LONDON, Dec. 31 (UPI) —

Young people under the age of 18 are more likely than adults to catch H1N1 from an infected person in their home, U.S. and British researchers found.

Scientists at the MRC Centre for Outbreak Analysis & Modelling at Imperial College London and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention analyzed data collected by CDC from 216 people believed to be infected with H1N1 and 600 people living in their households.

The study, published in the New England Journal of Medicine, revealed the average length of time between one person displaying the first symptoms of flu and someone else in their household having symptoms is 2.6 days.

At the start of the current flu pandemic we didn’t know how different factors affected the risk of transmitting the virus to other people, lead author Dr. Simon Cauchemez of Imperial College London said in a statement.

Our new research helps us to do this — for example it shows that children are more at risk of being infected than adults.

The study also suggests that people infected with swine flu might not need to stay at home as long as we previously thought — if they are only likely to transmit the virus to other people for the first few days of their illness, Cauchemez said.

BAMAKO, Mali, Dec. 31 (UPI) —

A device introduced by Swiss researchers to the West African nation of Mali will detect bogus or substandard medicine within minutes, the researchers said.

The capillary electrophoresis technology, using thin wires hooked to electrodes to analyze a medicine’s chemical properties, will weaken Mali’s growing counterfeit medicine market, which most often targets patients with life-threatening diseases such as malaria, tuberculosis and HIV/AIDS, the Integrated Regional Information Networks reported.

Until now, Mali’s national health laboratory used a chemical analysis that was cumbersome and costly, Director Benoit Yaranga Koumare said.

Getting results could take a day, compared with 10 minutes with capillary electrophoresis, he said.

Mali’s lab will use the device to analyze antibiotics amoxicillin and clotrimazole, prescribed for diarrhea and ear infections; the HIV therapy of lamivudine, zidovudine and nevirapine; anti-malarial quinidine; and the antibiotic rifampicin, to treat tuberculosis and leprosy.

The drug-testing technology — used in Europe, Japan and the United States — typically costs $80,000. But Swiss researchers delivered a prototype to the Mali lab for less than $7,000, said the Integrated Regional Information Network, an independent news agency associated with the United Nations focusing on humanitarian stories.

The University of Geneva donated labor and research costs, Serge Rudaz of the university’s School of Pharmaceutical Sciences told IRIN.

Counterfeit drug sales worldwide will reach $75 billion in 2010, an increase of more than 90 percent since 1995, the Center for Medicine in the Public Interest estimates.

Eighty percent of medicines sold in Africa are imported, the World health Organization says.

CAIRO, Dec. 31 (UPI) —

Cases of the virus that causes AIDS have risen six-fold in Egypt, moving the Arab country toward an HIV epidemic, a government report said.

The number of people reported living with the human immunodeficiency virus in Egypt rose to 3,735 by the end of 2008, a six-fold increase since 1994, the report by the Information and Decision Support Center, the research arm of the Egyptian Cabinet, showed.

Of the 2008 total, 963 people, or 25.8 percent of the reported HIV patients, had developed AIDS, the report said.

Local non-governmental organizations dealing with HIV and AIDS and the Joint United Nations Program on HIV/AIDS said the figure could be far higher, the Integrated Regional Information Networks reported.

The Egyptian Cabinet report said HIV cases could be found in all Egyptian administrative divisions, with the exception of northern and southern areas of the Sinai Peninsula.

Egypt’s two most populous cities, Cairo and Alexandria, had the most cases, the report said.

Three-quarters of Egyptians living with HIV were age 25 to 49, the most productive segment of society, the report said.

While Egypt’s number of HIV and AIDS cases was low compared with those in other countries, the report’s findings shocked many in this predominantly conservative Muslim society, where extramarital sex is banned, said IRIN, a independent news agency associated with the United Nations focusing on humanitarian stories.

Risky sexual activities can’t be controlled, Magdy Badran, a leading Egyptian immunologist, told IRIN. Also, there’s a real expansion of drug addiction in this country. These are things that can spread the disease dramatically.

