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Archive for month: August, 2020
NASA Once Again Relies on Mortara for Advanced Holter Monitoring
Since 2008, NASA has chosen Mortara as its Medical Devices Partner for use in ECG Monitoring at the International Space Station.
In November 2008, NASA selected Mortara Instrument’s H12+TM high-resolution Holter recorders to travel onboard the Space Shuttle Endeavor STS-126 mission. The H12+ recorders were used to capture ECG data from the astronauts while working aboard the International Space Station (ISS). Data from the recorders were transmitted from the International Space Station to NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas via satellite where it was analyzed by Mortara’s HScribeTM Holter analysis system.
Mortara had worked closely with NASA Ames Research Center’s engineers (Space Biosciences Division) to ready the H12+ recorders for the additional stress of space travel. Prior to launch, the H12+ recorders were also used for pre-flight scientific studies; reports generated by the HScribe system allowed for the in-space ECG findings to be compared to any pre-flight ECG study results.
The collaboration with NASA did not end with the Space Shuttle Endeavor STS-126 mission; on March 1, 2016, after a record year-long mission spent in space, Expedition 46 Commander Scott Kelly of NASA and Flight Engineers Mikhail Kornienko and Sergey Volkov landed in Kazakhstan. Kelly and Kornienko completed an International Space Station mission as members of expeditions 43, 44, 45 and 46 to collect valuable data on the effect of long duration weightlessness on the human body that will be used to formulate a human mission to Mars. Once again, the Mortara H12+ played a key role in that data collection.
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Hands up for HIV prevention!
This was the theme for the 29th World AIDS Day on December 1st. Substantial progress has been made in developing and disseminating effective antiretroviral therapy (ART) for people diagnosed with HIV/AIDS. Indeed for the around 19 million people globally currently taking ART, the disease can be considered a chronic condition, albeit one that requires careful and continuous monitoring.
Huge strides have also been made in reducing transmission of infection. Concerted efforts by national programmes and development partners have promoted safe sex and condom use (though not without some controversy and pontification about the value of celibacy) with studies showing that this reduces HIV transmission by 85percent. Medical male circumcision, which reduces the risk of heterosexual men becoming infected by an estimated 60percent, is also becoming acceptable in high risk countries where performance of this operation is not the cultural norm. The efficacy of pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) for subjects at a high risk of becoming infected with HIV, such as those with infected sexual partners, has been demonstrated and is advocated in many countries. Vertical transmission, formerly accounting for up to 45percent of babies acquiring the infection from their HIV positive mother, can now be prevented by prescribing ART to both mother and child during pregnancy, labour, delivery and breastfeeding. And programmes have been set up both to educate people who inject recreational drugs about the risks of HIV infection and to provide sterile injecting equipment to reduce the risk.
However an enormous obstacle blocking the goal to end the AIDS epidemic by 2030 is that according to the WHO an estimated 14 million people (around 40percent of all people with HIV) are unaware that they are infected with the virus. Not only are they not receiving ART, they are also unwittingly infecting others. Highly accurate rapid diagnostic tests or enzyme immunoassays are available, but many people are either geographically distant from such testing services or are too diffident to access them. So it is wonderful news that, according to WHO, twenty-three countries have so far approved policies for HIV self-testing, and many others are aiming to follow suit. Studies have shown that with such testing, performed in the privacy of one’s home with results available after 20 minutes, the number of people tested doubles. While there is great need to distribute kits to the most high risk areas, how many of us currently living in lower risk countries are celibate until we meet our life partner who has also been celibate prior to meeting us?