Santo Domingo.- In the Dominican Republic, the conversation around autism should extend beyond April 2nd, as legislators and activists call for urgent reforms in education, healthcare, and therapy services for individuals with autism. Representative Patricia Núñez stressed the need for more resources and urged reforms to the Disability Law and Social Security Law to ensure specialized therapy coverage. Yalis Soto, an educator, pointed out that the public education system lacks trained teachers and adequate materials for children with autism, leaving them with limited opportunities.

Additionally, Representative Anny Mambrú highlighted the importance of early diagnosis, noting that autism is often detected too late, delaying access to essential services. She emphasized the need for national investments in diagnostics, specialist training, and improved services, aligning with global statistics that show autism affects one in every 100 children. Overall, the article underscores the state’s responsibility to provide adequate support for individuals with autism throughout the year, not just on Autism Awareness Day.

Santo Domingo.- Health Minister Víctor Atallah has signed nine agreements allocating 50.6 million pesos to Non-Profit Associations (ASFLs) to strengthen national health programs. These funds will support primary healthcare initiatives, including access to drinking water, physical rehabilitation, psychological care, and assistance for patients with HIV, tuberculosis, and organ transplants.

The agreements were signed with organizations such as the Homs Foundation for Human Solidarity, Archdiocesan Caritas, and the Association for Family Assistance. Minister Atallah emphasized that these partnerships are essential for advancing social development, ensuring rights, and fostering equity. Amalfi Brito, president of the Association for Family Assistance, urged all benefiting institutions to maintain transparency and efficiency in managing public resources.

This initiative aligns with Law No. 1-12 of the 2030 National Development Strategy, which seeks to replace traditional subsidies with structured resource transfers through management agreements, optimizing the allocation and impact of public funds.

Santo Domingo.- The Senate of the Republic has approved on first reading a bill aimed at promoting health tourism across the country. Proposed by Senator Daniel Rivera, the initiative seeks to establish and develop medical centers that cater to foreign visitors in need of specialized healthcare. Article 11 of the bill designates health and wellness tourism as a national priority to position the country as a leading destination for medical services.

A resolution was also passed urging President Luis Abinader to implement a “Special Plan for Titling State Land in the Border Zone,” proposed by Senator Franklin Martín Romero Morillo, to prevent unauthorized foreign occupation of Dominican properties. Furthermore, Senator María Mercedes Ortiz Diloné’s initiative to recognize Dr. Richard Oliver Bidó Medina for his contributions to health sciences was approved.

Scientists have developed a device that can translate thoughts about speech into spoken words in real time.

Although it’s still experimental, they hope the brain-computer interface could someday help give voice to those unable to speak.

A new study described testing the device on a 47-year-old woman with quadriplegia who couldn’t speak for 18 years after a stroke. Doctors implanted it in her brain during surgery as part of a clinical trial.

It “converts her intent to speak into fluent sentences,” said Gopala Anumanchipalli, a co-author of the study published Monday in the journal Nature Neuroscience.

Other brain-computer interfaces, or BCIs, for speech typically have a slight delay between thoughts of sentences and computerized verbalization. Such delays can disrupt the natural flow of conversation, potentially leading to miscommunication and frustration, researchers said.

This is “a pretty big advance in our field,” said Jonathan Brumberg of the Speech and Applied Neuroscience Lab at the University of Kansas, who was not part of the study.

A team in California recorded the woman’s brain activity using electrodes while she spoke sentences silently in her brain. The scientists used a synthesizer they built using her voice before her injury to create a speech sound that she would have spoken. They trained an AI model that translates neural activity into units of sound.

It works similarly to existing systems used to transcribe meetings or phone calls in real time, said Anumanchipalli, of the University of California, Berkeley.

The implant itself sits on the speech center of the brain so that it’s listening in, and those signals are translated to pieces of speech that make up sentences. It’s a “streaming approach,” Anumanchipalli said, with each 80-millisecond chunk of speech – about half a syllable – sent into a recorder.

“It’s not waiting for a sentence to finish,” Anumanchipalli said. “It’s processing it on the fly.”

Decoding speech that quickly has the potential to keep up with the fast pace of natural speech, said Brumberg. The use of voice samples, he added, “would be a significant advance in the naturalness of speech.”

