Ebola experts are in Sierra Leone’s Kambia district investigating a case that emerged less than a week after the country’s last known patient was discharged from a hospital, a World Health Organization spokeswoman said Monday. Once the source of transmission is found and contacts are traced, a vaccination trial will also begin in the northern Sierra Leone area, WHO spokeswoman Dr. Margaret Harris said. “It’s a step back and a disappointment, but it wasn’t a surprise as it’s near the…

Katherine Sanchez, , Ph.D., L.C.S.W., Rick Ybarra, , M.A., Teresa Chapa, , Ph.D., M.P.A., Octavio N. Martinez, , M.D., M.P.H. Integrated care holds promise for reducing mental health disparities for racial and ethnic minority groups, but studies are lacking. The authors consider critical components of effective integrated models for minority populations, including cultural and linguistic competence and a diverse workforce, and describe emerging best practices. To successfully implement integrated models into practice with minority populations will require guidance from communities,…

Health officials admit they are worried by the timing, as the kingdom prepares to welcome around two million Muslims for the Hajj next month. Mers infections have been recorded in countries across the Middle East, Europe and Asia. The virus first emerged in Saudi Arabia in 2012. The World Health Organization (WHO) says many of the recent cases are associated with an outbreak at a hospital in Riyadh. Mers is caused by a coronavirus, a type of virus which includes…

The United Nations World Health Organization (WHO) is appealing for a safe corridor to reach more than 3 million people in war-torn Yemen’s most populated governorate, Taiz, where “an extreme spike” in cases of dengue fever has been recorded over the past two weeks. “There is an urgent need for a humanitarian corridor to assess the situation and institute control measures,” said Dr. Ala Alwan, WHO’s Regional Director for the Eastern Mediterranean. “We need protection and safety for all people…

China enforced sweeping new rules on Tuesday to restrict tobacco advertisements, in its latest step to rein in a widespread habit that has caused a massive health crisis. More than 300 million people have made cigarettes part of the social fabric in the world’s biggest producer and consumer of tobacco, and another 740 million are exposed to second-hand smoke, state media have reported. Revisions to the national advertisement law, passed in April, ban tobacco advertisements in mass media, public places,…

Six inmates at the San Quentin State Prison in California tested positive for Legionnaires’ disease on Sunday morning. Five of them have been sent to outside hospitals for treatment. Fifty-one others are under observation for symptoms of respiratory illness, Reuters reports. The Legionnaires’ disease scare hit San Quentin State Prison after an inmate tested positive for the disease on Thursday, prompting prison officials to carry out measures to prevent the spread of the disease. Water was shut off, including showers…

Nearly 1 in 5 adults over 65 in California — more than three-quarters of a million people — live in an economic no-man’s land, unable to afford basic needs but often ineligible for government assistance, according to a new study by the UCLA Center for Health Policy Research. The study, funded by the California Wellness Foundation, highlights the plight of the “hidden poor” — those who live in the gap between the federal poverty level and the Elder Index’s poverty…

Shortly before 1 a.m. on July 15, Gov. Greg Abbott sent an email from his personal account to his top advisers about an editorial published by the Houston Chronicle. Its author, Ken Janda, had written that Texas’ health care safety net system for the poor and uninsured was “in serious danger of meltdown” because state leaders were refusing to expand health coverage to a million uninsured Texans living in poverty. The governor told aides he wanted to “see the financials”…

Dean Meza doesn’t know it yet but his mother is providing him with the opportunity to grow up healthy. Miriam Meza-Jimenez is breast-feeding. “I know how important it is for me to breast-feed him,” said Meza-Jimenez, who gave birth to Dean on Aug. 24 at Las Palmas Medical Center. “I want him to be as healthy as he can be and this is the first step.” Meza-Jimenez is ahead of the game when it comes to the education she is…

The New Mexico Department of Health will begin to certify the first community health workers (CHWs) in the state. The Department is focusing certification efforts on experienced CHWs and will be utilizing the grandfathering process. It is estimated that there are between 800 and 900 CHWs in New Mexico. As part of Governor Susana Martinez’s Healthcare Workforce Initiative in 2014, legislation was passed and signed creating the Community Health Workers Act. It established a voluntary certification process for CHWs. “For…