WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. health officials released standards for electronic medical records on Wednesday, seeking to spur the technology in hopes of cutting health costs and reducing medical errors.

Barack Obama  |  Health

Congress required the standards, partly as a condition of about $19 billion in February’s economic stimulus bill that is aimed at encouraging doctors and hospitals to convert paper records into digital files.

One set of proposals, issued by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), defines “meaningful use” of electronic records, in order for health care providers to be eligible for incentive payments.

Proposed requirements include that at least 80 percent of all patients who request an electronic copy of their health records receive it within 48 hours.

Another set of standards, issued as an interim final rule by the Health and Human Services Department, aims to enhance the interoperability, functionality, utility, and security of health information technology.

Electronic health records have been available for years, but many doctors’ offices remain mired in paper.

“Widespread adoption of electronic health records holds great promise for improving health care quality, efficiency, and patient safety,” David Blumenthal, the health department’s national coordinator for Health Information Technology, said in a statement.

Part of the problem is that despite dozens of available software choices, there has been no clear standard so that information is easily shared between different providers or hospitals.

With no clear choice, many have been reluctant to spend money on systems that could quickly become obsolete.

The standards, which are subject to a public comment period, could affect companies such as Allscripts-Misys Healthcare Solutions Inc, Cerner Corp and McKesson Corp.

Larger technology companies such as General Electric’s GE Healthcare unit, Siemens, Microsoft Corp and Google Inc are also involved in the health information technology business.

A final rule on standards for electronic records technology will be issued sometime in 2010. The proposed CMS rules on the incentives program will be subject to 60 days of public comment

(Reporting by Karey Wutkowski and Susan Heavey; Editing by Tim Dobbyn)

STONE TOWN, Zanzibar (Reuters) – A Zanzibari man crouches in a half-built roofless building, struggling to find a vein in his arm, while his friend takes over and injects the heroin for him, drawing blood back into the syringe.

Health

The two are among an estimated 4,000-6,000 narcotics addicts who use syringes to inject themselves in Zanzibar, a tropical archipelago of one million people, better known for tourism and beach holidays than drug abuse.

High rates of HIV among addicts threaten to affect the general population as growth in heroin trafficking through east Africa is making the narcotic more available.

“The problem is the increase in (drug) use. There is not any family that hasn’t been affected by someone taking heroin,” Mahmoud Mussa, coordinator of substance abuse and rehabilitation at the Ministry of Health and Social Affairs, told Reuters.

There is little reliable data on heroin usage. The U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) estimates heroin use in east Africa at between 100,000 and 1.33 million people, twice the proportion of the population using throughout Africa as a whole.

“Zanzibar has been established as a major heroin-consuming island,” Reychad Abdool, regional human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) advisor for UNODC, told Reuters.

“We believe there is an increase in trafficking through east Africa regarding heroin and this is going to be a major threat to building development and security in the future,” said Abdool, noting drug use was widely under-reported.

UNODC says east Africa is increasingly becoming a drug transit route on the way from Afghanistan — which produces most of the world’s heroin — to Europe.

“The problem is we have more than 250 unofficial ports, so it’s not easy to chase,” said Mussa, saying smugglers arrive by sea in traditional dhows, stowing heroin amid ice transported from mainland Tanzania.

HIV RATES HIGH

Measured out on long little finger nails and sold through anonymous windows in Stone Town’s winding 19th century streets, the white powder costs 1,000 Tanzania shilling ($0.75) a “kete.”

The kete is a tin foil wrap with enough for a single hit, about a twentieth of a gram.

Estimates suggest Zanzibar’s narcotics addicts, several of whom fill the tourists’ favorite haunt of Forodhani Gardens with vacant nodding stares, spend upwards of $10 million a year on heroin fixes. Some spend $30 a day to shoot up several times.

Dozens of discarded needles, many of which are shared by addicts, mingle with rubbish, weeds and tin foil wraps in dumps.

“The most affected group by HIV is the injecting drug users because they share the syringe within the group and they sell their bodies to buy drugs,” said Suleiman Mohammed Mauly, outreach worker at the U.S.-funded International Center for AIDS Care and Treatment Programs (ICAP).

Officials and ICAP estimates suggest HIV-prevalence on the island is less than one percent, but 26 percent among injecting drug users, whose infections may reach the rest of the general population via a chain of needle-sharing and sex.

Some of the initiatives put in place to tackle drug abuse in Zanzibar include a center to help people quit heroin and get their lives on track. Others are drop-in centres, HIV testing programs and telephone helplines.

“I lost my job, I lost my wife, I was chased from home, I was violent and I took anything I could find to exchange for money,” said Massoud Mohamed Aboud, 30, who used drugs for nine years but gave up eight days ago.

(Editing by Giles Elgood)

GENEVA (Reuters) – The H1N1 flu pandemic may not be conquered until 2011, the head of the World Health Organization (WHO) said on Tuesday.

Health  |  Swine Flu

“I think we must remain prudent and observe the evolution of the pandemic in the course of the next six to 12 months before crying victory,” WHO Director-General Margaret Chan was quoted as saying in an interview with the Geneva daily Le Temps.

“It is too soon to say that we have passed the peak of the (H1N1) flu pandemic on a worldwide scale… Winter is still long,” she said.

Chan also said the world was still not ready to combat a pandemic of the separate H5N1 bird flu virus. She fought outbreaks of the more deadly avian flu while serving as health director of Hong Kong.

“I say it without hesitation: we are not at all ready. I really hope that the world doesn’t ever have to confront a bird flu pandemic,” she said.

H1N1 has spread to more than 200 countries, with nearly 12,000 deaths confirmed in laboratory, but it will probably take two years to establish the true death toll, Chan said.

(Reporting by Stephanie Nebehay; Editing by Louise Ireland)

BEIJING (Reuters) – About 300 survivors of a deadly outbreak of SARS in China in 2003 are now suffering from serious after-effects, possibly due to aggressive hormone treatment to save their lives, the Beijing News said on Friday.

Health

Severe Acute Respiratory Disease, or SARS, was an unknown disease when it first struck in late 2002. Initially covered up by the Chinese government, it spread rapidly from south China to other cities and countries in 2003, causing public panic.

The most common complaints of the survivors are hip problems due to bone thinning, depression, and fibrosis of the lungs that makes breathing difficult.

China’s Ministry of Health did not immediately respond to a request for comment, asking that a fax be sent.

The last human case of SARS was in June, 2003. Over 8,000 people came down with the disease, and 775 died.

The SARS experience has been credited with inspiring a more transparent health reporting system in China and prompting better emergency preparedness.

(Reporting by Lucy Hornby; Editing by Sugita Katyal)