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. …
researchers at the National Institute of Immunology (nii), Delhi, have developed a vaccine against Japanese encephalitis (je), which will soon be available openly in India. Though the Central Research Institute (cri) in Kasauli also manufactures a je vaccine, the process it uses enables only a limited number to be produced. …
The department of health and family welfare introduced the pulse polio immunisation programme in 1995. Since then, many rounds of national and sub-national anti-polio days have been observed and numerous children aged up to five administered the oral polio vaccine (opv). However, polio continues to afflict. And, what is more …
The Union ministry of health and family welfare needs to rethink its plan to introduce hepatitis b vaccination as part of the universal immunisation programme in the country. Does India really need it? For one, the vaccination protocol is faulty. Secondly, the real incidence of the disease is much lower …
researchers have evolved a technology to manufacture vaccines that do not need to be refrigerated. The feat may enable additional vaccination of 10 million children every year, claim officials of the uk-based Cambridge Biostability, which will manufacture the vaccine in collaboration with Panacea Biotec, New Delhi. The vaccine will simultaneously …
scientists have developed a malaria vaccine that shows some success in controlling the disease. Though it will have to be used in combination with available drugs and preventive methods to offer full protection, experts hope it would prove especially useful in malaria-endemic regions. The vaccine is still in the trial …
california has become the second state in the us to ban the use of toxic mercury in vaccines. The state governor, Arnold Schwarzenegger, signed a bill to that effect on September 28, 2004. According to the bill, children below the age of three and expectant mothers would not be given …
Star-studded campaigns, millions spent and 20 new cases of polio to show for it. The reason being offered by Uttar Pradesh (up) is lack of adequate routine immunisation. The affected districts are Badaun, Moradabad, Muzaffarnagar, Mau and Bulandshahar. While it is a fact that routine immunisation in the state is …
decades of trade embargo by the us did not chip away the biomedical edge of Cuba. This fact was crystal clear recently when the country's scientists announced that they have developed a synthetic vaccine for meningitis
The world's largest hiv vaccine trial in Thailand has turned out to be an expensive flop. The multi-million dollar trial involves tests on 16,000 Thai citizens and is the last hurdle before the vaccine can be registered and administered freely. The trial is a collaborative effort between the us Military …
bi-advantages: As per researchers from Canada's York University, bilingualism is useful not only because it makes it possible to talk to more number of people. They have found that bilinguals perform a variety of cognitive tasks better than people who speak only one language. Furthermore, the differences between the two …
The clinical trial of an Indian AIDS vaccine has been delayed because of the lack of safety data. The tests, being coordinated by the International Aids Vaccine Initiative (IAVI), were to be held in July. They have now been rescheduled for the end of 2004 or early 2005. The phase-I …
Has India been short-sighted in its approach towards stamping out polio? Is the World Health Organization (who) foisting a discriminatory polio eradication agenda on developing countries like India? Or is the pharmaceutical industry eyeing gains by pushing an alternative means to stave off the threat of the disease? Lingering doubts …
scientists have genetically engineered maize plants to produce a protein that can provide protection against the hepatitis b virus. The feat is significant
Tuberculosis (tb) kills two million people worldwide, one-third of the world's population is currently infected, of them roughly eight million develop active tb each year. But at the Stop tb Partnership Summit held in New Delhi on 24-26 March 2004, moods were buoyant. The World Health Organization's (who), The 2004 …
vaccination against chickenpox has been popular in the us for nearly a decade. But outbreaks of the illness among children already immunised have raised concerns about the effectiveness of the vaccine. Now a new study intensifies the debate. Researchers from the us-based Yale Medical School report that the effectiveness of …
The current influenza epidemic in the us, the avian flu and severe acute respiratory syndrome (sars) in Southeast Asia are infectious diseases that have rapidly evolved, taking national and global health systems by surprise. Such infections emerge in one corner of the globe and hitchhike into new areas, often causing …
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, …
an optimistic note, about wiping out polio from the six afflicted countries, was to be sounded at a conference organised by the World Health Organisation (who) in Geneva on January 15. Instead, the sudden re-emergence of the disease in two African nations
