Global News Post: Health

HEALTH: Predicting the next zoonotic pandemic

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<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; font-size: small;">Photo: <a href="http://www.thelancet.com/">The Lancet</a><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; font-size: small;">Next big pandemic most likely to break out in orange-red<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; font-size: small;">zones on this map according to one projection</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">LONDON (IRIN) - Chances are high the world’s next
pandemic will be a disease originating in animals, like 60 percent of current
documented human infectious diseases. Even after hundreds of thousands of human
deaths from zoonoses (diseases transmitted from animals to humans), experts say
there is still limited information about how zoonoses are spread or just how to
predict the next outbreak.<br />
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“There is no question of whether we will have another zoonotic pandemic,” wrote
Stephen Morse, a public health professor at <st1:placename w:st="on">Columbia</st1:placename>
<st1:placetype w:st="on">University</st1:placetype> in <st1:state w:st="on">New
 York</st1:state>, in a November 2012 <a href="http://www.thelancet.com/series/zoonoses" target="_blank">series on
zoonoses</a> in the <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">UK</st1:place></st1:country-region>
medical journal, The Lancet. “The question is merely when, and where, the
next pandemic will emerge.”<br />
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Despite <a href="http://www.ted.com/talks/nathan_wolfe_hunts_for_the_next_aids.html" target="_blank">virus hunters’</a> best efforts, no zoonotic pandemic has,
thus far, been predicted before it infected humans.<br />
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“The continuing effect of the HIV/AIDS pandemic is a reminder of the risk of
zoonotic pathogens spreading from their natural reservoirs to man,” wrote
William Karesh from <st1:state w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">New York</st1:place></st1:state>’s
EcoHealth Alliance in the Lancet series. The NGO, formerly known as Wildlife
Trust, works to prevent the outbreak of emerging diseases by preserving
biodiversity. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"><br />
An estimated 1.8 million people <a href="http://www.unaids.org/en/media/unaids/contentassets/documents/unaidspublication/2011/jc2216_worldaidsday_report_2011_en.pdf" target="_blank">die annually from AIDS</a>, caused by HIV, which originated in
primates. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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“What is far less broadly appreciated is that none of the approaches commonly
used to search for potential new human pathogens… probably would have
identified simian immunodeficiency virus (SIV) as a potential risk to man,”
said Karesh.<br />
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<b>Early warning?<o:p></o:p></b></span></div>
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The US Agency for International Development launched its <a href="http://www1.usaid.gov/press/releases/2009/pr091021_1.html" target="_blank">Emerging
Pandemic Threats Programme</a> in late 2009 to build an early warning
system to detect and reduce the impacts of zoonotic diseases.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS';">But there are
thousands of species of birds and animals that each host different diseases;
where do you concentrate efforts? A virologist may focus on diseases easily
spread from animal relatives, like chimpanzees, while a social scientist points
out how rare contact is between humans and chimpanzees and focuses, instead, on
poultry, with which people live and work in close quarters worldwide.</span></div>
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Between 2003 and 5 November 2012, 608 laboratory-confirmed human cases of
infections from H5N1 bird flu were reported to the <a href="http://www.who.int/influenza/human_animal_interface/Influenza_Summary_IRA_HA_interface_05November12.pdf" target="_blank">World Health Organization</a> from 15 countries, of which
359 died. </div>
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Disease hunters are homing in on emerging disease “hotspots”, mammal-rich areas
with high, changing population densities. A group of experts led by <st1:placename w:st="on">Columbia</st1:placename> <st1:placetype w:st="on">University</st1:placetype>’s
Morse are creating a disease map, in which <st1:country-region w:st="on">Rwanda</st1:country-region>
and <st1:country-region w:st="on">Burundi</st1:country-region> are bright red,
as is the Indonesian <st1:placetype w:st="on">island</st1:placetype> of <st1:placename w:st="on">Java</st1:placename>, one of the world’s most densely populated
islands, and <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Egypt</st1:place></st1:country-region>’s
Nile Delta. Other potential sites for future outbreaks include north <st1:country-region w:st="on">India</st1:country-region> and <st1:country-region w:st="on">Bangladesh</st1:country-region>,
northern and western <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:country-region w:st="on">China</st1:country-region></st1:place>,
and - to a lesser extent - more densely populated parts of western Europe and
along the west African coast.</div>
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<b>Urbanization</b></div>
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“Urbanization has boosted zoonoses’ outbreak risks as people get closer to
animals,” Sarah Schlesinger, a scientist from <st1:state w:st="on">New York</st1:state>’s
<st1:place w:st="on"><st1:placename w:st="on">Rockefeller</st1:placename> <st1:placetype w:st="on">University</st1:placetype></st1:place>, told IRIN on the sidelines
of a recent HIV vaccine conference.</div>
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Cities are growing, with roads and industries penetrating previously
uninhabited wildlife habitats; some 3.3 billion people live in urban areas
(cities and their outskirts), according to the UN. By 2030, the world’s urban
population is expected to exceed five billion, with 80 percent located in the
developed world. In places where animal “hosts” to disease start to disappear
(as their habitats shrink), pathogens are finding a new home in human
hosts.</div>
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Some 800 million people worldwide are engaged in urban agriculture, according
to the <a href="http://www.scribd.com/doc/67301608/Urban-Agriculture-for-Sustainable-Poverty-Alleviation-and-Food-Security" target="_blank">World Bank</a>, which identifies peri-urban livestock as a
fast-growing sector that produces 34 percent of the world’s meat and nearly 70
percent of its eggs.</div>
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The Nairobi-headquartered International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) has
pointed out how urban livestock and agriculture can breed disease in some of
the world’s most crowded places. In a <a href="http://mahider.ilri.org/bitstream/handle/10568/24453/FactSheet_urbanzoonoses_oct2012.pdf?sequence=5" target="_blank">recent survey</a> in Dagoretti, one of eight districts of <st1:country-region w:st="on">Kenya</st1:country-region>’s capital, <st1:city w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Nairobi</st1:place></st1:city>, the institute found up to 11 percent
of households were affected by cryptosporidiosis, a diarrhoeal disease caused
by a pathogen found in cattle, raw milk, soil, vegetables and contaminated water.</div>
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Changing harvests  may be another contributor to the spread of zoonoses.
In the southwestern <st1:country-region w:st="on">USA</st1:country-region>
where El Niño (rising sea surface temperatures across the central and eastern <st1:place w:st="on">Pacific Ocean</st1:place>) dumped more rain, vegetation growth
increased, which then attracted more rats. Hantavirus is not fatal in rats -
which carry the disease - but is in humans who became infected through the
rats.</div>
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The interplay of biology, ecology and sociology make forecasting the next
pandemic difficult, say experts in the Lancet series who call for boosting
cooperation between experts (<a href="http://www.irinnews.org/Report/96590/HIV-AIDS-Breaking-science-silos-to-find-a-vaccine" target="_blank">often working in silos</a>) to meet the “huge, and rising”
threat of zoonoses.</div>
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HEALTH: Predicting the next zoonotic pandemic

