This year marks the 200th anniversary of the first successful human-to-human blood transfusion, conducted by James Blundell, an English obstetrician working just across the Thames from The Economist’s offices. Today blood is big business—with global exports worth more, in 2016, than global exports of aeroplanes. But that trade is distorted …
Horrifying details about the health ministry's negligence and connivance in spreading the Hiv among nearly 2,000 haemophiliacs in the country, have come to light after more than a decade. The revelations came after Naoto Kan, Japan's health and welfare minister and also . an AIDS-issues activist, ordered a probe. Kan …
With a view to prevent various infections transmitted through blood, the Supreme Court of India, in a ruling on January 4 directed the Union government "to establish forthwith a National Council for Blood Transfusion". Besides, such councils should be set up in every state and union territory, said the Court. …
In the wake of the frightening revelation that infected blood was supplied to 10 city hospitals in Bombay between February 1992 and July 1994, by the Indian Red Cross Society (IRCS), Bombay -a leading blood bank of the country -the question today is whether blood banks are any longer the …
A HAU-INCH long parasite that thrives on blood extracted ftom the gut of the host, the hookworm is playing havoc with the health of about 900 million people worldwide, predominantly in the Third World. According to the World Health Organization, the parasite affects 132 million people in Africa, 104 million …
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 …
Some parasites that thrive in animals find their human hosts rather hostile. For instance, a protozoan called Trypanosoma brucei brucei (T b brucei), which infects both humans and cattle, quickly degenerates in the former's blood. But in cattle, the bug causes a disease resembling African sleeping sick- ness in humans. …
THE concentration of blood haemoglobin -- a biochemical compound present in red blood cells that ferries oxygen in the human body -- is a clinical parameter to assess the nutritional status of an individual. Now, the process of measuring the haemoglobin concentration has been made simpler, cheaper and more accurate …
A committee of transfusion medicine experts has suggested that accepting blood from professional donors be immediately suspended because of the risk of infection. This has put the Union health ministry in a fix because there is a major shortage of blood at the blood banks and more than half of …
Two British genetic engineers have developed a blood substitute that could sustain the body for long periods on little oxygen. The inspiration for developing the artificial blood -- which could be useful in transfusions during heart and lung transplants -- came from the crocodile's ability to stay underwater up to …
PEOPLE suffering from coronary heart disease (CHD) can now hope for better survival chances, thanks to a new drug called "simvastatin" which can bring down the level of blood cholesterol. This drug succeeded in a largescale clinical trial conducted by a Scandinavian team of researchers (The Lancet, Vol 344, No …
THE current "blood scandal" in France has taken a gory turn. Early this year, 4 eminent physicians were accused of treating French haemophiliacs (patients suffering from a blood disorder) with blood untested for hiv. All were convicted and 2 were imprisoned. But, the present situation is far more grim with …
ONE of the hottest debates in palaeontology is whether dinosaurs were warm-blooded like humans or cold-blooded like reptiles. Scientific opinion has so far favoured the latter view, but 2 researchers claim they found a 67-million-year-old Tyrannosaurus rex fossil to be remarkably warm (Science, Vol 265, No 5169). The "thermometer" used …
The Nepali government has finally admitted that the state-run Himal cement factory in Kathmandu is a major polluter. The factory will now be fitted with pulse jet filters and filter bags to trap the huge quantities of dust that it emits, according to a Panos report. Once this equipment is …
A NEW drug to treat thalassaemia -- a genetically transmitted children's blood disorder that causes the rapid destruction of red blood cells leading to anaemia -- is set to hit the Indian market. Developed by George J Kontoghiorghes at the haematology department of the Royal Free Hospital School of Medicine …
A RECENT Consumer Court verdict dismissing a compensation claim by a woman who was infected with the HIV virus following blood transfusion at the Wanless hospital in Miraj in Maharashtra may hold grave consequences for patients, fear activists. Subsequently, a child the woman gave birth to also carried the AIDS …
Amritsar has been plunged into an acute shortage of blood. Three major blood banks, which are the main suppliers to the hospitals and clinics in the city, were sealed by the district administration on February 16 on a complaint that a person tested HIV positive after receiving blood. Inderjeet Singh, …
SCIENTISTS, physicians and surgeons in Bangladesh have formed a human tissue bank with the aim of persuading the government to remove legal hurdles in collecting human body parts for treatment, reports Panos. At present, only blood and eye collection is legal. In Pakistan, too, there are problems. Though more and …
DOCTORS in Africa are debating whether severely anaemic children should be given blood transfusions because of the risk of their getting AIDS-infected blood. Researchers, however, have found ways to reduce the frequency of transfusions by 55 per cent without increasing mortality (The Lancet, Vol 340 No 8818). Severely anaemic children …
A BRITISH laboratory and a US firm are collaborating to produce artificial blood after scientists overcame two obstacles that had hampered this effort. Attempts to use haemoglobin isolated from the red blood cells as "artificial" blood failed because it caused kidney damage and was unable to give up oxygen -- …
AIDS HAS claimed another victim -- this time one who is serving a four-year prison sentence after paying 500,000 franc (Rs 3.1 lakh) fine. The trial on a charge of distributing HIV-tainted blood through the French National Blood Transfusion Centre in 1985, ended with the centre's director, Michel Garretta, the …
