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Angelina Jolie’s decision to go public about her double mastectomy led to a doubling in NHS referrals for genetic tests of breast cancer risk, a new study has found. The actress’s announcement in May last year coincided with an immediate uplift in GP referrals to family history clinics, with referral rates two-and-a-half times higher in June and July than in the same period in 2012. Researchers said that the "Angelina Jolie effect" lasted until at least October last year. Genetic testing is used to determine whether women with a family history of breast cancer carry mutations of specific genes, which significantly increase breast cancer risk and are believed to be responsible for between five and 10 per cent of all breast cancers. Ms Jolie’s decision to have both breasts removed was based on a positive test for a mutation of the BRCA1 gene. Her mother had died of breast cancer, and her aunt died only two weeks after the actress revealed she had undergone a mastect...

New York  - Joanne Liu, President of International Medical Charity – Medecins sans Frontieres – has accused world leaders of failing to come to grips with the Ebola threat in West Africa. She told UN member states in New York on Tuesday that the world leader’s response has not been favorable, as they have essentially joined a global coalition of inaction. Her remarks followed World Bank President Jim Yong Kim’s declaration on Monday that many people were dying unnecessarily from a disastrously inadequate response’’ to the disease. He added that wealthy nations ought to share their knowledge and resources to help African countries. Liu said the transmission rates had reached levels never reported in past Ebola outbreaks, and NGOs and the UN could not alone implement the WHO Global Road Map to fight the spreading and unpredictable outbreak. She said any military assets and personnel sent to the region should not be used for quarantine, containment, or crowd control measures ...

Nigeria has a third confirmed case of Ebola in the oil hub of Port Harcourt, bringing the country's total confirmed infections to 17, with 271 people under surveillance, the health minister said on Monday. The figure was revised up from an earlier one of 16, which had been the result of an error in counting. A doctor in Port Harcourt died last week after treating someone who came in contact of the Liberian-American man who was the first recorded case of the virus in Africa's most populous country. That raised alarm that Ebola, which looked on the verge of being contained in the commercial capital, Lagos, may flare up again elsewhere. Patrick Sawyer, the first case, came from Liberia, and then collapsed at Lagos airport on July 20. The shift to Port Harcourt shows how easily containment efforts can be undermined. Nigeria's government acted quickly at the end of July, setting up an isolation ward and monitoring contacts closely. But one of Sawyer's contacts in L...

The next time you gripe about getting older, think about Betty. The 76-year- old Minnesotan grandmother made a name for herself at the Green Cove Dragway in Green Cove Springs, Florida, in March by taking on a far younger racer – and winning. The other racer, Peter Miele, challenged Betty to a rematch, and on Aug. 16, she beat him. Again. (Ever the gracious loser, Miele presented Betty with bumper stickers reading "I beat Peter" after their match.) The GCD named the evening's races in her honor and used the occasion to raise money for breast cancer, which Betty has been living with since 1987. Betty "started out with dirt track [racing] in the late 1950s, running a '48 Ford with a '51 Lincoln engine," according to her profile on the GCD site. (She was also eight months pregnant when she came in first place in a race for the first time.) So if you're ever in Florida and see Betty on the highway, let her pass. She's earned it.

The number of deaths from Ebola virus disease in the West African countries of Liberia , Nigeria, Guinea, and Sierra Leone has spiked to 1350, the World Health Organization (WHO) said in its regular report. According to the organization, over the two days, “between 17 and 18 August 2014 a total of 221 new cases of Ebola virus disease (laboratory-confirmed, probable, and suspect cases) as well as 106 deaths were reported from Guinea, Liberia, Nigeria, and Sierra Leone.” The previous WHO reports put the number of Ebola-related deaths at 1145. The statement, published on the organization’s website Wednesday said also that “countries are beginning to experience supply shortages, including fuel, food, and basic supplies” after a number of companies decided to suspend services to the Ebola-hit countries.  Ebola hemorrhagic fever is a deadly disease, transmitted through direct contact with th...

All 600 people quarantined within the centre were in the suspected victim’s vicinity before she collapsed as reports indicated she had been in contact with ebola victims in her homeland. The latest scare came as the World Health Organisation said cases in West Africa’s ebola outbreak rose to 2,240, including 1,229 deaths. Quarantined: Job seekers and employees waits for permission from police to leave The WHO said it was working with the UN’s World Food Programme to try to get food to a million people in the ebola quarantine zones in Guinea, Liberia, Sierra Leone and Nigeria. Food has been delivered to hospitalised patients and people under quarantine who are not able to leave their homes to purchase food," the WHO said. "Providing regular food supplies is a potent means of limiting unnecessary movement, The WFP is stepping up emergency food deliveries to the quarantined areas, which...

Washington - A scary problem lurks beyond the frenzied efforts to keep people from spreading Ebola: No one knows exactly where the virus comes from or how to stop it from seeding new outbreaks. Ebola has caused two dozen outbreaks in Africa since it first emerged in 1976. It is coming from somewhere - probably bats - but experts agree they need to pinpoint its origins in nature. That has had to wait until they can tame the current outbreak, which has claimed more than 1 100 lives in four countries - the worst toll from Ebola in history. "First and foremost get the outbreak under control. Once that piece is resolved, then go back and find what the source is," said Jonathan Towner, a scientist who helped find the bat source of another Ebola-like disease called Marburg. Towner works for the US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention. Others say finding Ebola's origins is more than a down-the-road scientific curiosity. "Confirming the source would defin...