Photo: The Lancet Next big pandemic most likely to break out in orange-red zones on this map according to one projection LO...

Polio Mostly Eradicated Globally

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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS";">By
Jessica Berman<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS";">The
global scourge of polio has been virtually eradicated, reaching historically
low numbers this year.  But pockets of
the disease remain in South Asia and <st1:place w:st="on">Africa</st1:place>
because of the refusal of some parents to immunize their children. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS";">International
public health officials counted 177 polio cases worldwide for the first ten
months of this year.  That’s a drop from
just over 500 cases in 2011.  Public
health officials credit the drop to successful immunization campaigns against
the illness, which attacks the nervous system and can cause partial or total
paralysis.  The malady has disappeared
from most countries where it was once epidemic. 
For example, in <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">India</st1:place></st1:country-region>,
there have been no cases of polio reported in two years.  <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS";">But
in neighboring <st1:country-region w:st="on">Pakistan</st1:country-region> and <st1:country-region w:st="on">Afghanistan</st1:country-region>, and in <st1:country-region w:st="on">Nigeria</st1:country-region>,
<st1:place w:st="on">West Africa</st1:place>, reservoirs of the viral illness
remain. Experts say that is due to the refusal of many parents to vaccinate
their children against the infection.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS";">Anita
Zaidi is head of pediatrics at <st1:placename w:st="on">Aga Khan</st1:placename>
<st1:placetype w:st="on">University</st1:placetype> in <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:city w:st="on">Karachi</st1:city>, <st1:country-region w:st="on">Pakistan</st1:country-region></st1:place>.
She says intensive public health efforts are underway to vaccinate children
against polio.  But she says the gains
are fragile in some areas and among some ethnic groups, particularly among the
country's Pashtun community.  <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS";">Zaidi
says 74 percent of Pashtun children go unvaccinated because many parents believe
the immunization is harmful.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS";">“They
believe that it can cause sterility in their children or that it’s a conspiracy
to sterilize Muslim populations so that their population growth falls, or they
believe in the ..value of a vaccine so they think it’s not harmful but it won’t
do anything so why take it," she said. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS";">Polio
is acquired through contact with feces-contaminated water.  Often, Zaidi says, infected children don’t
develop symptoms right away so they are unaware that they are exposing other children
to the disease. This scenario is common in very dense urban slums, where the
availability of clean water is low.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS";">But
polio is easily preventable with a series of oral vaccines beginning in
infancy.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS";">Zaidi
says the key to a successful vaccination campaign in these pockets of polio
infection is to engage members of the community to help.  <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS";">“So
that is you have a refusal, [so] you get somebody from that community that
you’ve built up trust with, that the community has built up trust with, and you
get them to talk to the family," she said. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS";">Pediatrician
Anita Zaidi presented a progress report on polio eradication efforts at a
meeting this week of the American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene in <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:city w:st="on">Atlanta</st1:city>, <st1:country-region w:st="on">Georgia</st1:country-region></st1:place>.
---VOA News<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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Polio Mostly Eradicated Globally

By Jessica Berman The global scourge of polio has been virtually eradicated, reaching historically low numbers this year. But pock...

Over a Billion Women Lack Safe Sanitation

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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS";">By
Joe DeCapua<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 10.0pt;">Aminata Rabo, of <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:country-region w:st="on">Burkina Faso</st1:country-region></st1:place>,
lost a son to chronic<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 10.0pt;">diarrhea and a daughter to
malaria.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 10.0pt;">Credit: Water Aid</span> <span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 10.0pt;">Photo © VOA News<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS";">November
19th is World Toilet Day. It’s estimated that more than a billion women lack
access to safe sanitation. The NGO WaterAid says a lack of adequate toilets
puts women at risk of shame, disease, harassment and even violence.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS";">WaterAid
Chief Executive Barbara Frost said governments need to invest a lot more in
sanitation to improve women’s health and livelihoods.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS";">“On
World Toilet Day, the message that WaterAid is putting out is that one in three
women still don’t have a decent toilet. And what that means is that they have
to wait until it’s after dark to go out and find a safe place to relieve
themselves – a threat to their health, to their security, to their safety,” she
said.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS";">She
said the problem is particularly bad in <st1:place w:st="on">Africa</st1:place>,
where seven out of ten women have no access to a safe toilet.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS";">“Women
and girls bear the brunt of poor sanitation and not having a decent toilet. And
many girls drop out of school at puberty because there isn’t a safe place for
them to wash when they’re menstruating. And also women spend so many hours
looking after their children, who are sick as a result of diarrheal diseases,”
she said.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS";">WaterAid
commissioned a survey in five slums in <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:city w:st="on">Lagos</st1:city>,
 <st1:country-region w:st="on">Nigeria</st1:country-region></st1:place>. It
indicates that in the last year one in five women have experienced verbal
harassment or intimidation, or were threatened physically, when going to the
toilet. The NGO said studies in <st1:country-region w:st="on">Uganda</st1:country-region>
and <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Kenya</st1:place></st1:country-region>
have similar findings.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS";">Frost
added the lack of sanitation has other tragic consequences as well.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS";">“Every
day 2000 mothers lose a child as a result of waterborne diseases, which is a
terrible trauma and tragedy. And many other women are having to stay at home
looking after their children, who’ve got diarrheal diseases as a result of
drinking unsafe water or using poor sanitation,” she said.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS";">WaterAid
has programs in 27 countries in Africa, <st1:place w:st="on">Asia</st1:place>
and the Pacific region. ---VOA News<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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Over a Billion Women Lack Safe Sanitation

