2 more vaccines undergoing trial in the country. Hyderabad: The Malaria Elimination Research Alliance, a branch of the Indian Council of Medical Research, has been set up to prioritise, plan and scale up relevant research in malaria and bring down the number of cases with the target of eliminating this …
Despite significant advances, there is more work to be done before the international community can be confident that it possesses sufficient protection against any future smallpox threats. The current World Health Organization (WHO)-approved research agenda for smallpox has been tightly focused by the interpretation that research “essential for public health” …
With the City facing an unusually sizzling summer, it has brought in its wake a spurt in the cases of chicken pox, especially among children. According to doctors, rising temperatures result in ideal conditions for the infection to spread. Paediatricians explained that among seasonal ailments children suffer as heat surges …
In May 2007, resolution WHA60.1 of the World Health Assembly requested the Director‐General of the World Health Organization (WHO) to undertake a major review, in 2010, of the state of smallpox research and additional related research needed for public health purposes. This was undertaken so that the sixty‐fourth World Health …
OPERATION Smallpox Zero was launched in India in 1975. Around this time, a WHO official has been quoted saying he would “eat a tyre off a jeep” if smallpox was eradicated in India. D A Henderson, the programme’s director, is said to have sent him a jeep tyre. Smallpox was …
End Of Vaccination Took Away Protection From HIV, Say Researchers Washington: The end of smallpox vaccination in the mid-20th century could be responsible for a loss of protection that led to the rapid spread of HIV, according to researchers. It is known that vaccinia immunization, as given to prevent the …
the World Health Organization (who) has consented to genetic modification of the smallpox virus to find better drugs and vaccines against the malady. Though smallpox was eradicated in 1977, the possibility exists of the lethal virus being used as a bioterrorism tool. Taking note of the threat, the un is …
A curious search for blankets is currently taking place in the plains around the Great Lakes in North America. These are not ordinary blankets. They are actually bison skins that were smeared with body fluid tainted with smallpox and used, two hundred years ago, to obliterate American Indians. Post 9/11, …
This article is a history of the last stage of the global smallpox eradication programme, christened in India as the National Smallpox Eradication Programme (NSEP). Here I have attempted to show how the Intensive Campaign of the NSEP was forced to abandon its erstwhile language of targets and returns, whose …
Despite being at the receiving end of the post-9/11 anthrax attacks, the us is drifting away from the convention that seeks to ban biological weapons. On top of it, Washington has readied a plan for vaccinating us troops against smallpox and enhancing its biodefence infrastructure. Against this backdrop, the country's …
A chickenpox vaccine has been launched in the UK. Glaxo SmithKline, the manufacturer responsible for the pioneering move says that the vaccine will be particularly beneficial for prospective mothers and healthcare workers. Official sources say that there has been a rise in the number of adult cases of chickenpox since …
Why have we been witnessing so many different communicable diseases recently? Increase in population has given rise to densely inhabited areas leading to poor sanitation. This gives perfect opportunities to microbes to spread. Along with this is the problem of malnutrition, which sometimes goes hand in hand with the increase …
the Bihar government has been spending over Rs 2.22 crore annually for 17 years on the salary of those employed in its small pox eradication programme though the world was declared free from the disease in 1984. The staff of the programme is getting salary for sitting idle, according to …
should the last known samples of the smallpox virus be destroyed or preserved for medical research? Or, should the vials of virus continue to remain in deep-freeze in case a future enemy develops it into a biological weapon? These are some of the questions at the heart of an on-going …
It has come off. Finally, the much awaited and much debated food-for-oil deal was agreed upon between Iraq and the UN recently. While the accord will take some burden off the Iraqi people, it will also help the UK and the US to agree to total lifting of sanctions, which …
THE international scientific community is contemplating the passage of a sentence of death: variola, the lethal smallpox virus, may become the first life form to be officially exterminated following a conscious decision of the community. If the World Health Assembly comprising representatives of all United Nations members gives the green …
The last two remaining stocks of the dreaded smallpox virus in Russia and US will now be destroyed by June 30, 19", if all the members of the World Health Organisation (WHO) agree on its elimination. The annual meeting of the WHO board which is to be held in May …
