For many of us, be­com­ing ill with any virus might put us on the couch for a day or two. It can be drain­ing, but af­ter re­cov­er­ing we can gen­er­al­ly get back to the things we’re used to. For some peo­ple, how­ev­er, con­tract­ing a vi­ral in­fec­tion can be life-al­ter­ing. It can cause months, years or even a life­time of de­bil­i­tat­ing symp­toms that dras­ti­cal­ly re­duce one’s qual­i­ty of life.

We have al­ways heard the phrase from our el­ders that “Our health is in our hands” and it holds true now more than ever. But does it come down to the strength of your im­mu­ni­ty? When we talk of im­mu­ni­ty, we gen­er­al­ly talk of cer­tain foods or drinks that can “boost” im­mu­ni­ty, reg­u­lar ex­er­cis­es or eat­ing a healthy di­et that in­cludes foods high in an­tiox­i­dants, vi­t­a­mins and min­er­als. HEALTH PLUS de­cid­ed to take a deep dive in­to this dis­cus­sion, ex­plor­ing the truths and myths about OUR IM­MU­NI­TY.

Every time the coro­n­avirus pass­es from per­son to per­son it picks up tiny changes to its ge­net­ic code, but sci­en­tists are start­ing to no­tice pat­terns in how the virus is mu­tat­ing.

The coro­n­avirus pan­dem­ic stopped the world in its tracks a year ago and con­tin­ues to de­bil­i­tate lives and liveli­hoods glob­al­ly. More than two mil­lion peo­ple have died from com­pli­ca­tions re­lat­ed to the virus and more than 127 mil­lion peo­ple have been af­flict­ed and bil­lions of lives dis­rupt­ed.

A new study re­leased last Fri­day 26th March by the Unit­ed Na­tions, re­veals that more than 100 mil­lion more chil­dren than ex­pect­ed, are falling be­hind the min­i­mum pro­fi­cien­cy lev­el in read­ing, due to COVID-re­lat­ed school clo­sures.

As it stands, 90 per cent of cit­i­zens in Trinidad and To­ba­go eat less than the rec­om­mend­ed dai­ly serv­ing of fruits and veg­eta­bles which aid healthy lifestyles.

The COVID-19 pan­dem­ic brought new syn­dromes in­to fo­cus. To­day, on WORLD OP­TOM­E­TRY DAY, the world is shift­ing lens to fo­cus em­pha­sis on our eyes.

If you are one of the many peo­ple who toss and turn night­ly, then you are no stranger to how a sleep­less night can af­fect the mo­ti­va­tion, at­ti­tude and pro­duc­tiv­i­ty of your day. How­ev­er, the ram­i­fi­ca­tions of poor sleep ex­tend far be­yond a cranky mood.

A se­cret trea­sure trove of sculp­tures, paint­ings and prints, craft­ed by the hands of renowned artist Son­ny­lal Ram­bis­soon has been un­veiled for the first time since his death al­most three decades ago.

When Pa­tri­cia Quam­mie first heard that her kid­neys were fail­ing and that she was in ur­gent need of dial­y­sis to stay alive she fell in­to a trance.

As re­cent­ly as the 1970s, women’s his­to­ry was vir­tu­al­ly an un­known top­ic in cur­ricu­lum or in the pub­lic con­scious­ness. To ad­dress this sit­u­a­tion, the Ed­u­ca­tion Task Force of the Com­mis­sion on the Sta­tus of Women ini­ti­at­ed a “Women’s His­to­ry Week” cel­e­bra­tion in 1978. The day March 8th, In­ter­na­tion­al Women’s Day, was cho­sen as the fo­cal point of the ob­ser­vance.

We have not been on air­planes for the past year, but this is an in­struc­tion we usu­al­ly hear from flight at­ten­dants: “Put your oxy­gen mask on first,” be­fore your part­ner next to you, even if it is your child.