The number of lives lost due to viral hepatitis infections is increasing and already accounts for 3,500 deaths daily, according to this report by the World Health Organization (WHO). This is the first consolidated WHO report on viral hepatitis epidemiology, service coverage and product access, with improved data for action. …
The UN has launched a four-year study to examine the damage to the Earth's environment and identifying ways to contain them. Some 1,500 scientists will undertake the study Millennium Ecosystem Assessment. "All the world's ecosystems will be studied to bring the world's best science to bear on the pressing choices …
a new refrigerator run on solar power, developed by Hyderabad-based public sector giant Bharat Heavy Electricals Limited (bhel), could go along way in eradicating polio in remote areas of the world besides helping in other vaccine programmes. Vaccines are transported and stored from the place of manufacture up to the …
A newly-formed organisation in Bangladesh, Forum for Arsenic Patients (fap), has threatened to sue the United Nations Children's Fund (unicef) for compensation on behalf of millions of unsuspecting victims of arsenic poisoning. The hand-pump system, introduced to wean the vast majority of Bangladeshis off contaminated surface water, was identified as …
Pakistan plans to boost its measles immunisation programme. The campaign may gain strong grounds under the Expanded Programme on Immunisation. Several non-governmental organisations and communities interested in creating demand for measles control are supporting the programme. Besides, they want to build up socio-political pressure to press for their demand. The …
a controversial study suggesting that autism is a rare side effect of immunisation against measles, mumps and rubella has led to frantic calls for extended research into the safety of multi-component vaccines. These immunise children against several diseases with a single shot. A team led by Andrew Wakefield of the …
british immunologists have developed artificial antibodies that help in setting the body's immune system into action. Antibodies are y -shaped watchmen of the immune system that identify harmful cells and infectious organisms. They simultaneously get hold of diseased cells and immune system proteins to initiate a full-scale attack on invading …
stomach disorders, respiratory illnesses and other inflammatory malfunctions - caused due to the entry of pathogens through the linings of the gut (the intestine), the tonsils, nose and lungs - are common in India. So is the knowledge of their causative factors. What most of us are unaware of is …
As the immune system is designed to distinguish 'self' from 'foreign' and reject the latter, intestinal immunity also has a role in preventing exaggerated immune responses (allergy) by discriminating between the two. For example, touching the leaf of the Japanese sumac tree, used in making lacquer, can cause severe skin …
While it is common knowledge that physiological reasons - a good meal, an inherent biological clock, or fatigue - induce sleep, how did sleep evolve in the first place? An interesting theory on the evolutionary origin of sleep, that relates this nodding habit to gut immunity, has been published recently …
Oral vaccines are convenient to administer, and are preferred to injections. But a more important consideration for scientists while developing any vaccine is to ensure long-term protection. The key to prolonged immune protection by vaccination lies in the body's ability to develop an 'immuno-logical memory' - which means that the …
there might be much more in common between sex, parasites and immunity than one thinks, if a recent study is anything to go by. Evolutionary biologists who have for decades pondered on why sexual reproduction is so prevalent did not have much evidence to help them. Now Andrew Read, Mark …
diabetes makes the life of a patient sour. Sugar-rich preparations are struck off the menu of the patient because the body fails to regulate the blood-sugar level. The insulin-making capacity of the body wanes, or just stops, and requires either daily injections of the hormone or extremely careful control over …
All organisms have an inbuilt protective mechanism -shielding them from attack of viruses - called the immune system. The immune system in the case of vertebrates is highly evolved because it can recognise and eliminate 100 million different substances. According to Martin Gellert, a biochemist at the National Institutes of …
THE scene could be straight out of a medical sci-fi a baboon is sacrificed and its bone marrow processed; a person terminally ill - an AIDS (Acquired Immuno Deficiency Syndrome) victim who has volunteered to be a human guinea pig - is infused with about a pint of straw-coloured fluid …
Nothing can dampen the spirits of Jeff Getty. Nat the budget cuts and government shutdown In the US, nor even all the snow blizzards lashing parts of the country. He has gone home... Hallelujahl Getty's doctors say it will be a long time before they can say whether the AIDS …
POLIOMYELITIS, a paralysing disease that used to strike as many as 600,000 children each year, is fast disappearing from almost all over the globe but the Indian subcontinent remains vulnerable, warns the World Health Organisation (WHO). In the Western hemisphere, the last case of paralytic polio was reported over 2 …
HEPATITIS B is a disease more lethal than AIDS, claiming more lives in a day than the latter does in a year. But now genetic engineering has made possible large-scale production of hepatitis B vaccine at only 2 per cent of the earlier cost. The worldwide Expanded Programme on Immunisation …