DETROIT, Dec. 31 (UPI) —

Breast cancer patients with hot flashes may benefit from acupuncture, a U.S. researcher says.

Dr. Eleanor Walker of Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit said acupuncture has the added benefit of potentially increasing a woman’s sex drive and improving her sense of well-being.

Acupuncture offers patients a safe, effective and durable treatment option for hot flashes, something that affects the majority of breast cancer survivors, Walker, the study leader, said in a statement. Compared to drug therapy, acupuncture actually has benefits, as opposed to more side effects.

In the study, breast cancer patients with hot flashes were randomly assigned to receive either acupuncture or drug therapy.

At the end of 12 weeks, all patients stopped their therapy, kept a diary and were tracked for one year.

The study, published in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, found both groups initially experienced a 50 percent decline in hot flashes and depressive symptoms, indicating acupuncture was as effective as the drug therapy.

However, the drug therapy group soon had a significant increase in hot flashes but the acupuncture group continued to experience minimal hot flashes until three months post-treatment.

WASHINGTON, Dec. 31 (UPI) —

New technologies could make treatment tailored to the patient’s genetic make-up — personalized medicine — a reality, U.S. researchers say.

researchers at Georgetown Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Center in Washington report using a new chip — called DMET for drug-metabolizing enzymes — to look for hundreds of mutations in as many as 170 genes.

A test unveiling genetic variations that correlate with drug effectiveness and toxicity is needed so the genetic variations — specifically genes that encode proteins that impact how a drug is metabolized or taken in by the cells — can be taken into account.

This type of turn-key testing, if validated, could eventually replace highly-specialized, time-consuming and labor-intensive testing — thus allowing more institutes the opportunity to pursue genotyping and pharmocogenetic research, John Deeken says in a statement.

Deeken and colleagues report their results testing the genotyping platform DMET in The Pharmacogenomics Journal.

DMET appears to offer great promise in this field as a reliable test unveiling genetic variations that correlated with drug effectiveness and toxicity, Deeken says in a statement. Still, DMET isn’t yet ready for prime time in terms of having received Food and Drug Administration approval, but we’re getting closer.

NEW ORLEANS, Dec. 31 (UPI) —

U.S. researchers associated injuries in young people to the type of alcohol outlet — stores that sell alcohol, bars and restaurants — they frequented.

Richard Scribner of Louisiana State University in New Orleans and Paul Gruenewald of the Prevention research Center in Berkeley, Calif., and colleagues found in young people of legal age, a greater number of alcohol-serving restaurants was related to traffic injuries and a greater number of bars to assault injuries.

There is a strong association between an increasing density of off-premise outlets such as convenience stores and liquor stores and higher rates of all injury outcomes among both underage youth and young adults.

The study, published online ahead of print in the March issue of Alcoholism: Clinical & Experimental research, suggested the neighborhood’s alcohol environment plays a role in the risk exposure of young people.

This is hopeful because a community-based approach that addresses the over concentration of alcohol outlets in a neighborhood where youth injuries are a problem is relatively easy compared with interventions targeting each youth individually, Scribner said in a statement.

The researchers looked at non-public hospital discharge data from the California Office of Statewide health Planning and Development. They linked 99 percent of the discharges to residential zip codes and demographic and other data related to alcohol outlets in relation to underage youth between ages 18-20 and of-age young adults ages 21-29.

SAN FRANCISCO, Dec. 31 (UPI) —

Cardiovascular devices are often based on studies that lack adequate strength or may have been prone to bias, U.S. researchers say.

Dr. Sanket S. Dhruva of the University of California, San Francisco, and colleagues analyzed the type and quality of study evidence used by the Food and Drug Administration for the pre-market approval of cardiovascular devices.

These types of devices were included in the study because it was expected they would undergo the most stringent approval process, given their increasing usage and potential impact on illness and risk of death.

In 2008, at least 350,000 pacemakers, 140,000 implantable cardioverter-defibrillators, and 1,230,000 stents were implanted, study authors said in a statement.

The authors conducted a systematic review of 123 summaries of safety and effectiveness data for 78 pre-market approvals for high-risk cardiovascular devices that received pre-market approval between January 2000 and December 2007, examining the methodological characteristics and primary end points.

