Israel’s Health Ministry on Wednesday warned of a possible outbreak of whooping cough at a day camp in northern Israel. A child at a camp on the yishuv of Klil was diagnosed with pertussis on Sunday. The Health Ministry immediately began an epidemiological investigation in which it emerged that the child was not vaccinated against the disease. About 30 people had close contact with the child. The Health Ministry’s Epidemiological Department directed the management of the summer camp to contact the children’s parents to warn them about the exposure to a pertussis patient. The ministry also sent the parents information about contacting their attending physician for preventive treatment.

A four-month-old baby with whooping cough was hospitalized in critical condition in the pediatric intensive care unit at Assuta Ashdod Hospital last week. The baby was suffering from severe coughing and breathing difficulties – to the point of turning blue – before being hospitalized on Wednesday. Since then, his breathing issues have improved but he is still in the PICU due to his severe cough. There has been an increase in cases of whooping cough in babies and toddlers in Israel since February. Last month, a ten-week-old infant from Jerusalem passed away from the disease. The hospital issued a statement emphasizing that vaccination of the mother during pregnancy for whooping cough would have prevented the current situation. Dr.

Meidan (Mordechai) Baruch-Keller, z’l, 16, who was hospitalized last week after suffering serious lung damage due to vaping passed away on Shabbos morning. A statement from Schneider Hospital said: “It is with great sadness that we update you on the death of the 16-year-old boy who was treated in the cardiac intensive care unit at the Schneider Center and connected to an ECMO machine due to the collapse of his lungs.

A new study carried out by Hebrew University revealed that the Philip Morris tobacco company published a far higher percentage of ads in the Chareidi sector than other minority populations in Israel. According to the data that was published on Thursday morning by Kan News, since the IQOS heated tobacco products entered the Israeli market, Phillip Morris published 216 advertisements targeting certain populations – 55% were targeted at the Chareidi sector, 6% at the Arab sector and the rest at the Russian-speaking population. In addition, from December 2016 to August 2020, Phillip Morris published 561 ads for standard cigarettes targeting specific populations – 87% in the Chareidi sector, 4.3% in the Arab sector, and the remainder in the Russian-speaking population. Dr.

Children ages 1-9 in London were made eligible for booster doses of a polio vaccine Wednesday after British health authorities reported finding evidence the virus has spread in multiple areas of the city but found no cases of the paralytic disease in people. Britain’s Health Security Agency said it detected viruses derived from the oral polio vaccine in the sewage water of eight London boroughs. The agency’s analysis of the virus samples suggested “transmission has gone beyond a close network of a few individuals.” The agency said it had not located anyone infected with the virus and that the risk to the wider population was low. The decision to offer young children boosters was a precaution, it said.

Israelis have a high rate of obesity compared to the rest of the world, don’t exercise enough, and smoke too much were the dismal results of Israel’s fourth national health survey published on Tuesday. The survey, carried out by the Health Ministry’s National Center for Disease Control, was based on phone interviews with 4,135 Israelis aged 21 and over, of whom 2,710 were Jews and 1,425 were Arabs. Over half (56%) of the respondents reported that they are overweight or obese, with the rate higher among Arabs (61.3%) than Jews (54.8%), and the highest rate among Arab men, with almost two-thirds (65.9%) falling into the category of overweight or obese.

In a rare incident, a ten-year-old resident of Bnei Brak suffered a stroke on Tuesday, Ynet reported. The boy’s parents brought him to the Terem emergency clinic in Bnei Brak with symptoms of weakness and nausea. Dr. Matthew Friedman, the head of Terem in Bnei Brak, said that doctors there found that the boy was suffering from profound weakness on his left side. He walked with a limp, had difficulty raising his left hand, and had trouble maintaining his balance when walking. The doctors suspected he had suffered a stroke and urgently transferred him to Sheba Medical Center in Ramat Gan, where he was admitted to the intensive care unit. “Although this is a rare case, a child can have a stroke for various reasons,” Dr. Friedman said.

After surgery, some cancer patients can safely skip radiation or chemotherapy, according to two studies exploring shorter, gentler cancer care. Researchers are looking for ways to precisely predict which cancer patients can avoid unneeded treatment to cut down on harmful side effects and unnecessary costs. One new study used a blood test to determine which colon cancer patients could skip chemotherapy after surgery. Another suggests some low-risk breast cancer patients can omit radiation after lumpectomy. The research was discussed at the annual meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology, which wrapped up Tuesday in Chicago. The colon cancer study, funded by the Australian and U.S.

Researchers are drawing attention to a rise in poisonings in children involving the sleep aid melatonin — including a big jump during the pandemic. Last year, U.S. poison control centers received more than 52,000 calls about children consuming worrisome amounts of the dietary supplement — a six-fold increase from about a decade earlier. Most such calls are about young children who accidentally got into bottles of melatonin, some of which come in the form of gummies for kids. Parents may think of melatonin as the equivalent of a vitamin and leave it on a nightstand, said Dr. Karima Lelak, an emergency physician at Children’s Hospital of Michigan and the lead author of the study published Thursday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Israel’s Health Ministry is on the verge of a decision to end the requirement for COVID testing for travelers arriving at Ben-Gurion Airport, Channel 12 News reported on Tuesday evening. The restriction is likely to be eased in just two to three weeks, the report said. Some senior health officials are opposed to the move as in recent days about 25% of new infections have been diagnosed in Israelis returning from abroad. Additionally, three cases of a new COVID variant were discovered in travelers who arrived at Ben-Gurion last week. Despite these concerns, the decision has been made to end testing. However, the testing system will remain in place in order to allow tests to be resumed in the event of the discovery of new variants.