Health
US surgeons successfully test pig kidney transplant in human patient
For the first time, a pig kidney has been transplanted into a human without triggering immediate rejection by the recipient’s immune system, a potentially major advance that could eventually help alleviate a dire shortage of human organs for transplant.
The procedure done at NYU Langone Health in New York City involved use of a pig whose genes had been altered so that its tissues no longer contained a molecule known to trigger almost immediate rejection.
The recipient was a brain-dead patient with signs of kidney dysfunction whose family consented to the experiment before she was due to be taken off of life support, researchers told Reuters.
For three days, the new kidney was attached to her blood vessels and maintained outside her body, giving researchers access to it.
Test results of the transplanted kidney’s function “looked pretty normal,” said transplant surgeon Dr. Robert Montgomery, who led the study.
The kidney made “the amount of urine that you would expect” from a transplanted human kidney, he said, and there was no evidence of the vigorous, early rejection seen when unmodified pig kidneys are transplanted into non-human primates.
The recipient’s abnormal creatinine level – an indicator of poor kidney function – returned to normal after the transplant, Montgomery said.
In the United States, nearly 107,000 people are presently waiting for organ transplants, including more than 90,000 awaiting a kidney, according to the United Network for Organ Sharing. Wait times for a kidney average three-to-five years.
Researchers have been working for decades on the possibility of using animal organs for transplants, but have been stymied over how to prevent immediate rejection by the human body.
Balkh Public Health Department officials say there has been a significant increase in the number of patients with cancer in the province.
“In 1401, about 2,613 OPD (out patient department) cases were registered with us. In 1402, these figures were 4,912 cases,” said Ehsanullah Kaliwal, the head of the oncology department at Balkh Regional Hospital.
Some doctors say genetic factors, environmental pollution, arbitrary use of medicines, and excessive consumption of meat were reasons for the sharp increase.
One doctor said cancer was also hereditry.
However, a large percentage of cancer patients in Balkh have stomach cancer. Many of them have appealed for the government to improve treatment facilities.
According to health officials, in the first month of this solar year (April), 423 cancer patients visited this hospital for treatment.
Based on last year’s data, 52 percent of people with mental disorders in Afghanistan are women, the Ministry of Public Health said.
However, after the Islamic Emirate took over the country and with the improvement of nationwide security and the provision of better health services, mental disorders have decreased, the ministry said.
“Overall, the mental security of men and women in Afghanistan is not ensured and their mental security is disturbed. According to the figures shared with us, in 2023, 52 percent of the visitors for mental disorders were women,” said Sharaft Zaman Amarkhil, the spokesperson of the Ministry of Public Health.
“Generally speaking, we can say that compared to the past, the instances of mental illnesses have decreased,” he added.
People suffering mental disorders mostly refuse to share their problem, willingly or unwillingly.
“There are many problems at home; We are poor. I finished school, but didn’t find any job,” Ansar, a mentally ill person, said.
According to the World Health Organization (WHO), half of Afghanistan’s population suffers from mental distress.
Factors such as unemployment, poverty, domestic violence, ban on girls’ and women’s education and work, and drugs are said to be key contributors to mental distress.
A total of 1.2 million women in Afghanistan were malnourished last year, the U.N. World Food Programme (WFP) said on Thursday.
Mona Shaikh, head of nutrition at WFP Afghanistan, said that the number of malnourished women is expected to increase this year.
On malnourished children, she said that their number will reach 3 million this year, but WFP will be able to assist only 1.6 million of them.
WFP warned that after foreign assistance cuts last year, it saw a rise in children’s admissions to malnutrition clinics in Afghanistan.
More than 23 million people are in need of humanitarian assistance in Afghanistan this year, according to the United Nations. Over half of them are children.
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