The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) released a final rule that will modernize the Medicare conditions for coverage for the nation’s dialysis centers and promote higher quality of care for patients receiving dialysis.

Following the killing of three staff members on January 28, the medical humanitarian organization Doctors Without Borders/Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) has decided to close its project in the southern city of Kismayo, Somalia. Although activities in Kismayo will end, MSF remains committed to providing medical care to the Somali people, therefore projects in other locations in Somalia will continue to operate.

CMS on Wednesday released a final rule that establishes standards for electronic prescribing under the Medicare prescription drug benefit, CQ HealthBeat reports.

The FDA (Food and Drug Administration, USA) has approved Rotarix, an oral vaccine for the prevention of rotavirus - an infection in children and infants which causes vomiting and diarrhea (gastroenteritis). The vaccine, which is presented in liquid form, is given in two doses to infants aged 6 and 24 weeks. It protects against gastroenteritis caused by the G1, G3, G4, and G9 strains of rotavirus.

According to a new report, about 905,000 American children were victims of maltreatment, 91,278 of them were infants - these figures refer to registered cases by CPS (Child Protective Services) agencies for the period October 2005 to September 2006. About 19% of all child maltreatment deaths happened to babies under the age of one year. According to official figures, an infant’s greatest risk of death from maltreatment is during his/her first week of life.

A recent CDC study that found that about 25% of U.S. girls and young women ages 14 to 19 have at least one of four common sexually transmitted infections is “enough to make you wonder why schools don’t do a better job of sex education,”

With more than 270,000 childhood cancer survivors living in the United States, researchers have turned their attention to the effects of cancer treatment that can occur years after therapy, called late effects. At the Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Center and Georgetown University Hospital, a team of oncologists, nurses, social workers and an art therapist have created the first survivorship manual, tailored for each child treated for cancer.

Obesity during pregnancy is associated with greater use of health care services and longer hospital stays, according to a study from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and Kaiser Permanente Northwest Center for Health Research. The study, published in the April 3, 2008, issue of the New England Journal of Medicine, is the first to document the effect of obesity during pregnancy on the use of health care services.

St. Jude Medical, Inc. (NYSE:STJ) announced regulatory approval from the Japanese Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare (MHLW) for the Merlin(TM) Patient Care System, a universal programmer for cardiac resynchronization therapy (CRT) devices, implantable cardioverter defibrillators (ICDs) and pacemakers. The System is designed to allow quick and efficient programming at the time of implant and at patients’ follow-up visits.

Obese people tend to see the causes of their weight problems as lying in a number of largely behavioural factors - such as a lack of physical activity and over-consumption - rather than in a family history/genetic component. This is the conclusion of Ms Amy Brogan of Trinity College Dublin and her colleagues. Their results were presenteded at the British Psychological Society’s Annual Conference in Dublin on Friday 4 April 2008.