By Joe DeCapua Aminata Rabo, of Burkina Faso , lost a son to chronic diarrhea and a daughter to malaria. Credit: Water Aid P...

Health Textbook Causes Stir In India

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<st1:city w:st="on"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS";">NEW DELHI</span></st1:city><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS";">, <st1:country-region w:st="on">India</st1:country-region>
(NNN-Bernama) -- A major row has erupted in <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:country-region w:st="on">India</st1:country-region></st1:place> following a controversial
textbook's claim that non-vegetarians "easily cheat, lie, forget promises
and commit sex crimes." <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS";">Academicians
have urged the government to take immediate action and remove information from
the textbook on health and hygiene, Xinhua news agency reported.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS";">The
book titled New Healthway is aimed at 12-year-old students.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS";">"The
strongest argument that meat is not essential food is the fact that the Creator
of this Universe did not include meat in the original diet for Adam and Eve. He
gave them fruits, nuts and vegetables," says a chapter in the book.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS";">It
adds: "They (non-vegetarians) easily cheat, tell lies, forget promises,
are dishonest and tell bad words, steal, fight and turn to violence and commit
sex crimes."<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS";">Indian
Human Resource Development Minister M. M. Pallam Raju has described<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS";">the
content in the book as "unfortunate and an occasional aberration". <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS";">"Sensitivities
of communities have to be kept in mind and state bodies have to stay alert
about the textbook content which reaches children across the country," he
said.--NNN-BERNAMA<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>

Health Textbook Causes Stir In India

NEW DELHI , India (NNN-Bernama) -- A major row has erupted in India following a controversial textbook's claim that non-vegetar...

