SIDA: a triste realidade em 2007

A ONU emitiu o seu Relatório Anual sobre a evolução da SIDA/HIV. Os números são maus, vejamos alguns deles:

• Number of people living with HIV in 2007: 33.2 million.
• People newly infected with HIV in 2007: 2.5 million.
• AIDS deaths in 2007: 2.1 million.

Vejamos alguns números por regiões do globo:

• Sub-Saharan Africa: 22.5 million.
• Middle East and North Africa: 380 000.
• South and South-East Asia: 4.0 million.
• East Asia: 800 000.
• Oceania: 75 000.
• Latin America: 1.6 million.
• Caribbean: 230 000.
• Eastern Europe and Central Asia: 1.6 million.
• Western and Central Europe: 760 000.
• North America: 1.3 million.

Quanto a Portugal, esta referência não é muito abonatória:

• In Western Europe (excluding the United Kingdom), the number of annual reported new HIV diagnoses almost tripled between 1999 and 2005 (from 7497 to 19 476), but declined significantly in 2006 (to 16 316).
• The largest number of diagnoses were reported in France (where routine reporting only started in 2003 and where 5750 HIV infections were newly diagnosed in 2006), Germany (2718) and Portugal (2162).

Brave new world

Imagem: National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering.

One of the most common stroke disabilities is a paralyzed arm. The Robotic Upper Extremity Repetitive Therapy device, or RUPERT, gives stroke survivors a portable system to retrain their muscles to perform basic tasks such as picking up a cup. As the patient's abilities improve, the robot's computer adjusts the assistance delivered by the pneumatic muscles. The system was developed by Kinetic Muscles, Inc. and Arizona State University's Biodesign Institute. Image courtesy of Tim Trumble, Arizona State University.