High tobacco tax forces many to quit smoking
June 21, 2018

The Ministry of Health has reported that the increase in tobacco tax made many smokers to seek medical help to quit the habit.

Naqaa Anti-Smoking Society head Sulaiman Al-Sabi said the tobacco tax was increased by 348 percent.

'Our clinics witnessed a large increase in patients who came in wanting to quit smoking so they won't have to pay the taxes on tobacco. The price of a packet of cigarettes has now reached SR25. The smoker would"...

Members of a Riyadh firm visit hospitals to help bring happiness during the holiday
June 21, 2018

It was like a dream came true for orphans at the rehabilitation center run by the Ministry of Labor and Social Development and for the patients at hospitals in Riyadh as a private firm turned up to celebrate Eid festivities with them.

Hospitality Board (HB), a Riyadh-based company in the food and consumer staples retailing sector, visited patients at different hospitals and distributed"...

Saudi MERS outbreaks killed 23 over four months: WHO
June 19, 2018

Outbreaks of the deadly Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) killed 23 people in Saudi Arabia between Jan. 21 and May 31 this year, the World Health Organization said on Monday.
The deaths were among 75 laboratory-confirmed cases of MERS coronavirus (MERS-CoV) during the period, the WHO said, and take the total number of deaths from the disease to 790 since it was first diagnosed in humans in 2012.
The latest figures take the number of confirmed cases"...

Octapharma announces approval of new Nuwiq® product strengths in Europe, increasing dosing flexibility for patients with haemophilia A
June 18, 2018

(AETOS Wire) -- Octapharma announced today that the European Medicines Agency (EMA) has approved an extension of marketing authorisation for its human cell line-derived recombinant factor VIII (rFVIII) product, Nuwiq®. New single dose vial strengths of 2500, 3000 and 4000 International Units (IU) will be available in Europe, in addition to the current strengths of 250, 500, 1000 and 2000 IU.

The"...

Brightree Announces eReferral Integration with athenahealth
June 15, 2018

Brightree, the leading provider of cloud-based software helping post-acute care companies improve business performance and patient outcomes, announced the release of a new solution that allows home medical equipment (HME) providers to digitally receive orders from more than 62,000 providers using athenaClinicals within the athenahealth network, the same way doctors have long referred patients to other specialists. Before eReferral Management, physician and HME staff had to manually send, receive and process referrals and related documents via faxing and phone calls. Now, any office that uses athenahealth, a leading provider of network-enabled services for hospital and ambulatory clients nationwide, can refer patients to an HME provider the same way that they refer patients to other care settings, forwarding......

NMC, Hassana to set up healthcare JV in Saudi Arabia
June 12, 2018

UAE-based NMC Health, a leading healthcare operator, has signed an agreement to form a joint-venture healthcare platform with Hassana Investment, a unit of pension fund General Organization for Social Insurance (GOSI) in Saudi Arabia.

The proposed JV would create one of the largest private healthcare platforms operating in Saudi Arabia today. The JV would have a strategically unique position in the country, with a strong foothold in Riyadh, the single"...

New Study Investigates the Utility of Masimo SedLine® Patient State Index in Monitoring Anesthesia Depth of Patients with Healthy and Cirrhotic Livers
June 12, 2018

(AETOS Wire) -- Masimo (NASDAQ: MASI) announced today the findings of an abstract presented at Euroanaesthesia 2018 in which researchers compared Masimo Patient State Index (PSi), a processed EEG parameter provided by SedLine® brain function monitoring (in this study, first generation SedLine), to Medtronic Bispectral Index (BIS™) in monitoring the depth of anesthesia of two groups of patients: healthy volunteers undergoing hepatotomy for liver donation and cirrhotic patients undergoing liver resection. The researchers found “excellent” agreement between the two methods as well as similar sevoflurane consumption, and found that PSi 1.0 was less affected by electrocautery.1 In the study, Dr. Yassen and colleagues at Menoufia University in Shibin El Kom, Egypt, sought to test agreement......

Saudi Arabia Will Need an Additional 10,000 Doctors by 2020
June 11, 2018

Saudi Arabia will need an additional 10,000 doctors by 2020 and twice that many by 2030 to tackle critical bed shortages and meet the needs of its growing population, experts have warned.

A significant increase in nurses, technicians and medical staff is essential to plug the Kingdom’s chronic bed shortfall — with more incentives, such as easing visa regulations, being suggested"...

Saudi Arabia bans poultry imports from Nepal over bird flu
June 11, 2018

Saudi Arabia’s Environment Ministry has imposed a ban on the import of live birds, incubated eggs and chicks from Nepal as a precaution against high-risk bird influenza, the Saudi Press Agency reported on Saturday.
Dr. Sanad Al-Harbi, Director General of Livestock Risks Evaluation Department at the ministry, said the ban has been imposed following reports about an outbreak of bird flu in Nepal.
He said it is a step taken in the interest of the public"...

Saudi Arabia ranks number one in food waste
June 11, 2018

Saudi Arabia ranks number one in the world in wasting food, according to a report by the Ministry of Environment, Water and Agriculture.

The report revealed that around 30 percent of food produced is wasted amounting to over SR49 billion annually.

The average Saudi wastes 250 kg of food annually compared to the global average of 115 kg.

A large portion of food leftovers are wasted in dinner parties, weddings, restaurants, and"...