This document is the second in a series of global reports describing progress towards the 2030 targets set in Ending the neglect to attain the Sustainable Development Goals: a road map for neglected tropical diseases 2021–2030. It describes a wide range of activities, accomplishments and challenges across the portfolio of …
climate change is triggering widespread outbreaks of diseases among wildlife along with spreading tropical diseases in human habitations previously unaffected by them. These were the findings of a comprehensive two-year study conducted by National Centre for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis (nceas), a California-based research institute. The study is the first …
Two years ago, a report in the New England Journal of Medicine created a flutter in medical circles. It said that at least 54 deaths and about 1,000 reports of complications have been linked to ephedra, a plant product that is a source of ephedrine alkaloids. An amphetamine-like compound, ephedra …
The foot-and-mouth disease has reared its ugly head once again in South Korea. Tens of thousands of pigs have been slaughtered in the country as the dreaded disease has shown signs of spreading. The outbreak is more pronounced in pig farms close to Seoul. Hundreds of troops have been mobilised …
Anger and loneliness are just some of the feelings people express when they discover they have Alzheimer's. But what if you knew 20 years beforehand that this was to be your fate? This disturbing possibility has moved a step closer with researchers from St Louis-based Washington University School of Medicine …
Most people go about their lives unaware of the world of rats and the ingenious ways of this common rodent. Not Ishwar Prakash, principal investigator, desert regional station, Zoological Survey of India, Jodhpur. Prakash is, in fact, one of the few rat experts in the country. Every detail he collected …
for the past several decades, a killer had been let loose in Warangal district of Andhra Pradesh. Perfidiously, ruthlessly it strangled its victims. None dared to charge him guilty. But now it has been caught red handed. For the first time, a report has nailed down exposure to pesticides as …
Already hailed as a wonder drug, the humble aspirin can also combat common viruses, reveals research carried out by Thomas Shenk and his team at Princeton University in New Jersey, USA. The researchers have found that close relatives of aspirin can block common viruses known as the human cytomegaloviruses (CMV), …
Scientists have mapped all the genes of the fission yeast (Schizosaccharomyces pombe), which they hope will provide new insights into basic cell biology. An international team led by Paul Nurse of Cancer Research Centre, the UK, has done the sequencing. S pombe is the sixth organism to have its genome …
canadian scientists have set up a sophisticated computing lab that will help speed up research into diseases like cancer and diabetes. The lab allows researchers to view three-dimensional models of the smallest parts of the human biological makeup. The results are so realistic that one cannot resist reaching out to …
When the body is exposed to a foreign substance, such as a virus or bacteria, the immune system responds by making cells and agents that fight off the invaders. But sometimes physicians want to be able to turn off the immune response, such as during bone marrow or organ transplants …
some brain tumours may be caused by a common virus, indicates a new study conducted by researchers of the Philadelphia-based Temple University. During their study, they analysed a particular type of tumour called medulloblastoma. The tumour is the most common type of malignancy found in the brains of children across …
What is the general understanding of the term ‘pesticides’? In the Asian and South Asian countries, people often term pesticides as ‘medicines’. I have heard this in the Philippines, Indonesia, Thailand and India. This is a wrong notion that the pesticide manu facturers have succeeded in implanting in the minds …
the meat on one's table could be more than just sumptuous food. It could be a storehouse for antibiotic-resistant bacteria. Grocery store meat is a common source of emerging antibiotic-resistant bacteria in the us, say three recent studies . Widespread use of anti-microbial agents in livestock has created a large …
what does the temperature of the sea and deadly South American disease have to do with each other? A lot, say climatologists at the us national Aeronautical Space Administration (nasa) and the us military health specialists. They have used changes in the sea surface temperature to predict outbreaks of Bartonellosis, …
The Union ministry of environment and forests recently held a symposium on environmental health. Sadly, nothing emerged from the initiative, well-intended though it might have been. Here was an opportunity to meet the challenge posed by the double burden of diseases and a deteriorating environment by involving our medical community
Gulf War veterans are nearly twice as likely to develop Lou Gehrig's disease(a fatal neurological disorder) than military personnel who were not sent to the region, the US government recently admitted. The US departments of defence and veterans affairs (VA) compared medical data on almost 700,000 personnel who were in …
Infection due to the Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) may increase the risk of developing multiple sclerosis (MS) later in life, reveals recent research. Multiple sclerosis is an incurable disease in which the tissues around the nerves come under attack from the body's own immune system. Researchers at Boston-based Harvard School of …
in 2001, a great deal of publicity was generated by the announcement of the human genome being deciphered. Those who followed the announcement closely noticed that the claim was somewhat premature, as what had been accomplished was just a draft of the genome sequence. In other words, more than a …