Though the work was partially funded by the National Institutes of Health, Anumanchipalli said it wasn’t affected by recent NIH research cuts. More research is needed before the technology is ready for wide use, but with “sustained investments,” it could be available to patients within a decade, he said.

SOURCE: AP

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Santo Domingo.- Former Health Minister Bautista Rojas Gómez has accused Agriculture Minister Limber Cruz of irresponsibility in handling the swine flu outbreak affecting Dominican farmers. He argues that the government’s failure to take timely action poses a serious threat to national pork production.

Speaking on the morning program Uno Más Uno, Rojas Gómez warned that delays in addressing the outbreak endanger small producers, putting their livelihoods and the country’s food security at risk. As a member of the Fuerza del Pueblo (FP) party, he has repeatedly criticized what he sees as mismanagement of the crisis.

He urged President Luis Abinader to seek better advisors on the matter, arguing that the president is being misled about the severity of the situation. He also emphasized that disease control is the State’s responsibility, not that of farmers, who should only focus on biosecurity measures on their farms.

An example of these cases is the people who, for different reasons, have to dedicate their lives to the care of others, eliminating the possibility of accessing academic training or acquiring a job.

The Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) conducted a study that identified 90% of the people who care for others in the Dominican Republic as women, who do so without receiving any type of economic remuneration.

According to the report “Car” givers of the elderly, overburdened and underpaid” used in June 2024 by the IDB, if the Dominican State develops better public policies to improve caregivers’ conditions, this could increase the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) by approximately 20%.

The World Bank identified this figure in 2020 in the report “Wom”n, Business and the Law,” which placed proportional labor inequality as the main challenge to achieving a higher GDP in the Latin American and Caribbean region.

The accumulated data comprising the 27,000 consultations carried out in more than 25 Latin American countries, including the Dominican Republic, show that 58% of the unpaid caregivers are “self-initiated.”

30.3% had no other option because they said they were the “only person who could,” and 2.8% accepted the request of “others.”

Employment and professional development
Conversely, 48% of unpaid caregivers report that they had to stop working because of their caregiving responsibilities.

Other consequences also include a reduction in work hours (reported by 20% of respondents), accepting a less satisfying job that is more compatible with caregiving responsibilities (17%), and fewer opportunities to advance and receive promotions (12%).

Eighty-two percent of family caregivers and 38% of unpaid home caregivers in Latin countries have no formal training. Unpaid caregiving has other negative effects, including a shortage of time and strain on family and social relationships.

Forty-eight % report that they are unable to receive the medical care they need because of their caregiving responsibilities. In addition, one in three unpaid caregivers report problems in their relationships with friends, family, or partners due to their caregiving responsibilities.

International program
The objective of the study conducted by the IDB is to build a program that will allow it to make funds available to try to mitigate this weakness in the financial improvement of member countries, including the Dominican Republic.

Through the “IDB Cares” initiative, Latin states can expand care services and infrastructure to improve the lives of children, the elderly, and people with disabilities and create more jobs.

” Strategic investments in care services and infrastructure are fundamental for sustainable economic growth, productivity, and the generation of opportunities for all in Latin America and the Caribbean,” said IDB President Ilan Goldfajn, who launched the initiative at the IDB Meetings held in Chile. The Minister of Finance, José Vicente, also participates in these working tables, and he handed over the presidency of the Assembly coordinating the annual work of the countries that comprise the financial body.

Although the international banking entity has not defined the money available for this project, the directors informed that the Dominican Republic could access it through loans and technical cooperation actions, which would not represent a subscription to a debt.

The Georgetown Public Hospital Corporation (GPHC) on Friday said the fireman who was severely injured in the Mae’s School fire earlier this month, died as a result of complications of the injuries and a long-lasting medical condition. Voshaun Manbodh, 27, died on March 8, three days after he was injured after a section of the ...

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President Irfaan Ali on Thursday pledged to afford the United States (US) special treatment in exchange for Washington’s support for its defence and other areas. Speaking at a news conference he shared with US Secretary of State, Marco Rubio at State House, Main Street, Georgetown, Dr Ali said they discussed the impact that the imposition ...