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. …
Good news for those down with malaria. Manuel Patarroyo, a biochemist from Colombia, claims that he is about to develop a vaccine against the disease, one of the oldest scourges of mankind. The vaccine is being tested in tropical countries like Tanzania and Thailand. Reports from Tanzania indicate that Patarroyo's …
FOR almost an year now, the Bombay-based Cancer Research Institute (CRI) and Delhi's National Institute of Immunology (NII) have been squabbling over credit for the development of an anti-leprosy vaccine. The controversy has taken a fresh twist with the Delhi-based Society for Scientific Values (SSV), an independent watchdog organisation examining …
DESPITE efforts to prevent the spread of malaria, the disease strikes as many as 300 to 500 million people each year and claims over a million lives. Not only have the mosquitoes that carry the malaria parasite -- Plasmodium -- become increasingly tolerant of pesticides, the parasite"s defence mechanism also …
A NEW one-dose vaccine against typhoid, developed by K P Klugman of South Africa, has recently been licensed and introduced in India. The vaccine does not cause the swelling and fever associated with other typhoid vaccines and its effect lasts for 3 years, claims Klugman. Tests undertaken in Nepal reveal …
IN WHAT he called "Colombia's gift to the world", immunologist Manuel Patarroyo has handed over all rights to his synthetic malaria vaccine to the World Health Organisation (WHO), a newsletter of the organisation says. The first scientifically accepted field study of the vaccine, reported in March 1993 in the British …
WITH THE commissioning of India's largest particle accelerator -- a machine that propels sub-atomic particles to high speeds -- at the Nuclear Science Centre (NSC) in New Delhi, research groups from all over the country now have access to state-of-the-art facilities for experiments in nuclear physics, material sciences and biophysics. …
TWO CHEMISTS in Hyderabad, working separately, have synthesised many complex organic molecules (those containing carbon) that are the basic constituent of most drugs. The chemistry of carbon is essential to understand the basis of all life, as most biological processes are mediated by organic compounds. Govardhan Mehta, a professor of …
MOST OF us are familiar with only three states of matter -- solid, liquid and gas. But there is another form of matter -- plasma -- that is neither solid, liquid nor gas. Plasma is composed of charged particles -- electrons and ions -- whereas other matter consists of neutral …
LEPROSY afflicts about 12 million people worldwide, of which about a third are in India. Though the bacteria that causes leprosy -- Mycobacterium leprae -- was discovered 100 years ago, it is only recently that Indian scientists at the Cancer Research Institute (CRI) in Bombay and at the National Institute …
Indian lasers among the world's best The Centre for Advanced Technology in Indore is playing a pivotal role in the indigenisation of lasers and making them easily available. SOME OF the world's most advanced lasers, with a wide range of industrial and medical applications, are now being made in India …
INDIAN veterinarians have developed a vaccine against a viral disease, called Ranikhet disease, which causes haemorrhagic diarrhoea in poultry, especially hens. Though about 10 per cent of the infected hens die, farmers find more worrisome the drop of upto 40 per cent in egg production by the infected birds. Scientists …
A NEW strain of cholera bacteria -- Vibrio cholerae non-01 -- that scientists say was earlier associated only with sporadic diarrhoea cases, has invaded India and Bangladesh. The killer microbe has already claimed more than 1,000 lives in the Indian subcontinent. West Bengal and Tamil Nadu are the worst-hit in …
A MALARIA vaccine made in Colombia by synthesising protein segments from the malaria parasite is proving promising in field trials, but its efficacy is still low. Vaccine developer Manuel Patarroyo of the National University of Colombia in Bogota reports the vaccine offers adults 38.8 per cent protection against malaria, but …
AS HEAD of the President's task force on national health-care reform in USA, Hillary Rodham Clinton, wife of President Bill Clinton, has her job cut out for her. A majority of Americans want quality health care at a lower cost, according to a New York Times/CBS News poll, and they …
ALBERT Bruce Sabin, developer of oral polio vaccine, has died of heart failure in Washington. He was 86. A prominent figure since the 1930s in research on virus and viral disease, Sabin developed a sweet, cherryred vaccine after 20 years of research. It came into wide use in the first …
JAPANESE scientists hail environmental technology as the new frontier of science. Surveyed on breakthroughs they consider likely in the next generation, scientists listed 1,149 topics in 16 fields. The survey was conducted by the Japanese Science and Technology Agency. Among their predictions: the first major discovery will probably be a …
FINALLY, an AIDS vaccine that works -- on monkeys. Harvard University researchers in despair turned to the old-fashioned, but unsafe, method and injected four rhesus monkeys with a weakened, live form of SIV, the virus that causes AIDS in primates. The researchers reported that the vaccine immunised the monkeys with …
A SAFE vaccine against dengue and dengue haemorrhagic fever has been developed by scientists at Bangkok's Mahidol University, who have been working on a WHO-sponsored research programme for the last 13 years. Dengue is transmitted by the bite of the infective Aedes aegypti mosquito and is caused by the dengue …
SCIENTISTS say a vaccine for human lung cancers may be ready soon, allowing a therapeutic cure for the disease. Lung cancer is characterised by an abnormal production of hormones, particularly the human chorionic gonadotropin (HCG). Malignancy is indicated by high lev els of HCG and successful surgery in lung cancer …
UGANDA, Rwanda, Brazil and Thailand have been identified by the World Health Organisation as testing sites whenever an AIDS vaccine is ready. So far, only Uganda has agreed to the proposed large-scale trials though responses from the other countries are still awaited. India refused to provide a testing site for …
