Health News Summary: Strides in lung cancer lead a steep decline in U.S. cancer deaths

Following is a summary of current health news briefs.

India reports H5N1 bird flu outbreak in Chhattisgarh state: OIE

India has reported an outbreak of the highly contagious H5N1 bird flu virus on a poultry farm in the central state of Chhattisgarh, the World Organization for Animal Health (OIE) said on Wednesday, citing a report from India's fisheries and animal husbandry ministry. The virus killed 5,634 out of 21,060 birds on the farm in Baikunthpur and all of the remaining birds were slaughtered, the Paris-based OIE said in an website alert.

Strides in lung cancer lead steep decline in U.S. cancer deaths

(Reuters Health) - Cancer deaths in the United States fell 2.2% from 2016 to 2017 - the largest single-year drop ever recorded - fueled in large part by progress against lung cancer, the leading cause of cancer death, the American Cancer Society (ACS) reported Wednesday. Overall, cancer death rates in the United States fell 29 percent from 1991 to 2017, driven by steady drops in deaths from lung, colorectal, breast and prostate cancers, according to the Society's annual report on cancer rates and trends published in CA: A Cancer Journal for Clinicians. Feces-smeared fakes:

Scientists use rubber hands in OCD therapy

A new type of therapy using feces and fake rubber hands may be able to help patients with obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) overcome their fears of touching contaminated surfaces, according to new research. "OCD can be an extremely debilitating condition for many people, but the treatments are not always straightforward," said Baland Jalal, a Cambridge University neuroscientist who was part of a team assessing if rubber hands could be a potential new type of exposure therapy.

'Hotspotting' patients with extensive needs fails to reduce hospital readmissions

As a method for reducing health costs and improving care for people with complex medical problems, an early effort at "hot-spotting" patients to get extra attention has turned out to be not so hot. Researchers looked at so-called "super-utilizers" patients who require a disproportionate amount of medical resources - in part because they're poor or don't have someone to look out for them when they leave the hospital. Their study, published in The New England Journal of Medicine, found these patients don't avoid rehospitalization even if nurses, social workers and community health workers are looking out for them after they've been discharged. Regeneron's bone disorder drug reduces bone lesions in mid-stage study

Regeneron Pharmaceuticals Inc said on Thursday its experimental treatment for a very rare genetic disorder proved more effective than placebo in reducing bone lesions. The drug, garetosmab, was tested on patients with fibrodysplasia ossificans progressiva (FOP) in a mid-stage study.

African swine fever spreads near the German border: OIE

Poland recorded 55 outbreaks of African swine fever in wild boar near the German border last month, the world animal health body said on Thursday, in a sign the deadly virus is spreading near one of the European Union's biggest pork exporters. A report posted on the World Organization for Animal Health (OIE) website showed that the disease, which has devastated herds in the world's top pork producer China, had now been found in a village less than 30 kilometres (18.6 miles) from Germany. WHO says new virus may have caused China pneumonia outbreak

A cluster of more than 50 pneumonia cases in China's central city of Wuhan may be due to a newly emerging member of the family of viruses that caused the deadly SARS and MERS outbreaks, World Health Organization (WHO) said on Wednesday. While the United Nations health agency said it needed more comprehensive information to confirm precisely the type of pathogen causing the infections, it said a new coronavirus was a possibility.

Merck's Keytruda wins U.S. FDA approval for bladder cancer

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration said on Wednesday it approved Merck & Co Inc's Keytruda for a hard-to-treat form of bladder cancer, making it the first new treatment for the cancer in more than two decades. The therapy was approved for patients with a high-risk, non-muscle-invasive bladder cancer who have undergone prior treatment and are ineligible for or have opted out of surgical removal of the bladder.

China court jails founder of traditional medicine firm over pyramid scheme

A Chinese court jailed on Wednesday the founder of a local traditional Chinese medicine firm for running a pyramid scheme, after the death of a young girl with cancer was linked to the company in an online article that sparked anger on social media. Shu Yuhui, founder and chairman of Quanjian Nature Medicine Technology Development, was sentenced to nine years in prison and fined 50 million yuan ($7.2 million), according to the court. The company was fined 100 million yuan.

'Goldrush': Race is on for health data in East Europe's frontier market

Eastern Europe is a new frontier for private medical care, and insurers and tech startups are racing to steal a march on their rivals by harnessing the region's health data. Growing numbers of people in Eastern European states, from Hungary and Poland to Romania, are turning to private health. The shift is being driven by rising wages, coupled with low public health spending which has often led to staff shortages and long waiting times for tests and surgery.