TASK DEFINITION: Generate an explanation for the given claim using the provided supporting material from the paragraph. Please consider the following points while generating an output. 1) The claim will always have supporting proof in the paragraph, and the paragraph will have a clear point of view supporting the claim. 2) There can be instances where direct correlation to the claim is not available. Make use of the sentences in the paragraph to provide a corresponding output supporting the claim. 3) The explanation should be at least one and at most twelve sentences long.
PROBLEM: Paragraph: Boise television station KTVB reports that Idaho residents fighting serious diseases like lymphoma, multiple myeloma and leukemia previously had to leave the state to get the potentially life-saving treatment, which involves transplanting stem cells or bone marrow from a donor into the patient’s body. On Thursday doctors at St. Luke’s Mountain States Tumor Institute in Boise performed the procedure on Patricia Edwards to treat her myeloid leukemia. Edwards was diagnosed in January and told that an allogeneic transplant was the best option. “I said, ‘What are my chances without going this route?’ And (my doctor) said four to six months,” Edwards said. Edwards was happy she didn’t need to travel out of state for the highly complicated procedure. “One of the things that bothered me the most was that I’d have to be there for three months. And I’m a homebody so I like to be home” she said. Edwards’ sister was a perfect match and donated her stem cells. The treatment means staying in the hospital for a month, followed by months more of recovery and treatment. “If it saves my life, it’s well worth it, isn’t it?” Edwards said. Dr. Finn Petersen joined St. Luke’s from Utah as the new MSTI Blood and Transplant Program director. “I think she’s done really well,” Petersen, said. He says the procedure is typically available only at university hospitals because it’s so complicated; the patient is getting a whole new immune system. “Where the trick then is to get this new healthy donor immune system to fight the patient’s cancer,” he said. “We are more and more coming to the understanding that the key to curing the patient is to get the donor immune cells to do the job.” ___ Information from: KTVB-TV, http://www.ktvb.com/ Claim: Boise woman receives first allogeneic transplant in Idaho.

SOLUTION: Doctors have performed Idaho’s first allogeneic stem cell transplant.

PROBLEM: Paragraph: The Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (KCDC) said there were 47 new infections as of midnight on Sunday compared with 81 recorded a day earlier, taking the national tally to 10,284. The death toll rose by eight to 191, while another 135 people have recovered from the virus for a total of 6,598. South Korea has been bringing the epidemic under control, with about 100 or fewer new daily cases for the past month, but this was the first time the daily tally of new cases was less than 50 since 909 were reported on Feb. 29. In February, South Korea uncovered what was believed to be the biggest outbreak outside of China. But a programme of mass testing and contact tracing helped contain the virus, which has spread far more quickly in other countries. The head of the World Health Organization (WHO), Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, held a 25-minute phone call with President Moon Jae-in, praising South Korea’s leadership in containing the virus, Moon’s presidential Blue House said. Moon said in the call that South Korea was “willing to actively support other countries with prevention skills and supplies as the circumstances permit”. Moon said he recently had phone calls with about 20 global leaders. Tedros proposed that Moon help support sub-Saharan African countries with virus-related supplies including test kits, the Blue House said. Despite the encouraging evidence in South Korea, officials have urged even greater vigilance, saying a large epidemic could re-emerge at any time, with smaller outbreaks appearing in churches, hospitals and nursing homes, as well as among travellers returning from abroad. “We are taking great caution against any optimistic expectations with this one-off figure,” Vice Health Minister Kim Gang-lip told a regular briefing. Click here for an interactive graphic tracking the global spread of coronavirus  On Saturday, the government extended its intensive social distancing campaign by two weeks, citing the sustained small clusters of infections. South Koreans had refrained from socialising in February when the number of cases rose exponentially but more people started going out recently as the weather became warmer and people became weary of the isolation, Kim said. The movement of people spiked about 20% over the weekend compared with the end of February, he said, citing data from the state-run statistics agency and SK Telecom, the country’s largest mobile operator. Starting on Sunday, the government toughened penalties for those who violate self-quarantine rules to up to 10 million won ($8,100) in fines or one year in prison from 3 million won  ($2,400) in fines. Authorities have reported several cases of quarantine rules being broken over the past few days. The Gunpo city government south of Seoul said on Sunday it has filed a complaint with police against a couple in their 50s and their children who broke away from isolation and went out even after testing positive for the virus. A Korean student living in the United States sparked public uproar after taking a fever remedy before flying home late last month. The student was found to have contracted the virus, putting some 20 other people who took the same flight in self quarantine. “We cannot maintain social distancing forever,” Kim said. “But it is the most effective measure to help protect others and yourself.” Claim: South Korea reports fewer than 50 new infections, earning WHO praise.

SOLUTION: South Korea reported fewer than 50 new coronavirus cases for the first time since its peak in late February, earning the praise of the World Health Organization for combatting the spread in one of the first countries to be hard-hit by the disease.

PROBLEM: Paragraph: A researcher archives plasma samples from an HIV clinical trial in a file photo. A gel that uses a popular HIV drug to protect women from the AIDS virus is safe and acceptable to women, although it is too early to know if it actually prevents infection, researchers reported on Monday. REUTERS/Tim Wimborne The gel uses the drug tenofovir, sold under the name Viread by Gilead Sciences Inc.. The study, released at a meeting of AIDS researchers in India, is a welcome piece of good news for the struggling field of microbicides. It involved 200 sexually active HIV-negative women in the United States and India. “The gel is safe to use, and well tolerated by HIV-negative women. That’s a key message in our findings,” said Dr. Craig Hoesley of the University of Alabama at Birmingham. “This sets the stage for larger studies to see if tenofovir can prevent HIV infection.”   Microbicides are products, such as gels or creams, that can be applied vaginally or anally to prevent transmission of the human immunodeficiency virus that causes AIDS. Just last week a study showed one candidate, called Carraguard, did not protect women from infection. Two other potential microbicides have made women more likely to become infected — a spermicide called nonoxynol-9 and a product called Ushercell, made by Toronto, Canada-based Polydex Pharmaceuticals. The tenofovir product appears to be safe, said the research team, funded by the National Institutes of Health, found. It is the first potential microbicide to use a licensed AIDS drug. It was a phase II clinical trial designed to show safety, not that it was effective. “It is a critical time for all of us engaged in HIV prevention, and I truly believe we are turning a corner,” said Sharon Hillier of the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, who led the study. Women make up 46 percent of the 33.2 million people infected with the AIDS virus, according to the United Nations Agency UNAIDS. Hillier said it is not clear how long tenofovir stays in a woman’s vagina. “Currently, there are very encouraging studies suggesting that even when tenofovir is gone from the vagina the drug itself is there in the vaginal tissue,” Hillier said in an e-mail. “The important thing we learned is that covert use, or secret use, is not an important parameter for women, and that in fact we found that 12 percent of the women who used to the gel said it made sex more pleasurable and none of the women said that the gel made sex less pleasurable.”   Eighty percent of the women told to use gel within two hours of having sex said they had done so. “We asked women ‘How acceptable is this as a prevention option, is it too messy, is it a nuisance, and will you use it?’ Our study showed they will use it and they’re not bothered by the gel,” Hoesley said. Claim: Tests of new AIDS gel show promise for women.

SOLUTION:
A gel that uses a popular HIV drug to protect women from the AIDS virus is safe and acceptable to women, although it is too early to know if it actually prevents infection, researchers reported on Monday.