Ending coverage for 250,000 won’t threaten U.S. funds Arizona doesn’t need federal approval to eliminate 250,000 people from its Medicaid rolls in order to continue to receive federal matching dollars, health officials said Tuesday. Lawmakers had sought to eliminate coverage for low-income Arizonans to help close a huge budget shortfall, but recently passed federal health reform mandates that states maintain their level of coverage. In a letter to Brewer today, U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said the…

The diagnosis of tuberculosis in a nursing student prompted a briefing by health officials Tuesday to 174 students, faculty and staff members at the University of Texas Health Science Center who might have been exposed. The student, who isn’t being identified, is undergoing treatment, according to a university statement. Staff of the Metropolitan Health District conducted the briefing and are trying to determine which of those 174 might be at risk and should be tested. It wasn’t known if any…

EDINBURG — Through brick wall after brick wall, Gloria Salinas and her staff kept searching for Patient Zero. In cracking a tuberculosis outbreak that most health professionals thought impossible to solve, Salinas proved that a diagnostic practice previously confined to the laboratory setting could be applied in the time-intensive investigations that are her clinic’s forte. Salinas, the TB program manager for the Hidalgo County Health and Human Services Department, has spent the last 14 years handling TB prevention and treatment…

LAS CRUCES – The New Mexico State University Nursing School, the New Mexico Department of Health and Las Cruces Public Schools are collaborating to provide immunization clinics in seven LCPS middle schools in late February and early March. Sixth-grade students will receive a dose of the Tdap (tetanus, diphtheria and acellular pertussis) vaccine. The Department of Health and the district require all students entering seventh grade to get a Tdap vaccination. Infants and children receive vaccinations for these diseases, but…

BEIJING (AP) — China is ordering makers of films and TV shows to limit the amount of smoking depicted on-screen, the latest effort to curb rampant tobacco use in the country with the largest number of smokers in the world. The order from the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television viewed Tuesday on its website orders producers to minimize plot lines and scenes involving tobacco and show smoking only when necessary for artistic purposes or character development. Minors under…

In the colonias along the Texas-Mexico border, researching have reported that the health of the people in these areas is often far worse than those outside, showing a link between poverty and health. Within the 350 Texas colonias, almost 45,000 residents have been classified as being of the “highest health risk” by the state. This means these people have “no running water, no wastewater treatment, no paved roads or solid waste disposal. Water- and mosquito-borne illnesses are rampant, the result…