside for DV immigrants; however, since DV-1999, Congress has reserved 5,000 visas from this annual allocation to be made available for use under the Nicaraguan and Central American Relief Act (NACARA).

The annual DV program makes visas available to persons meeting the simple, but strict, eligibility requirements. A computer-generated, random drawing chooses selectees for Diversity Visas. The visas are distributed among six geographic regions, with a greater number of visas going to regions with lower rates of immigration, and with no visas going to nationals of countries sending more than 50,000 immigrants to the United States over the period of the past five years. No single country may receive more than seven percent of the available Diversity Visas in any one year.

For DV-2014, natives of Guatemala are now eligible to enter the program.

For DV-2014, natives of the following countries are not eligible to apply because the countries sent more than 50,000 immigrants to the United States in the previous five years:

Bangladesh, Brazil, Canada, China (mainland-born), Colombia, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Haiti, India, Jamaica, Mexico, Pakistan, Peru, Philippines, South Korea, United Kingdom (except Northern Ireland) and its dependent territories, and Vietnam.

A “native” ordinarily means someone born within a particular country, regardless of the individual’s current country of residence or nationality. Persons born in Hong Kong SAR, Macau SAR, and Taiwan are eligible.

The Department of State implemented the electronic registration system beginning with DV-2005 in order to make the Diversity Visa process more efficient and secure. We utilize special technology and other means to identify those who commit fraud for the purposes of illegal immigration or those who submit multiple entries.

For DV-2014, the Department of State will once again implement an online process to notify entrants of their selection, and to provide information about the immigrant visa application and interview. Beginning May 1, 2013, DV-2014 entrants will be able to use their unique confirmation number provided at registration to check online through Entry Status Check at http://www.dvlottery.state.gov to see if their entry was selected. Successful entrants will receive instructions for how to apply for immigrant visas for themselves and their eligible family members. Confirmation of visa interview appointments will also be made through Entry Status Check.

For detailed information about entry requirements, along with frequently asked questions about the DV program, please see the instructions for the DV-2014 Diversity Visa program available at http://travel.state.gov/visa/immigrants/types/types_1318.html.

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Global Health Scholarships: The Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health has created a pioneering new scholarship program to help recruit the next generation of public health leaders.

Likened to a Rhodes scholarship for health, the Sommer Scholars program seeks to train the brightest, most promising students from around the globe.

The program will support up to 15 new master of public health students and up to 15 new doctoral students each year.

The selected students will receive both full tuition and a stipend.

In addition to regular course work, they will take part in a leadership program designed to develop their personal skills and foster both collaboration and networking opportunities.

For Inquiries contact: The Hopkins Sommer Scholars Program

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Film Your Issue Global Competition: The United Nations, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, and other organizations and media leaders have joined forces to engage young adults (14-24) in contributing to the public dialogue on pressing social issues using the power of the Internet and user-generated content.

Film Your Issue invites high school and college students in the United States and around the world to express themselves on pressing contemporary issues by creating and up-loading short two-minute films on issues that impact them andtheir generation.

Films can be uploaded to multiple parti-cipating platforms, including MTV, YouTube, and American Film Institute Screen Nation, as well as promoted on MySpace TV.

Awards and prizes include internships at USA Today, the UN, the award-winning PBS Series “P.O.V.”, and the Humane Society of the United States; a $5,000 college scholarship from the Gates Foundation; having your film broadcast on Starz; having entries distributed by the Associated Press to its 1,800 Online Video Network media outlets; being profiled on MTV News and presented at the NAACP annual conference; VIP Pass/film presen-tation at AFI Silverdocs; the Walter Cronkite Civic Engagement Leadership Award and Eleanor Roosevelt Humanitarian Award; and many more.

Deadline: April 14 each year.

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Georgia Rotary Student Program – USA: The Georgia Rotary Student Program is aimed at promoting world peace through understanding by offering scholarships to international students for one year of study in Georgia colleges and universities.

Participating students apply to the program and, if selected, receive scholarships that pay for;

1. Tuition

2. Book allowance

3. Meals

4. College-provided rooms.

Applicant must provide:

1. Transportation from country to USA and return

2. Medical insurance

3. $3,000 spending money

4. Any income taxes imposed by the government on the scholarship money

Program Application Eligibility Requirements:

1. Must be 18 years but not 25 years of age by August 1 the year studies begin

2. Have not studied in the USA

3. Must be single.

The scholarship covers one scholastic year, from August to May, and is aimed at funding students’ efforts to study in colleges and universities in Georgia, USA.

Students live on campuses, but spend weekends with their host families.

Each year, about 80 students from all over the world make friends in the United States and other nations and learn about differing cultures and life styles.

The number of students from different countries varies each year.

Application deadline: October 1 every year.

Email: grsp [at] grsp.org

For more information and application; Georgia Rotary Student Program – USA

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The Institute for Humane Studies Scholarships of up to $15,000 are awarded to undergraduate or graduates to study in the United States or abroad.

About 180 scholarships are awarded to outstanding undergraduate, graduate, law, and professional students who are exploring the principles, practices, and institutions necessary to a free society through their academic work.

Each year IHS award scholarships to students from universities around the world and sponsors the attendance of hundreds of students at its summer seminars and other educational programs.

All qualified men and women will be considered for Humane Studies Fellowships without regard to race, religion, national or ethnic origin, citizenship, or handicap.

Although IHS considers applications from outside the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom, fellowships are generally awarded to applicants who live, or are studying, in those countries.

Application deadline: December 31.

For further details, and application materials, contact: Institute for Humane Studies Scholarships Website

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