CLIMATE CHANGE: Fungi Offer Non-GM Way to Enhance Food Crops

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<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; font-size: 8pt;">Photo: <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/plantstoriesproject/6931910350/"><span style="color: windowtext; text-decoration: none;">Plant Stories Project</span></a><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; font-size: 8pt;">Race is on to find ways to be able to produce enough</span></div>
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<st1:place w:st="on"><st1:city w:st="on"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS";">JOHANNESBURG</span></st1:city></st1:place><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS";"> (IRIN) - As temperatures soar and droughts
increase in frequency, scientists around the world are working to create food
crops tolerant of extreme temperatures - often an expensive and laborious
process. But a cheaper and quicker alternative could be in sight, new research
suggests. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS";">Fungi
and other microbes could enable food crops like maize, wheat and rice to grow
in high temperatures and salty soils, and even withstand erratic rainfall, say
microbiologists, who have begun to look at the relationship between plants and
micro-organisms for clues to their mutual survival through thousands of years
of climate change. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS";">Making
food crops tolerant to climatic stresses could be as simple as coating seeds
with micro-organisms that can confer desired traits. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS";">A
matter of urgency<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS";">Helping
food crops weather climate change is a matter of urgency, said experts from 15
research centres of the Consultative Group on International Agricultural
Research’s (CGIAR) Research Programme on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food
Security. The programme had been asked by the UN to summarize the effects of
climate change on 22 of the most important agriculture crops, from staple
cereals to potatoes, lentils and commercial fruit crops like bananas. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS";">Time
is of the essence, as droughts have already become more frequent and rainfall
more erratic in various parts of the world. By 2050, climate change could cause
irrigated wheat yields in developing countries to fall by 13 percent, says a
CGIAR review by senior scientist Philip Thornton. Irrigated rice yield could
fall by as much as 15 percent. In <st1:place w:st="on">Africa</st1:place>, many
farmers of maize could lose 10 to 20 percent of their yields. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS";">We
have always thought that plants had learned to adapt to climatic stresses like
high temperatures and drought, but now we find that microbiomes [communities of
microbes] within plants have conferred traits on them to be able to withstand
the stressSome temperature-tolerant new crops are already being grown in Asia, developed
by subjecting grain plants to stresses such as drought conditions, then
isolating genes from those that survive. But this kind of conventional breeding
is long-drawn process, often taking 10 to 15 years to develop a successful crop
variant. It is widely used because many Asian and African countries do not
accept genetically modified (GM) products. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS";">Micro-organisms
could provide a faster option. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<b><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS";">Microbiomes
aid survival <o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS";">"We
have always thought that plants had learned to adapt to climatic stresses like
high temperatures and drought, but now we find that microbiomes [communities of
microbes] within plants have conferred traits on them to be able to withstand
the stress," said Rusty Rodriguez, a microbiologist affiliated with the
University of Washington, who recently established his own non-profit
organization (Symbiogenics) to conduct more research into the plant-microbe
symbiosis.  <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS";">Human
and plant life is intertwined with that of micro-organisms. A human body
contains more bacteria than human cells; in several studies published this year,
members of the Human Microbiome Project reported that microbes "contribute
more genes responsible for human survival" than humans themselves. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS";">The
new plant studies show that microbiomes are similarly crucial in the plant
world. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS";">Scientific
American reported in 2010 that Mary Lucero, a molecular biologist at the US
Department of Agriculture, had found fungi could help plants capture more
nitrogen from the atmosphere, reducing the need to apply chemical fertilizers. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS";">More
recently, Rodriguez and his team have shown how a certain fungus, when
introduced to the seeds of maize, wheat, tomatoes, watermelons and other plants,
enabled those plants to withstand more than 50-degree Celsius temperatures. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<b><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS";">‘Results
within a year’ <o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS";">Rodriguez
says he took fungi from plants near the <st1:city w:st="on">hot springs</st1:city>
in the <st1:country-region w:st="on">US</st1:country-region>’s <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:placename w:st="on">Yellowstone</st1:placename> <st1:placetype w:st="on">National Park</st1:placetype></st1:place>. The stress tolerance
traits are only found in microbes found in those conditions; the same fungus
isolated from a non-stressed condition do not have those traits. His teams have
also undertaken missions to collect fungi from extreme conditions in the
Antarctic, Mount Everest in the Himalayas and the <st1:placename w:st="on">Great
 Basin</st1:placename> <st1:placetype w:st="on">Desert</st1:placetype> in the <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">US</st1:place></st1:country-region>. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS";">Rodriguez
said he and his team could likely find similar microbes in any part of the
world - for instance, in the <st1:place w:st="on">Sahel</st1:place> - and
conduct trials within the region to isolate the useful microbes. "We could
have results within a year," he said. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS";">He
has already conducted trials in the <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">US</st1:place></st1:country-region> with maize and rice, and found
that yields can grow up to 10 percent in the case of rice in cold temperatures,
and up to 80 percent in the case of maize in high temperatures. The team is
awaiting the results of a trial in which maize was grown during the worst
drought to hit the <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">US</st1:place></st1:country-region>
in decades. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS";">He
has also isolated a virus in the fungus that makes plants even more resilient
to heat. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS";">The
plan is to keep the costs of providing the technology to farmers very low.
"Corn in the <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">US</st1:place></st1:country-region>
is sold in 42lbs [about 20 kg] bags. We want to keep the cost of coating the
seeds with microbes to under US$20 [per bag]," said Rodriguez <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS";">Another
peer-reviewed study has shown that certain fungi can make rice plants more
tolerant to drought, salt and even cold while reducing water consumption by 20
to 30 percent. Salt tolerance is a sought-after trait in regions affected by
rising sea-levels and storm surges that cause saltwater intrusion, such as the
rice-growing regions of <st1:country-region w:st="on">Bangladesh</st1:country-region>
and <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Vietnam</st1:place></st1:country-region>.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS";">Rodriguez
said he and others are looking for opportunities and funding to conduct trials
in <st1:place w:st="on">Africa</st1:place>, where this technology is
desperately needed. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS";">This
point was also made by CGIAR’s <st1:city w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Thornton</st1:place></st1:city>
in his paper Recalibrating Food Production in the Developing World: Global
Warming Will Change More Than Just the Climate, which explores the complexities
of climate change’s impact on crops. Some crops might be able to withstand high
temperature but could be sensitive to changes in rainfall. "Other crops
can tolerate seasonal flooding but are susceptible to new or increased levels
of pests and diseases brought on by high temperatures." <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS";">A
variety of changes must take place, including changes to the mix of crops being
grown, <st1:city w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Thornton</st1:place></st1:city>
said in an email to IRIN. Research can help by "showing farmers not only
how to grow new crops but also how to utilize them in different ways (e.g., different
ways of preparing and cooking cassava). The socio-cultural aspects may be
difficult to deal with, but through a combination of market forces (changes in
relative prices of staples) and time, diets may change slowly,” he said. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS";"><b>Circumventing
controversy? </b><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS";">Meanwhile,
other researchers are exploring the use of GM to increase crop resilience. But
the safety of GM has been heatedly debated, with many activist groups, governments
and regulatory bodies calling for products containing GM ingredients to carry
special labels. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS";">The
American Association for the Advancement of Science has recently come out
against labelling requirements. “These efforts are not driven by evidence that
GM foods are actually dangerous. Indeed, the science is quite clear: crop
improvement by the modern molecular techniques of biotechnology is safe.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS";">The
microbiome studies might offer a way to circumvent these controversies, offering
faster and cheaper solutions without the patina of “mad science” often
attributed to GM products. The journal New Scientist reported this year that, unlike
genetic engineering, which takes years to induce plants to switch various
metabolic pathways to become more drought-tolerant, fungi can activate "them
all in one go." <o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>

CLIMATE CHANGE: Fungi Offer Non-GM Way to Enhance Food Crops

Photo: Plant Stories Project Race is on to find ways to be able to produce enough JOHANNESBURG (IRIN) - As temperatures soar ...

