Author: admin

The first time Xing Shaoyun reached for a leprosy patient”s disfigured hand, the patient flinched. “Don’t touch me,” she whispered. “I don’t want to make you sick.”

That moment shattered Xing’s last barrier of fear and redefined her life’s mission.

Now 49, the head nurse of Hainan Fifth People’s Hospital, also known as Hainan Skin Disease and Plastic Surgery Hospital, has spent three decades eradicating the stigma with radical compassion, earning her China’s highest medical honor, the Norman Bethune Award, on March 31.

“They weren’t afraid of us, but they were afraid for us,” Xing recalled. “That’s when I understood: dignity hurts worse than disease.”

When Xing graduated from a health vocational college in 1995 and began working at Hainan’s largest leprosy colony, isolation was the norm. Patients, many with untreated ulcers, lived behind walls and were abandoned by families. Medical staff wore hazmat-like gear.

Despite her family’s fears about the risks of her work, Xing changed that calculus with science. She adopted masking, gloving and sterilizing protocols so rigorous that direct contact became safe. Then she added what medicine couldn’t measure — sitting for hours listening to life stories and holding hands gnarled by nerve damage.

“Leprosy steals everything — jobs, marriages, even hugs,” said Xing, scrolling through photos of elderly patients on her phone. One image shows a man grinning as she fits him with custom shoes; another, a woman smiling while Xing dresses her wounds. “What they need most isn’t just treatment. It’s being seen.”

Her clinical breakthroughs are textbook cases: By combining regenerative wound tech with photon therapy, her team slashed chronic ulcer rates from 28 percent to 5 percent, significantly lowering amputation risks. The innovation now guides leprosy hospitals nationwide.

Beyond the clinic, Xing ventured into remote regions to conduct hands-on training. In 2019, she led a province-wide survey across 13 leprosy-affected villages, finding ulcer incidence rates as high as 18.9 percent. In response, she launched a mobile treatment campaign and trained 464 local caregivers, building a grassroots network of leprosy care specialists.

Yet her most fragile patients never leave the geriatric ward. Xing helped establish a tailored geriatric care system that treats both physical disabilities and social stigma.

“Some patients hadn’t held anyone’s hand in decades,” she said. “We’ve held over 100 hands in their last moments. No one should die remembering only pain.”

In 2023, Xing was awarded the Florence Nightingale Medal by the International Red Cross. She has since shared her experience with nearly 4,000 people through lectures, inspiring a new generation of health workers.

Xing has taken care of over 300 leprosy patients. “The elderly patients often call me ‘daughter’, a sign of their trust and the reason I keep going,” said Xing.

With China’s leprosy rates plummeting, she believes key challenges remain in early detection, especially in remote areas, and in comprehensive rehabilitation addressing both physical and psychological needs.

As a Party member for 23 years, Xing views her awards as a recognition of teamwork, not individual achievement. “My oath to serve the people guides everything — ward rounds, emergencies, trips to remote villages,” she said. “These honors are not just for me but they belong to thousands of front-line medical workers and leprosy control staff.”

chenbowen@chinadaily.com.cn

WITH the monsoon season underway in Pakistan, the threat of another dengue outbreak hangs over us. The warning signs are here: Sindh logged its first dengue-related casualty with the death of a young male patient at the Sindh Infectious Diseases Hospital. In June, Karachi recorded 32 new dengue incidents, with single cases in Mirpurkhas and Sukkur. This year, Sindh reported 295 dengue cases; 260 of these were from Karachi. While the June count is significantly lower than in the past four years, the health authorities cannot afford to let their guard down. Besides, climate change has altered the pattern of vector-borne infections as well as engendered new temperature-resilient mosquito species. Without a sustained, comprehensive programme, timely precautions and mass awareness, annual surges will be difficult to block.

In 2017, KP set an example by seeking help from the Punjab government, which had fought a dengue epidemic in 2011 with a remarkable strategy involving collaboration between Pakistani, Indonesian and Sri Lankan medical experts. New regulations were enforced to thwart the seasonal health emergency. The time has come for Sindh to follow suit. The province must prioritise the public’s well-being and implement an upgraded version of the Punjab template, alongside carrying out extensive fumigation drives as well as providing skilled medics and medicines to ease symptoms and avoid critical cases of low platelet counts. The fact that Punjab has been dengue-clear through June shows that through early directives and heightened public and administrative alertness, it has managed to contain the disease, which is laudable. To ensure that the populace does not have to endure repeated bouts of agony, deterrence initiatives must at the very least keep pace with mosquito breeding. Access to hygienic living conditions and cost-free dengue tests is the antidote to the Aedes aegypti mosquito that thrives in fresh water.

Published in Dawn, July 2nd, 2025

WASHINGTON: Struggle with math? A gentle jolt to the brain might help.

A new study published on Tuesday in PLOS Biology suggests that mild electrical stimulation can boost arithmetic performance — and offers fresh insight into the brain mechanisms behind mathematical ability, along with a potential way to optimise learning.

The findings could eventually help narrow cognitive gaps and help build a more intellectually equitable society, the authors argue.

“Different people have different brains, and their brains control a lot in their life,” said Roi Cohen Kadosh, a neuroscientist at the University of Surrey who led the research.

“We think about the environment — if you go to the right school, if you have the right teacher — but it’s also our biology.” Cohen Kadosh and colleagues recruited 72 University of Oxford students, scanning their brains to measure connectivity between three key regions.

Participants then tackled math problems that required either calculating answers or recalling memorised solutions.

They found that stronger connections between the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, which governs executive function, and the posterior parietal cortex, involved in memory, predicted better calculation performance.

When the researchers applied a painless form of brain stimulation using electrode-fitted caps — a technique known as transcranial random noise stimulation — the low performers saw their scores jump by 25-29 percent.

The team believes the stimulation works by enhancing the excitability of neurons and interacting with GABA, a brain chemical that inhibits excessive activity.

In fact, the stimulation helped underperformers reach or even surpass the scores of peers with naturally stronger brain wiring. But those who already performed well saw no benefit.

Published in Dawn, July 2nd, 2025