Health News Roundup: Genetics research gets help from social media; Brain fever kills 97 children in India

Following is a summary of current health news briefs.

GSK pharma head flags need for speed in high-pressure drug market

Doing things one at a time in drug development is not a luxury that GlaxoSmithKline can afford any longer, the head of pharmaceuticals at Britain's largest drugmaker told Reuters. Luke Miels, who joined GSK in September 2017 after a contract dispute with his former employer AstraZeneca, said picking the most promising projects and developing them quickly now takes precedence over spreading the risk of failure.

Ebola's spread shows how science needs societies to succeed

The persistence of Congo's Ebola outbreak and its deadly spread to Uganda in recent days show how societal issues are as crucial as scientific advances in controlling disease outbreaks, specialists in global public health say. Medical scientists, prompted by a devastating West African Ebola epidemic between 2013 and 2016, have worked fast to develop cutting edge vaccines, treatments and antibody-based therapies they hoped would prevent or halt future outbreaks of the virus. That includes an Ebola vaccine developed by Merck & Co Inc that proved more than 95 percent effective in clinical trials.

U.S. records 22 new measles cases, bringing year's total to 1,044

The United States recorded 22 new measles cases last week, bringing the year's total number of cases to 1,044 in the worst outbreak of the disease since 1992, federal health officials said on Monday. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said https://www.cdc.gov/measles/cases-outbreaks.html the number of cases of the highly contagious and sometimes deadly disease rose 2.2% in the week ended June 13 from the prior week. The 2019 outbreak, which has spread to 28 states, is the worst since 1992, when 2,126 cases were recorded.

VBI's shares plunge after hep B vaccine fails secondary goal in late-stage trial

VBI Vaccines Inc said on Monday a late-stage study was unsuccessful in showing two doses of its hepatitis B vaccine were as effective as three doses of an older vaccine from GlaxoSmithKline, sending its shares plunging 66%. The study tested VBI's Sci-B-Vac against GSK's Engerix-B, a vaccine which was approved in the United States in 1989.

Eleven U.S. cancer centers get to charge more for care

For several decades, certain cancer centers have been allowed by the U.S. government to charge more for the care they give. A new study finds the care given at these centers isn't very different from that received at other top-notch facilities. Since the early 80s, the 11 centers have been exempt from the "Prospective Payment System," meaning they are allowed to charge much higher rates for Medicare and Medicaid patients compared to similar centers without being forced to justify that price difference, according to the report in JAMA Internal Medicine.

eSwatini bans imports of live pigs from countries affected by African swine fever

The Kingdom of eSwatini, formerly known as Swaziland, banned imports of live pigs on Monday from countries that test positive for African Swine Fever (ASF) after an outbreak of the disease in neighboring South Africa. The movement of pigs between farms will be strictly controlled, the director of veterinary and livestock services, Xolani Dlamini, said in a statement in the Swazi Observer.

Genetics research gets help from social media

Researchers have harnessed the power of social media to build a genetic database, according to a new report. The "Genes for Good" project, which turned to Facebook to recruit people to fill out surveys and send in saliva samples for DNA analysis, has thus far collected data from more than 27,000 volunteers.

Brain fever kills 97 children in east India

Nearly 100 children have died this month from encephalitis, commonly known as brain fever, in the eastern Indian state of Bihar, a state health official said on Monday. Ninety-seven children had died and 146 were being treated for the disease, which occurs in seasonal outbreaks every summer, Shailesh Prasad Singh, a medical official in the Muzaffarpur district of the state, told Reuters.

Israel's Zebra Medical gets FDA ok for brain bleeds product

Zebra Medical Vision, an Israel medical imaging analytics company, said on Monday it received its third clearance from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for its alert for intracranial hemorrhage, based on head CT scans. The latest cleared product uses artificial intelligence to automatically identify suspected internal brain bleeds based on head CTs. This can significantly reduce turnaround time and increase the radiologists' confidence in their diagnosis, Zebra said.