Health News

Sea View Nursing Home No Longer Eligible for Medicare
Sea View Nursing Home in Bolongo CHARLOTTE AMALIE – The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) has officially terminated the provider agreement with Sea View Nursing Home in Bolongo to participate in the Medicare program, according to the CMS public affairs office for Region II in New York.

‘Yacht Bum’ On Break From Job In St. Croix, Invents Life-Saving Syringe
Marc Koska (left) attends to a patient CHRISTIANSTED – “Solutions are easier when you understand the problem,” says Marc Koska, who has devoted decades to understanding one of the most stubborn yet preventable problems in public health: disease transmission via unsafe injections. In 1984, on a break from a job in

CDC: Adding Chlorine To Your Water Supply Could Prevent Another Death From Brain-Eating Amoeba
CHARLOTTE AMALIE — On November 21, 2012, the V.I. Department of Health documented the first case and death from primary amebic meningoencephalitis (PAM) in the territory. PAM, a rare and almost universally fatal condition, results when Naegleria fowleri, a free-living thermophilic amoeba found in warm freshwater, enters the nose and

Haiti’s Cervical Cancer Epidemic
The pain and the irregular bleeding told Nanotte Pierre there was something wrong. But none of the doctors she visited over a decade could tell her what it was. An infection, they thought, but none of their expensive therapies put an end to the problem. Instead, it worsened. In

Are Minions Tampons Really A Thing? Kotex Puerto Rico Thinks So
SAN JUAN — Everyone is all about the “Minions” movie right now, but one company has taken it too far while promoting the film. A week before the movie premiered on July 10, Kotex Puerto Rico posted on its official Facebook that they were ready to watch the flick.

Huanglongbing disease linked to Virgin Islands: Predatory wasps the cure
CHRISTIANSTED — A deadly bacteria that can decimate citrus has been found in California, the second such discovery in three years, according to agricultural officials. Huanglongbing, or citrus greening disease, was detected last week on a kumquat tree in a residential area of San Gabriel. The bacterial disease, which can be

USDA recall of Barber frozen chicken for salmonella
PORTLAND, Maine — Barber Foods is recalling 1,707,494 pounds of raw frozen chicken products after the U.S. Department of Agriculture received reports of a cluster of people in Minnesota and Wisconsin becoming ill with salmonella poisoning. The Maine company said the recalled products, produced between Feb. 17 and May 20, 2015,

What to do if you are stung by a Portuguese man-of-war or other jellyfish
It’s the time of year when people get stung by jellyfish swimming in the waters off Sandy Point in Frederiksted. Here’s some advice on how to respond to a sting by one of them. The first step may seem obvious: 1. Get out of the water. However, a freshly stung victim

Breadfruit Is The Topic of Discussion At UVI Seminar
The University of the Virgin Islands’ Cooperative Extension Service and Agricultural Experiment Station, in partnership with the Virgin Islands Department of Agriculture, will host a Breadfruit Seminar from 2 p.m. to 4:30 p.m. on Monday, July 13, and 5:30 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. on Tuesday, July 14. The seminar will

Salmonella chicken was sold in Puerto Rico
SAN JUAN — July 5, 2015 /PRNewswire/ — The national food safety law firm of Ron Simon & Associates, along with local counsel Gomez Trial Attorneys of San Diego, has filed a lawsuit stemming from Salmonella-contaminated chicken distributed by Foster Farms. Health officials have linked the tainted chicken to over 600