Food insecurity worsened around the world in 2023, with about 282 million people suffering from acute hunger due to conflicts, particularly in Gaza and Sudan, according to this report by the United Nations agencies and development groups. According to the latest Global Report on Food Crises (GRFC), nearly 282 million …
There has been a large-scale widening of the gap in the health status of rich and poor populations in the former Soviet Union and former Eastern European bloc. This was reported in a new report from the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF). Among other things, the study indicates that every …
Researchers in the University of California, San Diego (UCSD), USA, have cloned and identified the role of a regulatory gene whose malfunctioning can lead to sudden cardiac death. In the presence of underlying heart failure, the gene appears culpable in the occurrence of cardiac arrhythmias, or irregular heart beats, that …
North Koreans are dying at a rate that is more than 40 per cent higher than in 1994 when a series of devastating floods and famines hit the country, said Gro Harlem Brundtland, director general of World Health Organisation. She revealed that in the North Korean capital, Pyongyang, the annual …
...the West eats into the world's resources, leaving the developing nations and its poorest struggling against ecological degradation wreaked by the huge consumption rates. The wide gap in consumption between the rich and poor takes its toll on local and global resources. Today some 800 million people remain chronically malnourished
The lack of health infrastructure and malnutrition in India's rural regions has left the people vulnerable to a number of health problems. Children are the worst affected with life expectancy levels in some states dipping to a dangerous low. Wasting, a measure of child health, built upon the weight to …
tens of millions of children could face starvation in 20 years time if the governments across the world do not focus on irrigation, education and agricultural research for poor countries, according to a new analysis. The analysis was performed by the world's most complex computer model of the global food …
How does vitamin A rice help solve poverty and malnutrition in developing countries? People whose staple diet is rice usually suffer from vitamin deficiencies. In Bangladesh, for instance, 75 per cent of the calories come from rice. Similarly, in countries like Indonesia, Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, rice accounts for 70 per …
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 …
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 …
G lobal trade in coarse grains in 1995 was to the magnitude of about 132 metric tonnes (mt) and is projected to rise to 175 mt by 2005. About 80-85 per cent of this export originates from industria lised countries, where coarse grains are cultivated for animal feed. In Japan, …
That they are called coarse grains summarises their present status in Indian society. Go anywhere in the country, and you will see a marked inferiority accorded to
How severe is the problem of malnutrition among children in India? Malnutrition is a serious and very common problem. About 50 to 60 per cent of the children, who are below the age of five, suffer from malnutrition. On an average, these children suffer from moderate to severe malnutrition. How …
Bangladesh government recently released the country's first National Health Policy 2000. Facilitating health services to the poor, reducing malnutrition levels and strengthening the family planning programme are the basic aims of the policy that has been formulated as per the recommendations of the Alma-Ata Declaration of 1978 and the World …
Health does not seem to be the priority area for the government. The World Health Report 2000 claimed that while only 1 per cent of India's gross domestic produce ( gdp ) is being used in the field of health care, three times this amount is being used for defence. …
Malnutrition at the stage of pregnancy can lead to the birth of children who are more prone to diabetes when they grow up, says a recent study. According to group of Chinese and British scientists in Beijing, who were studying the onset of diabetes in developing countries, found this interesting …
Armed conflict and civil strife were major sources of food insecurity in the 1990s and will continue to be this century, although their number and the losses associated with them may have passed their peak. Depending on which of the various definitions of the term is used, from 30 to …