Given a paragraph, generate a claim that is supported by the given paragraph. 1) The claim must contain information from within the paragraph. 2) A sentence within the paragraph can be used as a claim. 3) The claim should not have contradictions within the paragraph. 4) The claim should be at most one sentence long.

Input: Consider Input: Not applicable. It’s understandable that costs wouldn’t be discussed at this early stage of research. Adequate explanation of results observed in study participants at different dosing levels. More importantly, the story simply explained: “Since it’s not completely clear what reductions in brain plaques mean for Alzheimer’s patients, the researchers are unable to say whether treatment with gantenerumab will bring improvement to patients with Alzheimer’s. They are currently involved in a new study that they hope will answer that question.” Better than its HealthDay competition in that WebMD actually told us how many people experienced harms in the study. The story allowed a Roche senior VP to say the results “went beyond our expectations” but countered that with “What is not entirely known is if these plaques cause Alzheimer’s…Therefore, it’s not known if reducing the amount of them will slow or stop the disease.” No disease mongering at play here. The story added an important independent perspective and identified the study co-author as being a senior VP of the drug company making the drug. We preferred how HealthDay explained:  “There are approximately one dozen therapies, including vaccines, that are currently in the pipeline….none are ready for prime time.” The story ends with an appropriate send-off:  “We need more studies to know if it is safe or effective.”  The early, experimental nature of the research is clear. The HealthDay competitor did a better job of explaining where this study fits in the history of research into beta-amyloid. There was clear evidence of independent reporting.

Output: Drug May Reduce Plaque in Brains of Alzheimer’s Patients


Input: Consider Input: Ebola has left those living in the country’s east weary and fearful, and, just as they were preparing to declare an end to the outbreak, a new case popped up. Now, they will now have to manage both threats at once. The new virus has overwhelmed some of the world’s best hospital systems in Europe and ripped through communities in New York. In Congo, it could spread unchecked in a country that has endured decades of conflict, where corruption has left the the population largely impoverished despite mineral wealth, and where mistrust of authority is so entrenched that health workers have been killed during the Ebola outbreak. It’s also unclear how forthcoming international support will be at a time when the whole world is battling the coronavirus. “It all feels like one big storm,” said Martine Milonde, a Congolese community mobilizer who works with the aid group World Vision in Beni, which has been the epicenter of the Ebola outbreak. “Truly, this is a crisis within a crisis within a crisis. The community suffers from insecurity, and suffered under Ebola, and now may have to face COVID-19.” In early March, an Ebola patient whom many hoped would be the last was discharged, and the outbreak was supposed to be officially declared over Sunday. But the World Health Organization on Friday announced a new case in Beni. The outbreak has claimed more than 2,260 lives since August 2018 — the second largest the world has ever seen, after the 2014-2016 outbreak in West Africa. Still, there is some hope: Many of the tools used to fight Ebola — hand-washing and social distancing chief among them — are also key to combating the coronavirus. In Beni, which has reported two cases of the new coronavirus, “the communities here hold onto some hope that they are going to overcome this pandemic the way they had been working to overcome Ebola,” said Milonde. “They are counting on the caution, vigilance and hygiene practices that they have been performing to save their families.”  Community advocates in Beni — who walk around with megaphones to talk about Ebola — have started to include warnings about the coronavirus. Messages explaining COVID-19, the disease caused by the virus, and where to go if sick are being spread on radio stations, through text message blasts and by religious leaders. Schools, churches and mosques are already armed with hand-washing kits. Beni’s mayor, Nyonyi Bwanakawa, says many of the measures will be familiar — but the recommendations to stay home are more stringent than what is required for Ebola, and officials are prepared to take “dramatic measures” if people resist. Unlike Ebola, which kills about half of the people it infects, the new coronavirus causes mostly mild or moderate symptoms in about 80% of people. Spreading Ebola typically requires an exchange of bodily fluids, and people have often been infected when caring for loved ones or mourning in traditional funerals that involve close contact with the body. In contrast, the new coronavirus is far more contagious and mostly spread by people coughing or sneezing, including those with only mild flu-like symptoms. That means the task of controlling the virus’ spread in Congo will be massive: The government has only limited control in parts of the vast country, there are also some dense population centers with poor sanitation and infrastructure, and the country’s mineral-rich east is beset by violence from various armed groups. Dr. Michel Yao, program manager for emergency response at the WHO’s Africa office, said implementing robust testing and contact tracing will be key. But getting the community fully involved in fighting the disease might be even more important. That means not just speaking at communities, “but giving them responsibility and roles to play.” Initially, efforts to control Ebola were met with resistance, one of the major contributors to its spread. Amid the insecurity in the country’s east, superstitions arose, and some clinics to treat Ebola patients were attacked and health workers killed. The capital, Kinshasa, a tightly packed city of 14 million located on the country’s western border, remains another major worry, said Yao, who is based at WHO’s African headquarters in the neighboring Republic of Congo. “If it reaches this place, it would be a big disaster,” he said. “Africa is only partly ready,” said Yao. “If we stick to sporadic cases, this can be managed.” But many more developed countries have seen cases surge, and a sizable outbreak in Congo could easily overwhelm its hospital system. Advanced equipment to deal with severe respiratory illness, which the coronavirus can cause, is lacking: The Health Ministry says there are about 65 ventilators — all in Kinshasa — and 20 more on order for a country of more than 80 million people. There have been 215 confirmed cases of the new coronavirus in Congo, with 20 deaths, the ministry said Friday. And health workers will also need to find a way to continue to treat people infected with the many other diseases that regularly torment the population. Over the past year, for instance, a measles outbreak killed more than 6,000 people in Congo. In addition, because donor countries are themselves dealing with outbreaks, help from abroad could be less forthcoming. The key, Yao said, is training more people locally to care for the ill. The challenge will be rallying again after many months of trying to contain Ebola. “The job wasn’t yet finished, and we have to deal with another emergency,” Yao said. Katungo Methya, 53, who volunteers for the Red Cross in Beni, expressed a weariness many feel. “It’s so upsetting to have this second disease. We lost so many people through Ebola, a lot of deaths, now corona,” she said. “Everyone is really afraid.” ___ Petesch reported from Dakar, Senegal. AP medical writer Maria Cheng in London contributed from London.