HEALTH: The trouble with “affordable” anti-malarials

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<i><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; font-size: 10pt;">Photo: <a href="http://www.irinnews.org/photo.aspx"><span style="color: windowtext; text-decoration: none;">Guy Oliver/IRIN</span></a><o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; font-size: 10pt;">The doctor will see you now...</span></i></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<st1:city w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS";">LONDON</span></st1:place></st1:city><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS";"> (IRIN) - “Affordable Medicines” sound like
an indisputable good, but the Affordable Medicines Facility (AMF) for malaria
drugs - administered by the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria
- has been controversial from the outset. The argument over the way it operates
has reignited ahead of a board meeting of the Fund on 14-15 November, which is
due to assess the success of the project and its reliance on private sector
providers. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS";">The
majority of <st1:place w:st="on">Africa</st1:place>’s private medicine sellers
do not operate out of established pharmacies. Aspirin and cough syrup,
antibiotics and malaria pills are tucked in among the pomade and toothpaste in
run-down `dukas’ and on dusty market stalls; packets of pills are strapped onto
the display boards of itinerant hawkers or pinned to open umbrellas. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS";">These
vendors are controversial. They have no medical training, they sell without
prescription, and with no guarantee the drugs are genuine and still in date.
But they can be a godsend if you live in a village far from the nearest clinic
or pharmacy, or if your child has a fever late in the evening when all the more
official sources of medicines are shut. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS";">Around
10 years ago it was clear that in countries depending on private vendors of
anti-malarials there was a big problem. Although effective artemisinin drugs
were available, most private vendors were still selling older, cheaper drugs
like chloraquine, which were no longer effective. Where they did sell
artemisinin drugs, they were likely - again for cost reasons - to be the simple
variety (monotherapy) that looked very likely to cause a build-up of
resistance, rather than the combined drugs like Coartem, which were more
expensive. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS";">So
a plan was proposed to flood the market with high-quality, combined therapy
drugs at heavily subsidized prices. It was hoped that this would increase
availability in both private outlets and public clinics, reduce prices so that
the best drugs would be as cheap as the less effective ones, and displace the
risky monotherapies, which the World Health Organization (WHO) was hoping to
phase out altogether. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS";">The
plan was put into practice as a pilot project in eight countries, funded mostly
by the <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">UK</st1:place></st1:country-region>’s
Department for International Development and the Bill and Melinda Gates
Foundation, and administered by the Global Fund. Now an independent evaluation
of that pilot has been published and the board of the Global Fund is meeting in
nine days to decide whether AMF has worked as was intended, and whether it
should be continued, scaled up, or abandoned altogether. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<b><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS";">Mixed
results <o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS";">The
results, frankly, were mixed, and varied enormously between countries. The
biggest effect was seen in the private sector, which responded quickly to the
offer of lower priced drugs. In six of the eight countries (but not <st1:country-region w:st="on">Niger</st1:country-region> and <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Madagascar</st1:place></st1:country-region>) artemisinin-combination
therapies (ACTs) became much more available in the first year of the project
and took a substantially larger share of the market. Again in most countries,
but not all, the high-quality drugs became much cheaper - in the case of <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Tanzania</st1:place></st1:country-region> the
price fell to around one fifth of its former level. But the price fall in <st1:country-region w:st="on">Uganda</st1:country-region> was tiny, and the price in <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Madagascar</st1:place></st1:country-region>
actually rose a little. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS";">One
of its drawbacks is that it has essentially replaced one bad system with
another bad system, albeit with better drugsMuch less dramatic effects were
seen in the public sector, probably because public procurement is much more
cumbersome and slower to respond to price changes. The use of artemisinin
monotherapies did decline, although it was not clear how much of the reduction
was due to AMF, and how much was a response to WHO pressure and regulation. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS";">The
result of the evaluation was welcomed by the scientists who put together the
original plan. A comment in the London-based journal, the Lancet, said AMF “had
transformed access to effective antimalarials” in seven countries that
represent a quarter of the world’s malaria cases. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS";">Others
have been less welcoming. Oxfam has published an extremely critical paper
warning against such a heavy reliance on private providers and saying that even
at subsidized prices, the drugs are still out of reach of the poorest people.
It also points out that many childhood fevers are not caused by malaria, and
that treating fevers indiscrimately with antimalarials is both wasteful and
dangerous. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<b><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS";">Diagnosis
vital <o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS";">Oxfam’s
senior health policy adviser, Mohga Kamal Yanni, said: “A shopkeeper selling
salt, pepper and malaria medicines cannot diagnose or treat a child with
pneumonia. It is dangerous to put the lives of sick children in the hands of a
shopkeeper with no medical training and to pursue a scheme that doesn’t help
those people who need it the most.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS";">At
the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, Toby Leslie, a researcher
with the ACT Consortium, is more measured, but agrees that the encouragement to
treat without proper diagnosis is AMF’s weak point. “Undoubtedly it has
improved access to ACTs in most of the countries where it has been tested,” he
told IRIN, “and that’s definitely encouraging. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS";">“But
one of its drawbacks is that it has essentially replaced one bad system with
another bad system, albeit with better drugs. There’s no access to diagnosis,
and what we would once have assumed to be malaria, we now know is often not
malaria. What we need now is what I would call `son of AMF’, with better
targeting. There’s a lot of movement on this, and a lot of voices trying to be
heard. There’s a long way to go, but it would be a shame just to drop the ball,
undermining any gains that have been made.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS";">Oxfam
is unlikely to be the only group campaigning against a continuation of AMF at
the Global Fund meeting in <st1:city w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Geneva</st1:place></st1:city>.
It has never been popular with the <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">US</st1:place></st1:country-region> government, and has not received
any funding from the president’s Malaria Initiative. Campaigners on malaria issues
say the Facility is unlikely to be continued in its present form, but the
subsidy system could continue on a country by country basis. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS";">One
such campaigner told IRIN that the transition would have to be carefully
managed. “With this kind of programme,” she said, “you can’t just have a hard
stop. That would lead to stock-outs, not just in the private, but also in the
public sector. You need a transition period for each of the pilot countries to
figure out the best way forward for them, so that you don’t put people at
risk.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>

HEALTH: The trouble with “affordable” anti-malarials

Photo: Guy Oliver/IRIN The doctor will see you now... LONDON (IRIN) - “Affordable Medicines” sound like an indisputab...

