The forum will be attended by some officials, artists and the public.

 

The Health Services Department of Organ transplantation of Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences was the very first to lay the cornerstone for boosting the culture and psychology of organ donation eight years ago and succeeded in spiking the transplant of organs of brain-dead patients from 5% to 95% in 7 years from 2005 to 2012.

 

The annual convention is a great stride in saving the life of thousands who got a second chance to relive and experience the so-called “life” and it has been a gallant attempt to rescue many more in need of body and organs and tissues.

    

Organ donation story is nothing short of a love story; the story of reaching out to those on the brink of countdown to say their goodbyes yet at an immature stage; the tail of bringing the soul of the loved ones back to life by donating his body organs to a recipient. Although a tough decision to make, the future sight would ease the pain for the donor’s family. 

 

For more information, you may visit the website at www.ehda.ir.

 

Dr. Parviz Zarin-Bakhsh says the virus, probably caused by Adenovirus type, is characterized by redness of conjunctiva (the thin, transparent tissue that covers the outer surface of the eye) and at first sight looks like a bee sting. The infected eyelids get inflamed and painful and ooze pus.

 

Zarin-Bakhsh advised people to wash their hands with liquid soaps and clean the eyes with baby shampoos particularly after coming in contact with frequently touched surfaces like door handles, money, keyboards and such. 

 

The course of the disease is 3 to 4 weeks and during this period the patient’s entire personal property should remain separated from everybody else’s. 

 

After all, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.

 

 

However, experts stopped short of calling the two cured and said the treatment is not a viable option for the majority of HIV patients.

 

The findings were presented Wednesday at the International AIDS Society Conference in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

 

The two men, whose identities are being withheld, had been on antiretroviral (ARV) drug therapy for years before being diagnosed with lymphoma, a cancer of the lymph nodes.

 

Both underwent intensive chemotherapy followed by bone marrow transplants to treat the cancer. They remained on antiretroviral therapy.

 

Approximately four months after the transplant doctors were still able to detect HIV in their blood, but six to nine months later, all traces of the virus were gone.

 

"Because of those findings, we thought it was justified to take the patients off of their therapy to see what happens," said Dr. Timothy Henrich, who conducted the clinical trial.

 

"Now, in a normal person who has HIV, who has been on long-term antiretroviral therapy for years, usually the virus comes back within two to four weeks after stopping therapy, it comes right back. "

 

Some patients make it up to eight weeks before the virus returns, said Henrich, a researcher at Harvard Medical School and Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston, but the virus returns eight to 10 weeks after therapy is stopped in the vast majority of patients.

 

HIV discovery 'will change your life forever'

 

Not so for these two, however.

 

"We are now recording 15 weeks after therapy and eight weeks after therapy for our two patients, and to date we are unable to detect HIV rebounding in the bloodstream after we stopped the therapy," Henrich said.

 

"We do weekly monitoring, as well. We've been looking at the virus in the blood and the cells in the blood essentially every week since we've taken them off therapy, and we have not been able to detect virus at this time."

 

The two men are being compared to Timothy Ray Brown, also known as the "Berlin Patient." Brown is thought to be the first person ever "cured" of HIV/AIDS.

 

In 2007, Brown had a stem cell transplant to treat his leukemia. His doctor searched for a donor with a rare genetic mutation called CCR5 delta32 that makes stem cells naturally resistant to HIV infection.

 

Today, the virus is still undetectable in Brown's blood, and he is still considered to be "functionally cured." A functional cure means the virus is controlled and will not be transmitted to others.

 

The stem cell transplant procedure, however, is very dangerous because a patient's immune system has to be wiped out in order to accept the transplant.

 

Using a bone marrow transplant to treat HIV is not a feasible treatment for most patients, and only 1% of Caucasians -- mostly Northern Europeans -- and no African-Americans or Asians have the CCR5 delta32 mutation, researchers say.

 

The transplant is still not a practical strategy for the majority of HIV patients, and the risk of mortality is up to 20%, Henrich says.

