A sperm bank that claims to be the nation's first to use genetic screening for potential hereditary risks and conduct psychological and mental evaluations of donors started trial operations in Shanghai on Wednesday.Located at the Obstetrics and Gynecology Hospital of Fudan University in Shanghai, the sperm bank - the second in the municipality after one established at Renji Hospital in 2003 - said it will screen for mutated genes that might result in severe consequences, such as miscarriages and birth defects.Most sperm banks in the country do genetic analysis based on chromosome screening.We can imagine the chromosomes as corncobs and the genes as the corn grains. Maybe the shape and appearance of a corncob generally looks normal, but if you take a close look, you will find some grains are missing, damaged or deformed. Such problematic grains, which mean pathogenic genes to us, may pass on problems to the offspring, said Zhang Feng, head of the newly opened Human Sperm Bank at Fudan University and deputy director of the State Key Laboratory of Genetic Engineering at Fudan University.The sperm bank also conducts psychological and mental evaluations of donors through professional testing and face-to-face screenings with psychologists, as some problems such as depression can be passed on to the next generation, said Wang Xiao, a psychologist with the sperm bank.Those who suffer from depression may look no different from anyone else and we can only make a judgment through professional approaches, Wang said.Anyone with identified mental diseases or disorders will not qualify for donation, she said.Zhang said the sperm bank will also focus on the healthy development of embryos and reproductive medicine as a whole.The infertility rate in the country was found to range between 12.5 percent to 15 percent in 2014, according to the China Population Association.The sperm bank called for healthy Chinese adult males who do not suffer from hereditary diseases and infectious diseases to donate sperm. Donors also should not have severe hair loss, be of reasonable body weight and at least 165 centimeters tall. black rubber bracelets24 hour wristbands coupon codesilicone bracelets custom cheaprubber bracelets custom cheap24hr wristband
Team of physicians departs this week with domestic vaccine for killer disease?A team of Chinese health experts will depart for the Democratic Republic of Congo this week to help fight an Ebola outbreak in the west central African nation.Gao Fu, head of the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, said the experts will attempt to use a vaccine developed by China to help combat the disease.The team, comprising four public health experts from the Chinese CDC and seven from other institutes, will evaluate the situation on the ground and provide support to counterparts in Congo, including virus testing, he said.They will stay in Congo for a month according to the initial plan, Gao said. The places where outbreaks occurred are far away from the capital, and transport is inconvenient. We are still discussing the details of our work there.So in the initial period of the stay the team members will try to get familiar with the situation, he said. We will seek to use the Chinese developed vaccine there to help with control and prevention of the disease, but for the present the vaccines will likely only cover Chinese living in Congo.It's also a pre-emptive intervention for China, as infectious diseases know no national borders, he said.The vaccine, jointly developed by the Academy of Military Medical Sciences and Cansinobio, a Chinese company involved in human vaccine development and production, was approved by China's top drug regulator in October.This made China the third country, after the United States and Russia, with a vaccine available to combat Ebola, according to the State Drug Administration.The vaccine-recombinant Ebola virus disease vaccine (Adenovirus type 5 vector)-is available in powder and, compared with liquid vaccines in the other two countries, is more stable, which is an advantage in transportation and use in tropical areas such as Africa, the administration said.Through Saturday, 53 confirmed or suspected Ebola cases had been reported since the most recent outbreak began on April 4. The World Health Organization said 25 people have died so far.Health experts in Congo have located more than 1,000 people who have had contact with the infected patients, and more than 680 have received Ebola vaccinations, the Associated Press reported.Gao said vaccines developed by a US company are being used in Congo.Ebola is a severe illness in humans, with fatality rates that have varied from 25 percent to 90 percent in past outbreaks, according to the WHO.There are currently no licensed treatments available for Ebola, although multiple experimental therapies are being developed.The largest outbreaks ever occurred in Sierra Leone, Liberia and Guinea between 2014 and 2016, causing more than 11,300 deaths in the three West African countries, according to the WHO.China delivered the largest scale public health assistance in history to other countries following the outbreaks, including sending more than 1,000 medical and public health experts to the countries to help fight the disease. It provided 750 million yuan ($117 million) in assistance, according to the Foreign Ministry.Gao, from the Chinese CDC, said China will intensify cooperation with African nations to help them better cope with infectious disease prevention and control.We will fulfill our pledge to support the building of a center for disease control and prevention in Africa, including training experts in Africa, he said. We will help build a center on prevention, control and research of tropical diseases in Sierra Leone, and continue the monitoring of emerging pathogens such as Ebola in West Africa.