24 Children Die of Mysterious Disease in Odisha District

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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS";">MALKANGIRI
(NNN-PTI) -- With 24 children dying of a mysterious disease during last two
months in Odisha's Malkangiri district, the government has launched a drive to
create health awareness and conduct medical examination in the tribal-dominated
district.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS";">"We
have collected blood, water and mosquito samples in the affected areas to
ascertain the reason behind the death and augmented the drive to create health
awareness among the people", chief district medical officer (CDMO),
Sashibhushan Panda said.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS";">Twenty-four
children aged between six months and four years died in some villages under
Malkangiri and Korkunda blocks. They had swelling in their eyes, nose and ears
accompanied by high fever and blood vomiting leading to death, he said.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS";">A
six-member expert team of scientists from Regional Medical Research Centre
(RMRC), <st1:city w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Bhubaneswar</st1:place></st1:city>
visited the affected villages and collected samples for investigation.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS";">Another
team of doctors from the <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:placename w:st="on">MKCG</st1:placename>
 <st1:placename w:st="on">Medical</st1:placename> <st1:placetype w:st="on">College</st1:placetype>
 <st1:placetype w:st="on">Hospital</st1:placetype></st1:place> at Berhampur was
touring the areas Monday.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS";">"There
is no death of children since the last three days and the situation is under
control now", the CDMO said.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS";">A
team official on condition of anonymity said that the symptoms afflicting the
children were akin to Japanese Encephalities or Dengue. However, it could be
known only after a thorough investigation of the collected samples, he said.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS";">Even
as the district administration was initiating steps to urge the people to get
their children to hospitals, the people, mostly tribal, were blaming witchcraft
for their troubles.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS";">"It
is a Herculian task to create awareness among the people in the district. They
have faith in their "Disari" (quack), "Wade" and
"Gunia" (black magician) and perform "Dumapuja" (invoking
the spirit). They believe that whoever goes to the hospital will invite the
curse of their deity", an official said.-NNN-PTI<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>

24 Children Die of Mysterious Disease in Odisha District

MALKANGIRI (NNN-PTI) -- With 24 children dying of a mysterious disease during last two months in Odisha's Malkangiri district, the ...

INDIA: Allocation for Health Sector Enhanced Three-Fold - PM

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<st1:city w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS";">NEW DELHI</span></st1:place></st1:city><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS";"> (NNN-PTI) -- Recognising the need to
address complex challenges in the health sector, Indian Prime Minister Manmohan
Singh on Saturday said allocation for it has been enhanced by about three times
in the 12th Plan Period with enhanced thrust on nutrition and sanitation.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS";">He
also noted that free generic drugs will be made available through all public
hospitals in the country to help in "reducing out of pocket expenditure of
the poor" on health.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS";">"The
allocation for health sector has been enhanced some three times in the 12th
Five Year Plan as compared with the 11th Plan allocation," he said
speaking at the foundation stone laying function of the redevelopment project
of <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:placename w:st="on">Lady</st1:placename> <st1:placename w:st="on">Hardinge</st1:placename> <st1:placename w:st="on">Medical</st1:placename>
 <st1:placetype w:st="on">College</st1:placetype></st1:place> here.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS";">Besides,
as factors such as nutrition, safe drinking water, sanitation, housing and
education, particularly education of girl child, are increasingly being
underlined as the social determinants of health, he said the government is
laying great emphasis on their importance by providing adequate thrust to these
sectors in the Plan Period.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS";">The
Prime Minister also said a major urban health initiative will be launched
during the Plan Period to focus on specific health issues of urban poor and
called for better synergy and coordination between different ministries for
best results.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS";">Singh
underlined the need for improving the volume and the quality of faculty in
medical institutions in the country, observing that availability of trained
human resources in the health sector remains a challenge.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS";">"We
need to set up more nursing and medical colleges to increase both undergraduate
and postgraduate seats in the 12th Plan. We also need to pay much greater
attention to improving the volume and the quality of faculty in medical
institutions in our country," he said. -- NNN-PTI<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>

INDIA: Allocation for Health Sector Enhanced Three-Fold - PM

NEW DELHI (NNN-PTI) -- Recognising the need to address complex challenges in the health sector, Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh o...

India: Infant Mortality Rate Reduced to 44 per 1000 Live Births during 2011

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<br /></div>
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<st1:place w:st="on"><st1:city w:st="on"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS";">NEW DELHI</span></st1:city></st1:place><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS";"> (PIB) --- Infant Mortality Rate (IMR) has
dropped by 3 points from 47 to 44 infant deaths per 1000 live births during 2011.
As per October 2012 bulletin of the Sample Registration System (SRS) released
by the Registrar General of India (RGI), the IMR for rural areas has dropped by
3 points from 51 to 48 infant deaths per 1000 live births while the urban rate
now stands at 29 from the previous 31/1000. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS";">Among
the states, <st1:place w:st="on">Goa</st1:place> and Manipur have the lowest
IMR of 11 infant deaths followed by Kerala with 12 infant deaths per 1000 live
births. Madhya Pradesh has the highest IMR of 59/1000 followed by UP and Odisha
with 57/1000 IMR. <st1:country -region="-region" w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Assam</st1:place></st1:country>,
Chhattisgarh, Odisha, Rajasthan and Meghalaya have IMRs more than the national
average of 44. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS";">The
Sample Registration System (SRS) is a large-scale demographic survey for
providing reliable annual estimates of birth rate, death rate and other
fertility & mortality indicators at the national and sub-national levels. The
field investigation consists of continuous enumeration of births and deaths in
selected sample units by anganwadi workers and teachers. An independent survey
is also done by SRS supervisors every six months. The data obtained by these
two independent functionaries are matched. The unmatched events are re-verified
in the field and an unduplicated count of births and deaths is thus obtained. The
SRS sample is replaced every ten years based on the latest census frame. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>

India: Infant Mortality Rate Reduced to 44 per 1000 Live Births during 2011

NEW DELHI (PIB) --- Infant Mortality Rate (IMR) has dropped by 3 points from 47 to 44 infant deaths per 1000 live births during 2011...

