SAN FRANCISCO, July 28, 2014 /PRNewswire-HISPANIC PR WIRE/ — This fall, a record 21.7 million students will attend a college or university in the United States.[1] Many teens will be living away from home for the first time without mom or dad around to reinforce healthy habits, including how to care for their eyes. Before students head for the dorms, ophthalmologists are providing parents with college eye health tips to ensure their freshmen sons and daughters keep seeing 20/20 during school.

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While accurate vision plays a vital role in learning, college students can be susceptible to a host of vision and eye problems such as injury, infection and increased nearsightedness that can complicate life in and out of class. Crowded classes and dorms can serve as a breeding ground for infectious eye disease, while reading and computer use in school has been linked to poorer eyesight. Fortunately, there are many ways to avoid these and other eye issues on campus. The American Academy of Ophthalmology, the world’s largest association of eye physicians and surgeons, offers the following six tips for protecting eyes during college:

• Don’t shower or swim in contact lenses. Acanthamoeba is a parasite that lives in water and can cause a rare but serious eye infection called Acanthamoeba keratitis. According to the CDC, 85 percent of Acanthamoeba eye infections occur in contact lens wearers, one of the main risks being exposure of lenses to water. To avoid this dangerous infection, do not wear contact lenses in showers, hot tubs or when swimming in lakes or pools. Also, never use water to clean or store contact lenses; only use sterile contact lens disinfecting solution and a clean contact lens case.
• Go outside. Scholastically-inclined students spend much of their time studying indoors, which can put them at risk of becoming more nearsighted, or myopic. A 2014 study found that more than 50 percent of college graduates are nearsighted, with eyesight worsening for each year in school.[2] Other research shows that spending more time outdoors can protect vision from getting worse.[3] Head outside when possible.
• Wash your hands. Conjunctivitis, often called pink eye, spreads fast in schools and dorms. An outbreak struck more than 1,000 Ivy League college students in 2002.[4] Avoid rubbing the eyes and wash hands with soap to avoid catching and spreading pink eye, not to mention other infections.
• Give your eyes a break. Nearly 80 percent of engineering and medical school students experienced symptoms such as dry eyes and redness, according to a study of students at one Indian university. To help avoid eye strain, follow the 20-20-20 rule: look at something 20 feet away every 20 minutes for 20 seconds. Because dry eye can also cause painful corneal ulcers, which are open sores on the front part of the eye, blink regularly and fully to keep eyes moist.
• Don’t share makeup. Harmless as it may seem, sharing makeup is a surefire way to spread infection such as herpes keratitis among friends. Infection-causing bacteria grow easily in creamy or liquid eye makeup. Stick to your own makeup and throw it away after three months. If you develop an eye infection, immediately toss all of your eye makeup.
• Protect your eyes during the game. Nearly 1 in 18 college athletes will get an eye injury playing sports.[5] Common injuries, like scratches on the eye surface and broken bones near the eye socket, happen most often in high-risk sports such as baseball, basketball and lacrosse. Athletes should consider wearing polycarbonate sports glasses to help keep stray balls and elbows from hitting their eyes.

“For many teens just starting college, taking care of their eye health may be the last thing on their minds,” said Rebecca Taylor, M.D., comprehensive ophthalmologist and clinical spokesperson for the American Academy of Ophthalmology. “But the fact is that an eye injury or condition can affect their grades and social life, causing days or even a lifetime of poor vision. We hope that parents will remind their kids of these risks before they fly the coop this fall.”

For more information on back-to-school eye health, visit the American Academy of Ophthalmology’s public education website www.geteyesmart.org.

About the American Academy of Ophthalmology
The American Academy of Ophthalmology, headquartered in San Francisco, is the world’s largest association of eye physicians and surgeons — Eye M.D.s — with more than 32,000 members worldwide. Eye health care is provided by the three “O’s” – ophthalmologists, optometrists, and opticians. It is the ophthalmologist, or Eye M.D., who has the education and training to treat it all: eye diseases, infections and injuries, and perform eye surgery. For more information, visit www.aao.org.

The Academy’s EyeSmart® program educates the public about the importance of eye health and empowers them to preserve healthy vision. EyeSmart provides the most trusted and medically accurate information about eye diseases, conditions and injuries. OjosSanos™ is the Spanish-language version of the program. Visit www.geteyesmart.org or www.ojossanos.org to learn more.