 

Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases at the National Institutes of Health, agreed.

 

"This is not a practical approach for someone who does not need a stem cell transplant since the transplant and its preparation and its subsequent need for chronic immunosuppression is a risky procedure," Fauci said.

 

"If you have an underlying neoplasm (tumor) like these patients had, then the risk outweighs the benefit," he said. "However, if you are doing well on ARVs and you merely want to get off antiretroviral therapy, then the risk seems greater than the benefit."

 

HIV 'cure' in toddler offers 'global hope'

 

Even though the two patients showed a reduction of the virus in the blood, it could still be in some tissue -- the brain or gastrointestinal tract, for instance, Henrich said.

 

The virus "could certainly return," he said.

 

"It's possible, again, that the virus could return in a week, it could return in a month -- in fact, some mathematical modeling predicts that virus could even return one to two years after we stop antiretroviral therapy, so we really don't know what the long-term or full effects of stem cell transplantation and viral persistence is."

 

Still, he feels the information will help move the curative field of HIV research forward.

 

"We're going to learn different strategies about how we can attack the viral reservoir, how we can harness the immune system better and what exactly caused the lack of virus in the two patients at least in the short term."

 

Earlier this year, researchers said an HIV-positive baby in Mississippi was given high doses of three antiretroviral drugs within 30 hours of her birth, with doctors hoping that would control the virus.

 

Two years later, there is no sign of HIV in the child's blood, making her the first child to be "functionally cured" of HIV.

 

The Foundation for AIDS Research, or amfAR, helped fund the study.

 

"These findings clearly provide important new information that might well alter the current thinking about HIV and gene therapy," said amfAR CEO Kevin Robert Frost.

 

"While stem cell transplantation is not a viable option for people with HIV on a broad scale because of its costs and complexity, these new cases could lead us to new approaches to treating, and ultimately even eradicating, HIV."

 

"Dr. Henrich is charting new territory in HIV eradication research," said Dr. Rowena Johnston, amfAR vice president and director of research.

 

"Whatever the outcome, we will have learned more about what it will take to cure HIV. We believe amfAR's continued investments in HIV cure-based research are beginning to show real results and will ultimately lead us to a cure in our lifetime."

 

In the meantime, Henrich says he and other groups are actively enrolling patients for these types of studies.

 

(Source: CNN)

 

In an interview with Persian service of the Mehr News Agency, Dr. Abed Fatahi said at a minimum, combination of modern and traditional medical treatments could definitely create a new breakthrough in healthcare system in the country.

 

The lawmaker said Iran, as an ancient country, has various traditional herbs for remedies.

 

Many world countries, particularly Western states, have expressed willingness to import herbal medicine from ancient countries such as Iran, China and Greece.

 

“Today our outlook towards traditional medicine should focus on medical treatment as they have been used in the course of history,” he said. 

 

Fatahi called on medical students to do research on new treatments and find common areas between traditional and modern drugs. 

 

Seyyed Hassan Moein Shirazi, in an interview with the Persian service of the Mehr News on the occasion of World No Tobacco Day on Wednesday, said that Iran was the first country to approve the comprehensive tobacco control law in 2006, but unfortunately there has been no sign of progress in implementing the law.

 

“Foreign cigarettes have dominated the Iranian market by more than 90 percent,” Moein Shirazi said. “And smokers find cigarettes at their fingertips.” 

 

“Education, information and prevention are the three most effective factors in the battle against tobacco,” he explained.

 

IATA, founded in 1983, has worked hard to decrease tobacco consumption in the country.

 

IATA’s hard work has led to the ratification and implementation of Iran’s national tobacco control law, which includes pictorial health warnings and tobacco tax increases.

 

IATA’s work also includes: 

 

•    Establishing several cessation clinics;

•    Research on tobacco-related issues, such as effects of tobacco                       control policies on consumption.

•    Facilitating strategies for fighting tobacco smuggling.