INDIA: Diarrhoea Second Biggest Killer of Children

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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">BANGALORE
(NNN-UNICEF) -- Diarrhoea needs a careful watch, as about 18 - 20 % of deaths
among children below five years in the Karnataka State occurs due to diarrhoea.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">This
was revealed by a study conducted by UNICEF early this year. According to the
UNICEF survey conducted across the state, diarrhoea is the second largest cause
of death in children less than 5 years old, next only to pneumonia. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Of
all, the North Karnataka districts of Raichur, Koppal, Yadgir and Gulbarga are
among the worst affected. Explaining the scenario, Dr Sudeep Shetty, senior
state consultant (Child Health) for Karnataka, UNICEF, said that health care
behaviour and hygiene practices in these districts were very low.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">In
order to prevent this disease, regular use of zinc and ORS among children,
especially those below 5 years, should be encouraged. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">According
to WHO, zinc is important for the immune system. Dr Shetty said, “According to
the National Family Health Survey, only 33 % of people use ORS. About 20 - 30 %
of diarrhoea deaths among children can be avoided with the rational use of ORS
and zinc.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">P.N.
Govindarajulu, senior pediatrician and Chairman, Indian Medical Association
(IMA) Building Committee (Karnataka) said that people in urban slums are also
equally vulnerable to diarrhoea.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">He
said, “Proper hygiene and health care seems to be very low among urban slum
populations. Preventive measures and focus on personal hygiene, boiling water
before drinking, avoiding consumption of stale food, simple things like cutting
nails and hair, washing fruits and vegetables before eating and improving
sanitation, needs to be propagated among these people.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">In
addition, breast feeding children till they turn one year old and avoiding
feeding them diluted milk till this period, helps preventing diarrhoea among
the vulnerable age group. “Use of zinc tablets needs to be promoted among urban
slums and high prevalence districts in the state as zinc is effective in
increasing the absorption of fluid,” he added. --NNN-UNICEF<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>

INDIA: Diarrhoea Second Biggest Killer of Children

BANGALORE (NNN-UNICEF) -- Diarrhoea needs a careful watch, as about 18 - 20 % of deaths among children below five years in the Karnat...

Sugar is not Sugar: Are Television Commercials Honest?

<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">By <a href="http://www.groundreport.com/mlredmond">Marilyn Redmond</a></span><span style="background: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 9.0pt;"> <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="background: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 9.0pt;"><a href="http://www.groundreport.com/Health_and_Science/Sugar-is-not-Sugar-Are-Television-Commercials-Hone/2948059"><span style="color: windowtext; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">Groundreport</span></a>--- The two main sources of sugar are high fructose corn syrup (HFCS) and table sugar. It is not a secret that we are eating more sugar than at any other time in history. The total consumption of fructose goes directly to your liver to metabolize. It can overburden your liver, just like alcohol and become as seriously toxic. Fructose is essentially and exactly like alcohol concerning the metabolic destruction, it causes.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="background: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 9.0pt;">When you consume fructose, it completely ingests in the liver, which becomes exceptionally hepatotoxic in overloading your liver. The metabolism of fructose causes similar effects as ethanol, belly fat, and insulin resistance. It may be more damaging to your health than alcohol. Over 70 documented injurious results have been documented to fructose. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="background: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 9.0pt;">Dr. Mercola states, that sugar/fructose, a common ingredient is as addictive as Cocaine. It acts like a narcotic creating a “buzz.” It has both dopaminergic and opioid properties. Sadly, people devour large amounts, even while it reduces both the quality and length of their lives. It is important to monitor carefully your intake of fructose, just like your intake of alcohol.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="background: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 9.0pt;">He tells about a study using two animals. One animal was fed fructose and the other one was fed the exact same number of calories but was given dextrose or glucose. Only the fructose-fed animal developed obesity, insulin resistance, fatty liver, and high triglycerides, signs of inflammation, vascular disease, and high blood pressure.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="background: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 9.0pt;">With an epidemic of obesity going on in this country – two out of three people are overweight, and one out of three is obese. Another important piece of information is for people who want to make a better effort at controlling their weight. It has become clear that fructose is the single most important factor in this epidemic. It is one of the leading causes behind the massive rise in needless suffering from poor health and premature death, according to Dr. Mercola.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="background: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 9.0pt;">Whole fruits contain fructose with certain vitamins and other antioxidants reduce the unsafe effects of fructose. Juices, on the other hand, are nearly as detrimental as soda, because a glass of juice is loaded with fructose, and many of the antioxidants are lost. Learning that consuming high levels of fructose will entirely destroy your biochemistry and physiology is serious and meaningful.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="background: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 9.0pt;">Lastly, important information to recognize is that fructose consumption clearly causes insulin resistance, whereas straight glucose does not. Insulin resistance can eventually lead to full-blown diabetes. Interestingly, glucose actually accelerates fructose absorption when you “mix” glucose and fructose. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="background: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 9.0pt;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="background: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 9.0pt;">Remember that glucose can be used directly by every cell in your body and as such is far safer than the metabolic poison fructose. Another option is to use the herb “stevia”.</span><span style="background: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-language: HI; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">Published </span><span style="background: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: HI; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">under a <a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/"><span style="color: windowtext; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License</span></a></span><span style="background: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 9.0pt; mso-bidi-language: HI; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">.</span></div></div>

Sugar is not Sugar: Are Television Commercials Honest?

