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 …
According to the World Health Organisation, about 31 million people in the world are living with 11IV or AIDS. Significantly, this includes-about one million children. In 1997, around 2.3 million people died due to AIDS, of which 1.8 million were among adults aged 15 and above. In 1995, about 75,000 …
In the beginning of the 20th century, the Earth was home to some 1.6 billion people. Towards the end of the century, more than six billion people crowd our planet. This year, international organisations such as the World Health Organisation, Population Reference Bureau and the United Nations Population Division calculated …
All stocks of smallpox virus in laboratories should be destroyed as soon as possible, scientists in the US have warned. No one has been immunised against the once-fatal disease for more than two decades now. And hardly any facilities for making the vaccine still exist, says Donald Henderson, epidemiologist at …
The Green Revolution has greatly contributed to the spread of Japanese encephalitis. Professor T Jacob John, professor of eminence at Christian Medical College, Vellore, in tracing its detection in several parts of India since 1954, shows the link between paddy cultivation and Japanese encephalitis. "The prevalence of these diseases is …
A participant at the conference narrated the story of two doctors who were walking by a river. They saw a man floating down the river. One of them rushed in, dragged him out, and immediately gave him first aid. As he had finished doing so, along came another man floating. …
THE use of disposable syringes - which is a standard recommendation of the World Health Organisation - is being discontinued to make way for the old glass syringes in Calcutta's government hospitals. This move is in response to the fact that disposable syringes are not broken properly before throwing away …
FALLING OUT: Bangladesh-based Grameen bank, the pioneering micro-credit institution, has fallen out with Monsanto, the agro-chemical combine, just a month after agreeing to a partnership to introduce biotechnology to small farming communities in Bangladesh. The first project envisaged demonstration of cotton farming using hybrid cotton to increase yields and reduce …
MERCURY, which is known to damage the nervous system and disrupt mental development, can also cause infertility in men at levels well below those the World Health Organisation (WHO) says are safe. Mike Dickman, biologist at the University of Hong Kong, and Clement Leung of the In Vitro Fertilisation Centre …
IT MAY not be possible to eradicate poliomyelitis from the world by the year 2000 unless adequate resources are mobilised in time, warn World Health Organisation (WHO) officials. Bruce Aylward, in-charge of the WHO Global Polio Eradication Initiative, says that only a few polio-endemic countries are left in the world. …
Infectious and parasitic diseases such as acute lower respiratory diseases, tuberculosis, diarrhoea, HIV/AIDS and malaria were responsible for at least 75 per cent of the 50 million deaths that occurred worldwide in 1997, according to the World Health Organisation. While deaths due to circulatory diseases came down from 51 per …
the World Health Organisation's (who) plans to eliminate seven major diseases may require more than us $7.5 billion, which the agency has budgeted. Some us officials claim that the programme could even soak up money from other programmes, harming public health. The who targets to eradicate diseases such as lymphatic …
out of a total of 52.2 million deaths around the world in 1997, 17.3 million people died due to infectious and parasitic diseases and 15.3 million, due to circulatory diseases. Another 6.2 million people died due to cancer, 2.9 million due to respiratory diseases, mainly chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and …
A taskforce of foreign policy makers recently suggested that an analysis unit should be set up at the United Nations (UN) to facilitate Security Council's decision-making. Lord Carrington, the UK foreign secretary and chairperson of the task force, said that he was "worried about the gap between the readiness of …
China has found its biggest threat yet. Pollution. With 178,000 annual deaths being attributed to urban pollution, the nation's leaders have become keenly sensitive to the issue and going by the rhetoric and new regulations, are indeed concerned about the problem. The blood-lead levels in Chinese children are 80 per …
a group of French researchers has come across a bubonic plague bacterium that is resistant to multiple antibiotics. The bacterium, called Yersenia pestis (y pestis), was isolated from a 16-year-old boy from Madagascar in southern Africa. It has developed resistance to all first-line antibiotics and principal alternate drugs used to …
trace elements, that form a part of human nutrition, are not well understood. These substances, occurring in small amounts (especially in the soil) are usually needed in extremely small measures for the proper growth of plant and animal life. However, they can become toxic even in relatively low dosages. Also, …
Sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) or sexually transmitted infections (STIs), have been recognised as a major public-health problem for a number of years. In 1912, Prince Morrow, chair of the US committee looking into the problem of venereal diseases, was quoted as saying "it is a conservative estimate that fully one-eighth …
Scientists have for long propagated that breast feeding is perfect for babies and fulfils their total nutritional requirements for the first six months. Realising its importance, Brazil has launched several campaigns to promote breast feeding. There are six lactation training and resource centres in the country. The Lactation Training Programme …
On the occasion of the UN cation control programmes. World Day to Combat Desertificaion on June 17, Elizabeth Dowdeswell, violence as a public health problem was Aecutive director of the gramme, said that the viewed as an isolated, focalised threat; it h abstract planning and lack of political will 00031MMENIM …
