WHO published its World health statistics report 2025, revealing the deeper health impacts caused by the COVID-19 pandemic on loss of lives, longevity and overall health and well-being. In just two years, between 2019 and 2021, global life expectancy fell by 1.8 years—the largest drop in recent history— reversing a …
The promising results from trials of a malaria vaccine developed by GlaxoSmithKline have kindled hopes of a breakthrough in combating this mosquito-transmitted disease that infects nearly 250 million people, killing about a million every year. The findings of the human tests of the experimental vaccine (named RTS,S), conducted in Kenya …
According to several worrisome studies presented here last week at the annual meeting of the American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene, resistance against artemisinin-based combination therapies, the gold standard in fighting malaria, seems to be developing in western Cambodia, along the Thai border.
A team of epidemiologists has reported that just one-fifth of the standard meningitis vaccine dose triggers an immune response almost as good as that of the full dose, offering a way to potentially stretch limited supplies.
HARARE: A Cholera epidemic in Zimbabwe has killed nearly 500 people in the biggest outbreak recorded recently in the crisis-hit country, the World Health Organisation said on Tuesday. The cholera, easily prevented and treated under normal circumstances, is a sign of Zimbabwe
Aarti Dhar, NEW DELHI: Injecting drug users (IDUs) and men who have sex with men (MSM) require particular attention in the fight against HIV/AIDS and HIV continues to be a major public health problem in the South East Asia Region, with the highest incidence among sex workers and their clients, …
This report provides an overview of the global distribution of malaria cases and deaths and documents how control strategies recommended by WHO have been adopted and implemented in endemic countries.
This report contains monographs prepared at the sixty-eighth meeting of the Joint FAOM0 Expert Committee on Food Additives (JECFA), which met in Geneva, Switzerland, from 19 to 28 June 2007. The toxicological monographs in this volume summarize the safety data on a number of food additives: acidified sodlum chlorite, asparaginase …
The Alma-Ata Declaration of 1978 on Primary Health Care together with the slogan of Health for All by 2000 AD is considered one of the most significant public health initiatives of the 20th century. The 30th anniversary of the declaration provides an opportune time to revisit its history and arrive …
Southeast Asia and South Pacific island nations face a growing threat from malaria and dengue fever as climate change spreads mosquitoes that carry the diseases and climate-change refugees start to migrate. A new report titled "The Sting of Climate Change," said recent data suggested that since the 1970s climate change …
President Pratibha Patil recently issued a clarion call for implementing the "total cleanliness mission" in all villages by 2012, saying that sanitation was a key issue. Nearly 250 crore people in the world, most in the Third World, lacked this facility and that the international community, including the UN, was …
NEW DELHI: The World Health Organisation (WHO) is alerting its member States southeast Asia on the possible dangers of distribution and consumption of melamine-contaminated milk products. Contaminated batches of infant formula or other milk-containing products such as biscuits, chocolates and snack food have reportedly been exported to the region, posing …
The first and second editions of the Guidelines for Drinking-water Quality were used by developing and developed countries worldwide as the basis for regulation and standard setting to ensure the safety of drinking-water. They recognized the priority that should be given to ensuring microbial safety and provided guideline values for …
Ministers of health, donor agencies, philanthropists, and international agencies will meet at Bamako, Mali, in November, 2008, to review global priorities for health research. These individuals and organisations previously set health priorities for WHO, either through its regular budget or extra-budgetary funds. We asked what insights can be gained as …
The World Health Organisation (WHO) in its latest report has stated that there was a possible risk of water-borne disease spreading in the areas affected by the recent floods. The Epidemiologists confirmed the possibility of such diseases spreading but stated that no cases have been reported yet. Dr. Sudath Peries …
