New COVID Variant on WHO's Radar Causing Itchy Eyes in Kids - Times of India

A new COVID-19 variant that recently landed on the World Health Organization's radar may cause previously unseen symptoms in children, according to a new report. 

While the variant, called "Arcturus," hasn't yet made the CDC's watchlist, a prominent pediatrician in India is seeing children with "itchy" or "sticky" eyes, as if they have conjunctivitis or pinkeye, according to  The Times of India. 

The new itchy eye symptom is in addition to kids having a high fever and cough, Vipin Vashishtha, MD, said on Twitter, noting that pediatric COVID cases have picked up there for the first time in 6 months.

The country has also seen a rise in another virus among children with similar symptoms, called adenovirus. COVID and adenovirus cannot be distinguished without testing, and many parents don't want to have their children tested because the swabs are uncomfortable, The Times of India reported. One doctor told the newspaper that among every 10 kids with COVID-like symptoms, two or three of them had tested positive on a COVID test taken at home.

Health officials in India are doing mock drills this week to check how prepared the country's hospitals are as India sees cases rise, the BBC reported. India struggled during a COVID-19 surge in 2021, at which time sickened people were seen lying on sidewalks outside overflowing hospitals, and reports surfaced of a black market for private citizens to buy oxygen. 

Arcturus (formally, Omicron subvariant XBB.1.16) made news 2 weeks ago as it landed on the WHO's radar after surfacing in India. A WHO official called it "one to watch." The Times of India reported that 234 new cases of XBB.1.16 were included in the country's latest 5,676 new infections, meaning the subvariant accounts for 4% of new COVID cases.

55 countries facing serious health worker shortages – World Health Organisation

The World Health Organisation has said that no less than 55 countries are struggling with serious health worker shortages as they continue to seek better-paid opportunities in wealthier nations.

They continue to seek better-paid opportunities in wealthier nations that have stepped up efforts to recruit them amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

According to WHO, African nations have been worst hit by the phenomenon, with 37 countries on the continent facing health worker shortages.

“Health workers shortage have threatened their chances of achieving universal health care by 2030 – a key Sustainable Development Goals pledge.’’

The actions of wealthy countries that belong to the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development come under scrutiny in the WHO alert, among other regions.

“Within Africa, it’s a very vibrant economy that is creating new opportunities,” Dr Jim Campbell, the Director responsible for health worker policy at WHO, said in a statement on Tuesday.

“The Gulf States have traditionally been reliant on international personnel and then some of the OECD high-income countries have really accelerated their recruitment and employment to respond to the pandemic and respond to the loss of lives, the infections, the absences of workers during the pandemic”.

To help countries protect their vulnerable healthcare systems, WHO has issued an updated health workforce support and safeguards list, which highlights nations with low numbers of qualified healthcare staff.

“These countries require priority support for health workforce development and health system strengthening, along with additional safeguards that limit active international recruitment,” the WHO insisted.

Supporting the call for universal healthcare for all countries in line with the SDGs, WHO Director-General, Dr Tedros Ghebreyesus, called on all countries to respect the provisions in the WHO health workforce support and safeguards list.

“Health workers are the backbone of every health system, and yet 55 countries with some of the world’s most fragile health systems, do not have enough and many are losing their health workers to international migration,” he added.

Although many countries do respect existing WHO guidelines on the recruitment of health care workers, the principle is not accepted wholesale, WHO warned.

“What we are seeing is that the majority of countries are respecting those provisions by not actively recruiting from these (vulnerable) countries,” Campbell said.

“But there is also a private recruitment market that does exist and we’re looking to them to also reach some of the global standards that are anticipated in terms of their practice and behaviour.”

Mechanisms also exist for governments or other individuals to notify WHO if they are “worried” about the behaviour of recruiters, the WHO official said.

The WHO health workforce support and safeguard list does not prohibit international recruitment but recommends that governments involved in such programmes are informed about the impact on the health system in countries where they source qualified health professionals.

The World Health Organisation Identifies Gaming Disorder as a Mental Health Condition

Gaming Disorder

In 2018, the World Health Organisation plans to add “gaming disorder” – characterised by a pattern of persistent or recurrent gaming behaviour – to its list of mental health conditions.

According to the beta draft site, the WHO’s 11th International Classification of Diseases (ICD) defines a number of diseases, disorders, injuries and other related health conditions, which are listed in a comprehensive, hierarchical fashion. It enables the sharing of health information between countries and facilitates the analysis of “health information for evidence-based decision-making.” The previous version of the ICD was approved in 1990 by the 43rd World Health Assembly. The current draft that lists “gaming disorder,” is not final, nor does it list prevention or treatment options. The beta draft site, updated daily, is also not approved by the WHO.

The WHO’s impending beta draft for the next ICD classifies gaming disorder as a pattern of behaviour with “impaired control over gaming,” in terms of its frequency, intensity, duration, and the capacity to quit. The disorder falls under the parent category of “Disorders due to addictive behaviours,” and is characterised by giving increased priority to gaming over other daily activities.

