Good Food is First Food. It is not junk food. It is the food that connects nature and nutrition with livelihoods. This food is good for our health; it comes from the rich biodiversity of our regions; it provides employment to people. Most importantly, cooking and eating give us pleasure. …
With quinine-based drugs, traditionally sought to treat malaria, failing to contain the disease anymore, scientists of the Central Institute of Medicinal and Aromatic Plants (cimap), based in Lucknow, have now developed a new drug in their war against the disease. Certain strains of the malarial parasite have developed resistance to …
THE role of the umbilical cord as a foetus's lifeline does not end with birth. Researchers in the us and Europe now say that the cord blood can provide a new lease of life to siblings suffering from potentially fatal diseases like leukaemia and even AlDs and also from disorders …
Chagas' disease, a debilitating tropical scourge named after Brazilian doctor Carlos Chagas, is threatening to swamp Bolivia. Half of the nation's 3.5 million strong population is exposed to the disease; 1.2 million are known sufferers, while 86,000 new cases are reported every year. The disease is caused by the Trypanosoma …
The scourge of malaria is terrorising the tribals of Bangladesh's border areas, killing them like flies; Joyrampur's (Mymensingh district) Garo tribals are no exception. Fifteen hundred people living on the borders have already fallen prey to the disease since it broke out early this year. Abject poverty and a woeful …
Indonesia's National Family Planning Board has opened a 24-hour AIDS telephone information line -- the AIDS/HIV Information and Consultancy Service -- for Jakarta residents. According to the daily Jakarta Post, the line will provide expert advice and a recorded message giving information on the dangers of the dreaded disease and …
A snowballing newsprint crisis in the Asia-Pacific region has been the reason behind endless traumas for the region's newspaper publishers. Soaring cover prices and advertising rates and rumours of staff cutbacks have plagued the industry; some newspapers have simply lowered their shutters, while others are reducing page numbers to cope …
THIS year, the World Health Organization (who) set apart April 7 as World Health Day to highlight the international campaign for polio eradication and to provide necessary momentum to it for an envisaged polio-free world. But even while the who director-general, Hiroshi Nakajima, in his message on the occasion, called …
SOS for a Billion deals with Iodine Definciency Disorders (IDD), which constitute the most common preventable cause of mental defects in the world today. But IDD can be tackled at a very modest cost remarkable success in cormany industrialised nations since the '20s. One billion people are at risk from …
India is sitting on a "tuberculosis (tb) time bomb", says the World Health Organization (who), 1995 report on the tb epidemic. About half the adult population in the country is reportedly suffering from the dreaded disease; every week, the disease claims some 10,000 lives, despite projects undertaken to control the …
Over 250 medical experts recently met at a 2-day international symposium on diabetes, held in Kathmandu in Nepal. The country has a high incidence of people suffering from this crippling malady. The country has 9.5 per cent of all patients admitted to medical units suffering from diabetes. Although field studies …
"Shut up and die," the orchid's flower tells its petals once it is pollinated. But the language used is not known to us - it is chemical talk and in orchids, ethylene does the talking. Now, botanists have found a way of tapping into the chemical talk of plants using …
Many of the Caribbean's hiv positive patients are choosing to keep their status secret from their sexual partners; they continue to have unprotected sex. aids awareness programmes in the region have yet to wipe out the curious belief that if people look healthy, they cannot possibly be infected. The ostracisation …
THE inefficacy of locally made vaccines, according to doctors, is fanning the resurgence of a diphtheria epidemic in Russia and the newly independant states of the former Soviet Union. In the first 9 months of 1994, 21,622 people had contracted the disease in Russia alone. So far this year, 45 …
Pakistan, in the grip of a drug abuse crisis for long, is seeking to take all possible steps to handle the menace ***. Consumption of heroin has increased dramatically over the years. With 3 million drug users today, Pakistan has the highest rate of drug abuse among the developing countries. …
A mysterious disease with symptoms similar to haemorrhagic fever has swept the city of Nova Olina Do Norte in Brazil's Amazon region. It has spread panic among the local people, who are afraid that it could lead to a similar epidemic as that caused by the Ebola filovirus which devastated …
Efforts are being made to popularise in India a pulse called rice-bean (Vigna umballata) which has a high nutritive value. The plant is a native of South Asia and its cultivation in India has been confined to the tribal regions of eastern and north-eastern parts of the country. Rice-bean has …
RESEARCHERS are contemplating the use of pig organs in order to overcome human donor organ shortage. The pig organs - such as hearts, kidneys, pancreatic glands - will be extensively researched and ready for use probably within 3 years, they contend. Pigs have been selected because their organs are about …
Scientists have identified Helico- bacter pylori, a bacteria that causes stomach ulcers, in contaminated water, thus giving a clue to the source of infection. Earlier studies were unable to detect the presence of Hpylori in the environment, but its strong link with drinking water was never discounted. Preliminary results of …
Silk industry wastes containing large quantities of waste pupae can be used as poultry feed, according to researchers of the Department of Chemistry, Cotton College, Guwahati. The scientists have shown that waste muga (a wild silk obtained from the cocoon of an Assamese moth) pupae in dry form is rich …
The government and the NGOs of Bangladesh are engaged in a war of words over the relevance of their respective roles in the nation's development programmes. Finance minister Saifur Rehman's diatribe against local NGOs, occasioned by a World Bank study that praises NGO programmes as being more relevant than government-sponsored …
