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Breast cancer jab, Britain gives £1bn to a fund to fight Aids and how to ‘smell your fear’

Thousands of women with breast cancer could be offered a new jab which means regular treatment will take minutes instead of hours, the Telegraph reports.

Currently around 10,000 women a year are diagnosed with the aggressive HER2 form of breast cancer, which requires drug Herceptin to be given intravenously for long periods. Treatment can last up to a year.

NHS authorities have now agreed to fund a new type of treatment in which the same drug is administered by an injection in as little as two minutes, in a move cancer charities said would improve the quality of life for thousands of women undergoing treatment.

Over at the Guardian we find news that Britain is to give £1bn over three years to The Global Fund to Fight Aids, tuberculosis and malaria, international development secretary Justine Greening announced at the United Nations in New York.

Ms Greening said the investment showed Britain was leading the way and claimed Britain’s contribution would save a life every three minutes. Britain will become the fund’s second largest contributor once the new raft of cash has been added.

The Daily Mail has a new way of tackling phobias. It suggest that, er, ‘smelling your fear’ at night can help you wake up less afraid. US researchers found that smells that trigger memories could be used to calm fears while you’re asleep. They trained volunteers to associate images, linked to different smells, with fear.

While the volunteers were exposed to these smells during sleep, they woke up less afraid of the image it was linked to, prompting the researchers to say this technique could be used to treat phobias and stress-related disorders.


          

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