Health News Roundup: Booker unveils plans for Americans; Pakistan vaccination drive highlights Polio risk

Following is a summary of current health news briefs.

Two Ebola health workers killed in eastern Congo

Unidentified attackers killed two Ebola health workers in eastern Congo over the weekend, the latest in a string of assaults that have hobbled efforts to contain the second largest ever outbreak of the deadly virus, the health ministry said. The two people, who were community workers near Mukulia in North Kivu province, had been receiving threats since December and one had already been attacked, the ministry said.

Democrat Booker unveils plan for Americans to age at home

Democratic presidential candidate Cory Booker was set to unveil a plan on Monday to greatly increase funding for elderly Americans needing long-term health care, and also to increase funding for people who look after them. Booker, a U.S. senator from New Jersey, was due to tell a forum in the early voting state of Iowa that he would make a dramatic investment in care for people with long-term health care needs if he was elected president.

Biden healthcare plan would curb drug prices, raise taxes on rich

Former U.S. Vice President Joe Biden, the front-runner in the Democratic presidential race, unveiled a healthcare plan on Monday estimated to cost $750 billion and paid for partly by higher tax rates for the wealthy and doubled tax rates on capital gains. "The Biden plan to protect and build on the Affordable Care Act" seeks to strengthen the signature healthcare plan, popularly known as Obamacare, enacted under former Democratic President Barack Obama. Biden was Obama's vice president for eight years.

China to investigate local authorities' efforts to control African swine fever

China's agriculture ministry said on Monday it will carry out checks on local veterinary authorities in 10 provinces as it tries to slow the ongoing spread of the deadly African swine fever virus. The investigations come after China's cabinet said earlier this month there were deficiencies in the country's efforts to control and prevent the disease, which has reached every province of the country and is still spreading, almost a year after the first outbreak.

U.N. calls for hundreds of millions in more aid to fight Ebola

Democratic Republic of Congo's Ebola outbreak could last much longer and cost far more in money and lives unless U.N. member states inject hundreds of millions of dollars now, U.N. humanitarian chief Mark Lowcock told Reuters on Monday. Speaking before a meeting in Geneva to raise funds for the response to Congo's worst recorded Ebola outbreak, Lowcock also called on U.N. member states to help end violence in the area.

Fake polio markers highlight risks to Pakistan vaccination drive

Pakistan's polio eradication campaign has hit serious problems with an alarming spike in reported cases that has raised doubts over the quality of vaccination reporting and prompted officials to review their approach to stopping the crippling disease. The country is one of only three in the world where polio is endemic, along with neighboring Afghanistan and Nigeria, but vaccination campaigns have cut the disease sharply, with only a dozen cases last year compared with 306 in 2014 and more than 350,000 in 1988, according to Pakistani health officials.

AstraZeneca's Farxiga fails to get U.S. approval for Type-1 diabetes

British drugmaker AstraZeneca Plc said on Monday the U.S. Food and Drug Administration declined to approve its diabetes treatment, Farxiga, for use as a supplement to insulin in adults with a rare-type of the condition. The company said the regulator issued a complete response letter, declining its application for using the drug in patients with Type-1 diabetes where insulin alone has not been able to control blood sugar levels.

Oklahoma, J&J to wrap up first trial over opioid crisis

Oklahoma's attorney general is expected on Monday to urge a judge to find Johnson & Johnson responsible for flooding the market with painkillers and fueling the U.S. opioid epidemic, as the first trial in nationwide litigation over the drug crisis comes to an end. Lawyers for Attorney General Mike Hunter and J&J are set to deliver closing arguments in state court in Norman, Oklahoma following six weeks of testimony from current and former J&J executives and victims of the epidemic.

GSK drug helps ovarian cancer patients live longer in late-stage study

GlaxoSmithKline Plc's cancer treatment Zejula met the main goal of helping patients with ovarian cancer live longer without their disease worsening in a late-stage study, the company said on Monday. The company bought the drug when it acquired U.S. cancer specialist Tesaro for $5.1 billion in December and Zejula is already approved for certain ovarian cancer patients.

Ebola case in Congo's Goma a possible gamechanger - WHO

The first case of Ebola in Democratic Republic of Congo's eastern city of Goma is a potential gamechanger in the scale of the outbreak, World Health Organization chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said on Monday. Tedros said he was hopeful that there would be no further spread of the disease in the city, but he was convening the WHO's emergency committee to decide if the outbreak now constituted an international health emergency.