Media Monitoring: 10 -16 June

Across the country, community diagnostic centres (CDCs) have delivered over 4 million additional checks for a range of conditions from cancer to heart or lung disease – helping to cut waiting lists
Eight new CDCs to open, in addition to the 108 already delivering lifesaving checks

England is on track to meet the ambition set in January 2019 to reduce new HIV transmissions by 80% in 2025 and end new transmissions by 2030
Cases of diagnosed HIV have fallen by almost a third from 2019 to 2021, and by over a fifth for AIDS
£20 million funding committed by NHS England to expand HIV opt out testing in areas with the highest prevalence of the disease helped diagnose 2,000 new cases of blood-borne viruses in the first year of the programme

Double the number of patients are receiving potentially lifesaving NHS cancer checks in England now than they were a decade ago, new analysis shows
In April 2013, there were 103,952 urgent referrals for cancer, which has skyrocketed to 218,060 in April 2023
More people than ever before are being diagnosed at an earlier stage (57% at stage one and two) – when prior to the pandemic it had remained at around 55%)

Screening all U.S. residents over 35 for chronic kidney disease would increase life expectancy, reduce the number of people requiring dialysis or transplant, and provide good value in health care spending, Stanford Medicine researchers have found
Screening for CKD involves testing for albuminuria, the presence of albumin, a type of protein, in urine. Its presence in urine is an indicator of kidney disease
Though the researchers found that adding a one-time screening that included SGLT2 inhibitors would increase total lifetime health care costs from $249,800 to $259,000 for 55-year-olds, they believe the intervention provides good value when considering the dollars spent on treating chronic kidney disease and the health benefits

Doctors could someday use a risk score to assess patients for probability of developing colorectal cancer and to determine how frequently a colonoscopy is needed.
This PRS risk score is currently being developed by Institute for Molecular Medicine Finland (FIMM) researchers at the University of Helsinki
The scoring system is being developed based on the health and genetic records of more than 400,000 Finnish citizens

1 in 13 adults in Wales live with diabetes, with this figure on the rise each year. This has been exacerbated by the pandemic due to a pause in NHS activity resulting in cancelled appointments
Diabetes UK Cymru reported that using diabetes technology, such as devices which continually monitor blood glucose levels, helped many patients manage their condition during the pandemic. However, this technology is often only offered to patients with type 1 diabetes
Diabetes UK urged the Welshi Government to: invest in diabetes care, support and prevention as a top priority and makes sure more people have access to life-changing diabetes technology

UK and Canadian Ministers agree deeper collaboration on quantum, climate change and biomanufacturing to upskill workforces and boost growth
Package sees Canada named as a partner to UK’s £119 million International Science Partnership Fund scheme, through initial £4.5 million funding
Ministers signed Memorandum of Cooperation on biomanufacturing including a £20 million joint programme

Researchers have used AI to increase our ability to predict which genetic mutations cause disease in humans. A global team of researchers working with Illumina used genomic data from the world-leading UK Biobank to compare primates’ DNA to that of humans
They trained their ‘PrimateAI-3D’ to identify potentially harmful human mutations based on the research into primates, finding that the AI was 12% more accurate than previous methods at assessing genetic risks for cardiovascular disease and type 2 diabetes
This comes as a timely reminder of the potential power of AI-enabled genomics in improving healthcare outcomes and of the UK’s strength in this emerging field.