•    Convincing officials on importance of tobacco control as a vital issue.

 

 

 

“Clean Breath” for the young

 

One of IATA’s more interesting tobacco control strategies is to target young people through its “Clean Breath” program.

 

The Clean Breath program targets young people in the hope to steer them away from smoking at an early age – before they have taken up the habit and find it harder to quit later in life.

 

A researcher said that a recent Iranian study into the smoking patterns of Tehran school students found that roughly 30 percent had already tried smoking.

 

Therefore, IATA believes that encouraging preventive methods from childhood and developing effective methods of child-rearing for parents will have a great effect on preventing young people from taking up smoking.

 

The program aims to increase children’s awareness about:

 

•    The harms of smoking to their physical, mental, social and economic well-being as well as the environment;
 

•    Unreasonable beliefs on tobacco use and the difficulty of quitting;
 

•    Acquiring self-knowledge and applying behavioral skills against cravings for smoking;
 

•    Training other family members to prevent tobacco use in the home and community.

 

Well-documented repots show global tobacco companies earn $900 million annually through buyers who are impressed by superstars’ smoking since the popular artists are the best advertising source for cigarette, cigar and tobacco manufacturers. 

 

Cartoons characters such as Pink Panther are the best smoking models among youngsters.

 

Meanwhile, reports show that IRIB (the Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting) with widespread ban of scenes displaying tobacco smoking could ward off 52 percent of young adults and adolescents between 12 to 17 years from the hazards of cigarette smoking. 

 

Our kids learn social norms on TV screens and get impressed by such advertisements quickly.

 

Psychologists and social workers believe that our children cannot resist the attractive and luring messages of tobacco companies through mass media; therefore, by banning tobacco propaganda we help kids stay away from testing such products and prevent them from becoming the next smokers.

 

Dr. Hossein Khanlari in an interview with the Persian service of the Mehr News Agency on Thursday said that since illegal constructions are taking place in the capital, the Tehran City Council has to supervise the city’s enlargement and at the same time expand cultural and sports facilities respectively.   

 

“It seems one of the priorities of the new city councilors is to provide a comprehensive plan to determine the outskirts of Tehran (the city’s boundary),” he explained.

 

The new urban and rural council elections will be held throughout the country on June 14 which falls on the same day as Iran’s 11th presidential election. 

 

Fatemeh Ahmadi, in an interview with Persian service of the Mehr News Agency, said this age group belongs to 82 percent of women in urban areas and 77 percent in rural regions.

 

She further explained figures indicate that around 11 percent of the birth rates belong to women who are older than 35, however, gynecologists and obstetricians recommend women not to have babies after their mid 30’s.

  

 

    

 

This trend is on the rise, they said. 

 

Siavash Naseri Moqaddam who holds a degree in post-doctorate in gastroenterology said: “Our problem is that obesity is becoming popular among Iranian children and that in turn has both physiological and mental effect on the society; nowadays, unfortunately, the majority of families tend to have fat kids.”

 

Naseri Moqaddam expressed regret that today Iranian kids mostly consume chocolate bars, candy, soft drinks and cheese puffs which contain too much salt and eventually at older age they will end up having heart, kidney and fatty liver diseases.

 

“Tendency towards eating fast foods is another problem our society is grappling with as 25 percent of Tehranis head to restaurants for their meals,” he said.

 

Dr. Mohsen Tousi Nasiri, also a gastroenterologist, said one of the reasons of liver cancer is fatty liver disease.

 

He said the only way to curb the disease is to avoid eating too many calories which could result in obesity.

 

Tousi Nasiri said in our daily diet we should replace sugar and candy by healthier sources of natural sugar like raisin, dates, and honey. 

 

He also said that Iranians have tendency toward bread and rice due to availability, tastiness and low price compared to other types of food.

 

Esmail Barqi, the deputy director of the ministry’s center for dealing with challenged students, said currently 1,400 autistic students are under the protection of the organization.

 

Identifying autistic students began in some provinces in 2005, he added.