Israel Active

Israel’s Knesset (parliament) held the first ever event of its kind - a basic life-saving skills course for the workers of the nation’s top governmental building. The CPR and life-saving course was organized by the Knesset Worker’s Committee in partnership with United Hatzalah EMS organization.

29 senior medical professionals from 20 countries recently attended a two-week course at Haifa’s Rambam Medical Center on responding to Mass Casualty Situations (MCS).

Dr. Koby Assaf, Head of Emergency Medicine at Jerusalem’s Hadassah hospital, was at a Bar Mitzva celebration where he treated a 60-year-old man who had collapsed.  MDA paramedics took the man to hospital, but he returned later after feeling better - only to collapse again! This time Dr Assaf went with him to hospital.

Arab Israelis have the highest life expectancy in the Middle East when compared with the populations of 21 Muslim and Arab countries, a new survey on the issue found.

I reported previously about tech from Israel’s Bonus Bio used to repair bone loss in the arm of a patient at Emek hospital in Afula. Now another patient at Emek has had groundbreaking surgery to regrow part of a shin bone using bone tissue grown from his own fat cells.

In his four years as a United Hatzalah volunteer EMT, Meir Farkash has responded to more than 2,500 emergency calls (over 300 life-threatening) on his personal bicycle. In his honor, the residents of Meir’s home town Ramat Hasharon donated an e-bicycle for him to use.

Israel’s BioSight has announced positive results of the Phase 1/2 study of its lead product BST-236, a novel cytarabine pro-drug, as a single agent for induction therapy in acute leukemia patients. It was effective on many patients who had failed with previous standard therapy.

I reported previously of Israeli use of hyperbaric (high pressure) oxygen (HBOT) to treat many medical conditions from chronic pain to strokes. Now Tel Aviv University researchers have discovered that it can also treat symptoms experienced by people with Alzheimer’s disease.

Israel’s Teva has been granted fast-track status for fremanezumab, an anti-calcitonin gene-related peptide (anti-CGRP) monoclonal antibody developed for the preventive treatment of migraine. It also applies to the prevention of cluster headaches, which are similar to migraines in symptoms.

The Britain Israel Research and Academic Exchange (BIRAX) program is investing £1.5 million in four stem cell projects to tackle diabetes, heart disease, leukemia and Alzheimer’s disease. The Israeli organizations are Weizmann Institute, Hebrew University and the Technion.