The World Meteorological Organization’s State of the Climate in Asia 2024 report warns that the region is warming nearly twice as fast as the global average, driving more extreme weather and posing serious threats to lives, ecosystems, and economies. In 2024, Asia experienced its warmest or second warmest year on …
In the spring of 1918, North Americans were complaining about an unseasonable flu that was sweeping through several cities. They and the rest of the world were still blissfully unaware of what was in store for later that year: a pandemic that would kill 50 million people, or by some …
The World Health Organization (WHO) this week remained on the verge of declaring a pandemic of the H1N1 swine-associated flu virus. Public-health bodies and scientists have made progress in starting to understand the outbreak, but major questions remain about how severe the disease will get.
The University of Michigan Dioxin Exposure Study (UMDES) was undertaken in response to concerns that the discharge of dioxin-like compounds from the Dow Chemical Company facilities in Midland, Michigan, resulted in contamination of soils in the Tittabawassee River floodplain and areas of the city of Midland, leading to an increase …
Climate change is likely to affect the nature of pathogens and chemicals in the environment and their fate and transport. Future risks of pathogens and chemicals could therefore be very different from those of today. In this review, we assess the implications of climate change for changes in human exposures …
Epidemiologic studies suggest a positive association between fine particulate matter and arterial blood pressure, but the results have been inconsistent. The researchers investigated the effect of ambient particles on systemic hemodynamics during a 5-hr exposure to concentrated ambient air particles (CAPs) or filtered air (FA) in conscious canines.
During the last decade, mobile phone use increased to almost 100% prevalence in many countries of the world. Evidence for potential health hazards accumulated in parallel by epidemiologic investigations has raised controversies about the appropriate interpretation and the degree of bias and confounding responsible for reduced or increased risk estimates.
This is the 13th annual report on global control of tuberculosis (TB) published by WHO. 196 countries and territories that reported data in 2008 account for 99.6% of the world
The investigation and control of foodborne disease outbreaks are multi-disciplinary tasks requiring skills in the areas of clinical medicine, epidemiology, laboratory medicine, food microbiology and chemistry, food safety and food control, and risk communication and management. Many outbreaks of foodborne disease are poorly investigated, if at all, because these skills …
This Institute started as "Occupational Health Research Institute' (OHRI) in the year 1966 and was re-christened as "National Institute of Occupational Health' (NIOH) in 1970 presently located in the Eastern part of Ahmedabad. Two Regional Occupational Health Centers (ROHCs) were started at Bangalore in 1977 and at Kolkata in 1980. …
The National Institute of Communicable Disease (NICD) was established on July 30, 1963, subsequent to the decision of the Government of India to expand and reorganise the activities of the Malaria Institute of India (MII) which remained in existence under different names since its inception in 1909.The reorganised Institute was …
Among the many environmental concerns surrounding nuclear power plants, there is one that provokes public anxiety like no other: the fear that children living near nuclear facilities face an increased risk of cancer. Though a link has long been suspected, it has never been proven. Now that seems likely to …
Tens of thousands of American families may be living in buildings once used as methamphetamine labs - most of them oblivious to the fact. Some who have learned of their home's history similarly attribute mysterious ailments to the toxic legacy of illicit drug manufacture, but like Katrina Evans they are …
In the 20th century, the tobacco epidemic killed 100 million people worldwide. During the 21st century, it could kill one billion, says the World Health Organisation (WHO), which has come up with a six-policy package to counter the tobacco epidemic and reduce its deadly toll. In view of the global …
the largest ever cluster of childhood leukaemia cases in the vicinity of a nuclear facility has been reported by a German-American team of epidemiologists. The cluster of 15 children was found within 5 km of the Krmmel nuclear power plant in Geesthacht and a neighbouring nuclear research operation along the …
India leads the world with largest number of diabetic subjects earning the dubious distinction of being termed the “diabetes capital of the world”. According to the Diabetes Atlas 2006 published by the International Diabetes Federation, the number of people with diabetes in India currently around 40.9 million is expected to …
Epidemiological studies were conducted in pesticide exposed agricultural workers along with an equal number of age- and sex-matched controls. All the 200 exposed volunteers were suffering from fever, nausea, headache and other abnormal symptoms and visited the hospital for general health check-up. These cases were taken up for more detailed …
A major DHF outbreak occurred in Delhi in 1996. Following this another outbreak was reported in the year 2003. In the years 2004 and 2005, though no outbreak was reported, a definitely higher number of samples were received in the virology laboratory of A.I.I.M.S. from suspected cases of dengue infection. …
A large body of epidemiologic literature has found an association of increased fine particulate air pollution (PM2.5) with acute and chronic mortality. The effect of improvements in particle exposure is less clear. Earlier analysis of the Harvard Six Cities adult cohort study showed an association between long-term ambient PM2.5 and …