The study, published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, found that of nearly 80 high-risk devices, the majority received approval based on data from a single study.

BIRMINGHAM, Ala., Dec. 31 (UPI) —

Younger hunters are more likely than older hunters to suffer serious injuries in tree-stand accidents, University of Alabama at Birmingham researchers said.

The higher injury rates among hunters age 15 to 34 are tied to a greater willingness to take risks, less exposure to safety information and more time spent hunting than older hunters, said Gerald McGwin Jr., associate director for research at the university’s Center for Injury Sciences.

Hunters 15 to 24 had injury rates of 55.7 per 100,000 and those age 25 to 34 averaged 61 injuries per 100,000, said McGwin’s study, published in the Journal of Trauma, Injury, Infection and Critical Care.

By contrast, Hunters older than 65 had injury rates of only 22.4 per 100,000, the study found.

Men were twice as likely as women to be injured.

The most common injuries were hip and leg fractures, followed by injuries to the trunk, shoulder and upper extremities.

Head and spinal cord injuries were less common, but still significant, the study found.

The study said tree-stand manufacturers could help prevent injuries by providing more support for the hunters, particularly for the minimalistic stands such as climbing or ladder stands.

An estimated 46,860 hunters were injured using tree stands from 2000 to 2007, the study found.

Some 12.5 million people hunt in the United States.

CWMRHYDYCEIRW, Wales, Dec. 31 (UPI) —

Binge drinking has sparked a rash of gout among Welsh men in their 20s, likely leading to chronic ill health, a hospital emergency room consultant says.

The disease, characterized by painful inflammation of the joints, especially in the feet and hands, was formerly more common in males in their 50s, due to medicine or rich diets, said accident and emergency consultant Mike McCade of Morriston Hospital in Cwmrhydyceirw, Wales.

But we are seeing it now in men in their mid 20s, often due to alcohol, and it will cause them chronic ill health, he told the South Wales Echo.

Gout can be very debilitating — it’s not a laughing matter, he said.

Binge drinking is also leading to early stages of liver damage and problems such as hypertension among people in their 20s and 30s, Dr. David Bailey, chairman of the Welsh general practitioners committee, told the newspaper.

Gout — historically known as the disease of kings or the rich man’s disease — is caused by elevated levels of uric acid in the blood. The uric acid crystallizes and deposits in joints, tendons and surrounding tissues.

Affecting 1 percent of the Western populations, it is marked by chronic or acute inflammatory arthritis, causing red, hot, tender, swollen joints, with the skin sometimes turning purplish red.

The elevated uric acid is also the major constituent of kidney stones.

U.S. research published in 2004 found that drinking two or three beers a day can increase the risk of developing gout by as much as 2 1/2 times.

Beer was found to be a more likely cause of gout than wine or hard liquor. Gout has also been linked to the consumption of sugary soft drinks.

UNITED NATIONS, Dec. 31 (UPI) —

Swine flu remains intense in Central and Eastern Europe and parts of Asia, despite ebbing in North America and Western Europe, the head of a U.N. agency says.

It is premature to say the pandemic has peaked worldwide, World health Organization Director-General Margaret Chan said.

The situation needs to be watched and monitored at least another six to 12 months, she told The Wall Street Journal.

The virus could still mutate to become more severe, she warned.

And while global health officials’ responses to pandemic show big improvements in flu-fighting capabilities, limited vaccine supplies, crowded emergency rooms and other challenges suggest officials are not fully equipped to combat a deadlier scourge, Chan told the newspaper.

Confirmed cases of the H1N1 swine-flu strain were reported in more than 208 countries and territories, and at least 12,220 people worldwide have died, WHO said.

Of that mortality figure, more than 1,300 were under age 18, indicating H1N1 has killed five times as many children and young adults as seasonal flu, the agency said.

A new wave is possible in the Southern Hemisphere in a few months, when its flu season returns, Chan said.

In the United States, the flu was widespread in only seven states as of Dec. 19, the most recent data available from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention indicated.