Health Matters

* Children are susceptible to developing symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD, when their parents are seriously injured, a new study suggests. Researchers studied 175 pairs of parents and school-age children at a Seattle trauma centre. They found that uninjured children whose parents were seriously hurt were twice as likely to experience PTSD symptoms months later as those whose parents were uninjured.

* Saudi Arabia will test camels in the kingdom for Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS), its agriculture minister was quoted as saying, a day after a Saudi study reinforced a long-suspected link between the animals and human cases of the deadly virus. There have been 691 confirmed cases of MERS, including 284 deaths, in Saudi Arabia since it was identified two years ago, and many scientists have said for months that camels are the most likely source of transmission from animals to humans.

* Setting up a telemedicine screening option for patients in primary care clinics can catch many potential eye problems early on. But that sends more patients to eye doctors, who need to be prepared for the influx, according to a new study from the Veterans Health Administration. Researchers at the Atlanta VA Medical Center used two years of medical records to analyse what happened when retinal cameras were placed in primary care clinics to monitor for diabetes-related eye problems.