Health News Round up: China finds African swine fever in country's south, fuelling supply worries

China finds African swine fever in country's south, fuelling supply worries

China's three-month-old outbreak of African swine fever has spread for the first time to the country's south, its major pork-consuming region, signaling how deeply the deadly disease has permeated the country's pig herd, the world's largest. Two new cases reported in the southwestern province of Yunnan on Sunday came as China enters its peak pig production period ahead of the country's most important festival, the New Year holiday, which will be held in early February 2019.

Kellogg to bring back Honey Smacks cereal after Salmonella Scare

Kellogg Co said on Monday it would bring back Honey Smacks cereal on U.S. retailer shelves in November, months after it pulled the product due to a Salmonella scare. Kellogg in June decided to recall an estimated 1.3 million cases of its Honey Smacks cereal from more than 30 U.S. states due to the potential contamination that health regulators say was linked to more than 60 illnesses.

Philip Morris stop-smoking campaign attacked as a PR stunt

Marlboro cigarette maker Philip Morris International drew accusations of hypocrisy on Monday after using a four-page newspaper advertisement to urge smokers to quit cigarettes. The wraparound advertisement covering Monday's Daily Mirror tabloid is part of Philip Morris's 2 million pounds ($2.61 million) "Hold My Light" campaign, in which the world's biggest international tobacco company is pushing a 30-day challenge for people to give up smoking.

Teaching new moms how to soothe infants might make vaccinations less stressful

When getting their infants vaccinated, mothers were more likely to use proven techniques to ease babies' pain if they had been taught how to do so before taking their newborns home from the hospital, a study found. "Our primary goal was to give parents information that in general, they don't normally learn from anyone: how to soothe babies when they are in distress," said study leader Anna Taddio, a professor in the Leslie Dan Faculty of Pharmacy at the University of Toronto and a senior associate scientist at the Hospital for Sick Children. "Parents tell us that it is quite stressful for them when their children have painful procedures done."

U.S. farmers, government fight risk of African swine fever

U.S. hog farmers are ramping up safety procedures and leaving animal-feed ingredients imported from China in storage in an attempt to keep out a highly contagious swine disease that is sweeping through Asia and Europe. U.S. government officials said in interviews on Friday they are also increasing their ability to test for the disease, African swine fever, and drawing up plans to respond quickly if a case is identified.

Merck KGaA says might strike partnership deal this year

German drugmaker Merck KGaA might agree to partnership deals to jointly develop two of its most promising experimental medicines with a rival as early as this year, but more likely in 2019, its drug research and development chief said on Sunday. "It's possible even as early as the end of the year but that's really a stretch - or sometime in 2019," Luciano Rossetti told Reuters at the annual congress of the European Society for Medical Oncology in Munich on Sunday.

Roche lands Tecentriq trial win still trails Merck in lung cancer

Roche's Tecentriq plus chemotherapy boosted lung cancer patients' survival by nearly five months, study data released on Monday showed, underscoring benefits of the Swiss group's immunotherapy but still leaving it trailing a rival's drug. Tecentriq added to a chemotherapy backbone of carboplatin/nab-paclitaxel in first-line non-squamous non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) boosted median overall survival (OS) to 18.6 months, Roche said, compared to 13.9 months for those getting just chemotherapy.

China watchdog probes unit of catering giant Compass over expired school food

Chinese authorities are probing a local unit of global catering giant Compass Group Plc over mouldy and expired food found at a private school served by the group and said it would inspect other schools around the city. The market supervisory administration said in a statement over the weekend it was investigating Shanghai Eurest Food Technologies Service Co Ltd's operating qualifications and food safety controls at the Shanghai SMIC Private School.

Organic foods tied to slightly lower cancer risk

People who eat more organic foods may be slightly less likely to develop certain cancers, a French study suggests. Compared to people who consumed the least amount of organic foods, people who consumed the most were 25 percent less likely to develop cancer during the study. In absolute terms, this translated into about a 0.6 percent lower risk of cancer.

AstraZeneca's Lynparza shown to put brakes on ovarian cancer

An AstraZeneca drug that blocks a cancer cell's ability to repair its genetic code greatly reduced the risk of ovarian cancer worsening in a phase III trial, underpinning its lead against two U.S. rivals in the same class. Given as a maintenance therapy to reinforce initial chemotherapy, Lynparza halted or reversed tumor growth in 60 percent of patients three years into the trial. Only 28 percent of those in a chemotherapy-only control group were spared tumor progression at that stage.

(With inputs from agencies.)