Output: Congo, weary from Ebola, must also battle the coronavirus.


Input: Consider Input: Studying the DNA of two distant bat species, the scientists discovered how genes dealing with the bats’ immune system had undergone the most rapid change. This may explain why they are relatively free of disease and live exceptionally long lives compared with other mammals of similar size, such as the rat, said Professor Lin-Fa Wang, an infectious disease expert at the Duke-NUS Graduate Medical School in Singapore who led the multi-centre study. “We are not saying bats never get sick or never get infections. What we are saying is they handle infections a lot better,” Wang said in a telephone interview. What was missing from both species of bats was a gene segment known to trigger extreme, and potentially fatal, immune reactions to infections, called the cytokine storm. Cytokine storms end up killing not only offending viruses in the body, but the host’s own cells and tissues too. “Viruses rarely kill the host. The killing comes from the host’s immune response. So it looks like what bats are doing is depress the inflammation (cytokine storm). If we can learn that, we can design drugs to minimize the inflammation damage and control viral infection,” Wang said. The study, which saw the participation of researchers from China, Denmark, Australia and the United States, was published on Friday in the journal Science. Compared with other mammals of similar size, bats live a long time, with lifespans of between 20 and 40 years. Rats live between 2 and 3 years, on average. Interestingly, Wang and his colleagues found that the highly evolved genes that give bats their superior immune system also enable them to fly. Out of more than 5,000 types of mammals on the planet, bats are the only one capable of sustained flight and some species can fly more than 1,000 km in a single night. Such intense physical exertion is known to produce toxic “free radicals” that cause tissue damage and it is these same genes that give the bat the ability to repair itself, Wang said. “What we found was the genes that evolved fastest were genes involved in repairing DNA damage. That makes sense ... because when you fly, metabolism goes up and it generates free radicals that are toxic to cells,” Wang said. “Because bats fly, they (would have had) to evolve and adapt ... to get genes that can repair DNA damage.”  Wang said we have much to learn from the bat, which has evolved to avoid disease and live exceptionally long lives. “Cancer, ageing and infectious disease, these are the three major areas of concern for people,” he said. “We have studied rats for 150 years to understand how to do better in these three areas. Now we have a system, the bat, that has done very well in evolution. We can learn from the bat. With modern techniques, we can design new drugs to slow down the ageing process, treat cancer, fight infections.”


Output: Long-lived bats offer clues on diseases, aging.