[1] Digest of Education Statistics, National Center for Education Statistics
[2] Education linked to Myopia, American Academy of Ophthalmology
[3] Increased Time Outdoors May Prevent Myopia Progression in Children, Ophthalmology, May 2013
[4] http://articles.latimes.com/2002/mar/15/news/mn-32988
[5] National Eye Institute

PORT OF SPAIN, Trinidad and Tobago, July 25, 2014 /PRNewswire/ — The Chemistry, Food & Drugs Division of the Trinidad & Tobago Ministry of Health approved the introduction of Telaprevir to the market, an innovative therapy that significantly increases the cure rate from Hepatitis C, and it is indicated for patients infected with the genotype 1 virus. Telaprevir is available in Trinidad under the trade brand INCIVO®.

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Clinical studies show that the regimen of the treatment based in Telaprevir together with pegylated interferon + ribavirin increases the percentage of patients that get cured in up to 80% of the cases, significantly superior to the efficacy rates observed with the conventional treatment with dual therapy, available today.

Furthermore, triple therapy with the inclusion of Telaprevir avoids the progression of the illness, the need of a liver transplant, and the prevalence of long term complications, such as hepatic cirrhosis, liver cancer, and even death.

Hepatitis C is one of the most prevalent illnesses throughout the world. It affects around 170 million people[1]. In its chronic phase, it is considered by the World Health Organization, as a “viral bomb”, and it may have severe consequences on the patients and the public health systems.[2]

Approximately 70% – 80% of the people with the illness do not know about it, due to the fact that symptoms present in advanced stages of the illness. Reason why it is extremely important to maximize the early diagnosis with new therapies which increase the possibility of getting cured.

Clinical manifestations of the infection by the Hepatitis C virus vary according to the acuteness or chronic phase of the illness. An acute infection is in most of the cases asymptomatic and it leads to a chronic infection in 80% of the cases. Of these patients, 20% develop hepatic cirrhosis, which is the previous step to hepatic failure. Of these 20%, from 3% to 5% develop liver cancer.

Not treating the illness may lead to complications that in an important number of patients may lead to the necessity of a liver transplant. The transplant has additional complications of serious considerations, such as the availability of the organs, the high costs associated to it and the required post-transplant care. This may have severe consequences for the patients as well as for the public health systems.

The paradigm of the Hepatitis C treatment has changed, above all, starting with the arrival of therapeutic alternatives that directly attack the virus, increasing cure rates. We are facing a new era. Medications that change the regimen of treatment and management of Hepatitis C with higher cure rates in patients infected with HCV (Hepatitis C Virus) genotype 1, which is most predominant genotype in our environment and the most resistant to treatments.

The main goal of the Hepatitis C treatment is to accomplish a sustained viral response (SVR); this means that the virus remains undetectable in the patient´s blood (known as undetectable viral load) six months after finishing the treatment[3]. The patients that achieve an SVR are considered cured.

Telaprevir is part of the Direct-Acting Antivirals (DAAs), which are medications directed to specific enzymes to block important stages of the Hepatitis C virus replication. The DAAs have the potential to help the patients achieve a sustained viral response (SVR).

Telaprevir is a protease inhibitor that is used for only 12 weeks, in all cases, offering this way, a short duration treatment for the patients.

This new therapeutic alternative, presented by the pharmaceutical laboratory Janssen, offers the possibility of shortening the treatment to half the time (with interferon + ribavirin), in 6 to 7 of every 10 patients. It is important that the management of the triple therapy (protease inhibitor as Telaprevir + interferon and ribavirin) is in the hands of experienced doctors in liver diseases.

The importance of the diagnosis

Since this is a treatable and curable illness in many cases, it is crucial to put personal emphasis in the request of an Hepatitis C detection test, for which is necessary to work more as a team with the clinical doctors and increase the awareness of this public health necessity. Once the infection is diagnosed, the patient should be referred to the specialist for him to evaluate the integrated approach and the needed treatment.

Part of the difficulty in the diagnosis generates in the fact that it is a highly asymptomatic illness or with vague symptoms, such as tiredness and fatigue.

Populations that are in high risk of bearing the virus, exist: intravenous drug users (current or previous), people with conditions associated with high prevalence of HIV, patients with hemophilia that received blood transfusions before 1992, people that have been in hemodialysis, people with elevated transaminases, transfusion receptors or organ transplants before July 1992, children of mothers with Hepatitis C, sexual partners of people with Hepatitis C and health personnel.

[1]-[2] World Health Organization. Hepatitis C Weekly Epidemiological Record. 1997;82:65-69

[3] The Hepatitis C Trust. Treatments: Potential New Drugs. [cited 2010 Feb 20]