Applying to both online and offline video gaming, the condition is also defined by the “continuation or escalation of gaming despite the occurrence of negative consequences.” In order to be diagnosed, these behaviours must be evident over a period of at least 12 months, according to the draft.

A Matter of Contention

“The WHO designation is now generally in line with the American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorder, Fifth Edition (DSM-5)’s description of internet gaming disorder (IGD),” Nancy Petry, a professor of medicine at the University of Connecticut Health Center, told Futurism. The main difference though, Petry said, is that the DSM-5 didn’t consider the data sufficient to classify IGD as a unique mental health condition. Rather, it’s categorised under “conditions for further study.”

The WHO’s decision highlights a schism among psychologists: some think the new designation is a welcome one, but others don’t see enough evidence to justify it.

Alexander Blaszczynski, a professor of clinical psychology at the University of Sydney, Australia told Futurism he is concerned about “the absence of clear diagnostic criteria determining what constitutes a gaming disorder, and the validity of applying existing addiction criteria to a behaviour.” He noted that there is a range of behaviours now being identified as addictions — everything from salsa dancing, to smartphones, to in vitro fertilisation. “At what point does an activity transform from an entertainment to a disorder?” he said.

The controversy ultimately reflects some deeper philosophical debates that have dogged most areas of medicine for many years, Ronald Pies, a clinical professor of psychiatry at Tufts University School of Medicine, told Futurism. “What should or should not count as “disease” or “disorder”? Do we require physiological, biochemical, or neurological “markers” of a putative disease entity in order to validate it, or is it sufficient to document substantial impairment and dysfunction in activities of daily living, responsibilities, etc., as the WHO criteria emphasise?”

Chris Ferguson, a professor of psychology at Stetson University in Florida told Futurism that he does not support the WHO’s designation. “Basically I don’t think the research is there yet to support this as a diagnosis and there is considerable risk of harm due to a “junk diagnosis.”

He said research suggests what we’re calling “gaming disorder” isn’t really a solitary diagnosis. Ferguson said some people certainly overdo gaming, as others may “overdo” or develop addictions to myriad other activities like shopping, exercise, and sex. “But the data we have suggests that usually individuals have a preexisting mental health condition like depression or anxiety first, then use these activities as coping mechanisms.”

Pies said he shared many of Ferguson’s concerns, saying he was “more skeptical than not” of the designation. “While some recent neurophysiological studies suggest that IGD may be a discrete disorder, there is still no scientific consensus on this point. It is unclear whether IGD is truly a “stand alone” condition; whether it is mostly explained by other underlying conditions, such as anxious or depressive disorders; or whether it is merely a subtype of so-called “behavioural addictions”, which are themselves sources of scientific controversy,” Pies said.

Others, like Douglas Gentile, a psychology professor at Iowa State University, see this as a big step in the right direction. Gentile compared where we are with gaming “addiction” as “similar to where we were with alcoholism in the 1960s.” At that time, alcoholism was considered a moral failing — people thought ‘it’s your own damn fault,’” he told Futurism. “It took another 30 years for people to agree that a medical model for alcoholism makes sense and now people can get the help they need.”

Gentile doesn’t think our culture is ready to accept the medical model of video gaming, and still sees it as a moral failing — mostly by the children’s parents. “We have lots of people who could be helped, but aren’t being helped. If you walk into a doctor or psychiatrist’s office, they either won’t treat it or you have to pay out of pocket.”

Ferguson isn’t sure “why the WHO is so obsessed with gaming when a wide range of behaviours can be overdone.” Given that other potential addictions, like food or sex, have as much research as gaming, it seems likely that the WHO’s kneejerk reaction comes from a broader moral panic over video games and technology, he said.

But Gentile counters that the WHO’s acknowledgement that video gaming could be a problem “puts truth back on the table,” Gentile said. “We need to treat games with more respect. We play them because we want to be affected, but then say they have no effects.”

Access Is a Predictor Of Addiction

As our video game experience expands with virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR), the argument gets even murkier. “One thing that we do know about addictions, generally, is that the number one predictor [for] if you’re going to become an addict is access,” said Gentile. “If you can’t get drugs, you can’t become addicted to them. Now that we’ve made gaming this ubiquitous — on phones, with gaming tech and VR tech in-house — we’ve made access open to everyone.”

Gentile isn’t certain that VR games are more addicting than their traditional counterparts. “We don’t know if greater immersion makes the games more addictive. To say that VR will be more addictive is making the argument that seeing things in three dimensions is more addictive than seeing them in two.” But he added that we we don’t have the scientific evidence to support that.

Scientists do tend to agree on one thing: that the designation will ensure researchers pay more attention to the problems that can arise from excessive gaming. “It is important that people with this condition receive help, and that research progresses in a manner consistent with state of the art science applied toward other mental health conditions,” said UCONN’s Nancy Petry.

Moreover, the WHO designation could help those diagnosed with video gaming disorder in another way: if they’re able to access treatment, it could be covered by insurance. However, Ronald Pies warned that “social goods” of this sort do not amount to a scientific justification for a disease category, and even among supporters of the diagnosis, there is no consensus regarding what the effective “treatment” would be.