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India among Bottom 5 Nations in Child Mortality: UN

<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 18px;"><br />
</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><iframe allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen" frameborder="0" height="360" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/hRrvsM4jxpQ" width="640"></iframe><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="background: white; color: black; font-family: "Trebuchet MS","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 9.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">  </span><o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="background: white; color: black; font-family: "Trebuchet MS","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 9.0pt;">UNITED NATIONS (NNN-UNI) -- The pace of childhood death rates has declined sharply in recent decades - with an estimated 6.9 million children dying before their fifth birthday last year, compared to around 12 million in 1990 and India figured among the nations that still suffer acutely.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="background: white; color: black; font-family: "Trebuchet MS","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 9.0pt;">Sub-Saharan Africa and Southern Asia still account for more than 80 per cent of global under-five deaths. Their disparity with other regions is becoming more marked as regions such as Eastern Asia and Northern Africa have cut child deaths by more than two-thirds since 1990, according to a new UN report.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="background: white; color: black; font-family: "Trebuchet MS","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 9.0pt;">Half of all under-five deaths occurred in five countries: India, Nigeria, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Pakistan and China, according to the report, which also found that India and Nigeria account for more than a third of all under-five deaths worldwide.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="background: white; color: black; font-family: "Trebuchet MS","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 9.0pt;">The report released here Friday asked for greater strides to meet international goals in order to save infants and young children.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="background: white; color: black; font-family: "Trebuchet MS","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 9.0pt;">"Proven solutions need to be expanded to accelerate progress on child survival faster and farther," said the report of the UN Inter-agency Group for Child Mortality Estimation.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="background: white; color: black; font-family: "Trebuchet MS","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 9.0pt;">Formed in 2004, the group is made up of the UN Children's Fund, the World Health Organization, the Population Division of the UN Department of Development and Social Affairs (DESA) and the World Bank.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="background: white; color: black; font-family: "Trebuchet MS","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 9.0pt;">Its activities include sharing data on child mortality and improving methods for child mortality estimation reporting on progress towards achieving the Millennium Development Goals, a set of eight goals agreed upon by world leaders in 2000 to slash extreme poverty and other global ills.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="background: white; color: black; font-family: "Trebuchet MS","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 9.0pt;">The group said gains in child survival, though significant, are still insufficient to achieve the fourth MDG, which calls for reducing the global under-five mortality by two-thirds between 1990 and 2015.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="background: white; color: black; font-family: "Trebuchet MS","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 9.0pt;">Only six of the world's ten regions are on track to reach the target. Worldwide, an estimated 19,000 children died every day in 2011, with around 40 per cent in the first month of life and most from preventable causes. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="background: white; color: black; font-family: "Trebuchet MS","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 9.0pt;">The report calls for systematic action to reduce neonatal mortality. "Highly cost-effective interventions are feasible even at the community level," said the group, which advocates expanding preventative and curative interventions that target the main causes of infant mortality.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="background: white; color: black; font-family: "Trebuchet MS","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 9.0pt;">Globally, it noted, the leading causes of death among children under five are pneumonia, pre-term birth complications, diarrhoea, complications during birth and malaria. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="background: white; color: black; font-family: "Trebuchet MS","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 9.0pt;">The report said rates of child mortality have fallen in all regions of the world in the last two decades - down by at least 50 per cent in Eastern Asia, Northern Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean, Southeastern Asia and Western Asia. -- NNN-UNI<o:p></o:p></span></div></div>

India among Bottom 5 Nations in Child Mortality: UN

UNITED NATIONS (NNN-UNI) -- The pace of childhood death rates has declined sharply in recent decades - with an estimated 6.9 million ch...

India Ranks Second in Underweight Children

<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">  <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">NEW DELHI, India (NNN-Bernama) -- India has the second highest percentage of underweight children below the age of five, the Health and Family Welfare Ministry told the parliament upper house on Tuesday.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">Pneumonia and diarrhoea are the leading causes of death among children under five, with both diseases contributing to 22 per cent of deaths for this group, said State minister Sudip Bandyopadhyay in referring to the World Health Statistics report 2012.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">For prevention and control of these diseases, the minister said awareness on sanitation and hygiene is created among mothers in the communities and on the causes and treatment of diarrhoea through health education, Press Trust of India reported.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">"Antibiotics for treatment of pneumonia and dysentery are made available through the public health system," Bandyopadhyay said.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">To check high infant mortality rate, various vaccines under a universal immunisation programme are provided to children to protect them against diphtheria, pertussis, measles and tuberculosis.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">A recent survey shows the prevalence of underweight children in 100 districts has decreased from 53.1 per cent in 2002-2004 to 42 per cent last year. -- NNN-BERNAMA<o:p></o:p></span></div></div>

India Ranks Second in Underweight Children

NEW DELHI, India (NNN-Bernama) -- India has the second highest percentage of underweight children below the age of five, the Health and ...

HIV Infections in India Drops By 56 Pct

<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">NEW DELHI (NNN-Bernama) -- India is among the few countries that have made significant reductions in HIV infections amid extensive interventions for control of the epidemic, which seems to be stabilising now.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">Minister of Health and Family Welfare, Ghulan Nabi Azad said HIV infections have declined by 56 per cent during the last decade to 120,000 in 2009 from 270,000 in 2000.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">New evidence from the latest round of HIV Sentinel Surveillance shows further decline in the HIV Prevalence among general population as well as high-risk groups, he said at the inaugural ceremony of the HIV Vaccine Symposium in New Delhi.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">One of the successful interventions of the National AIDS Control Programme has been the Targeted Interventions (TIs), whose main objective is to improve health-seeking behavior of high-risk groups and reducing their vulnerability and risk to acquire Sexually Transmitted and HIV infections.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">There are 1,821 Targeted Interventions providing prevention services covering 81 per cent Female Sex Workers, 80 per cent Injecting Drug Users, 64 per cent Men having sex with Men, 40 per cent Migrants and 57 per cent Truckers.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">Besides the domestic programme, India has been providing around 80 per cent of global antiretroviral (ARV) drug demand. Vaccines have been frequently cited as one of the most equitable low-cost, high-impact public health measures. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">Historically, vaccines have impacted significantly the spread of infectious diseases such as smallpox, polio, measles, and yellow fever.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">The eradication of smallpox was an outstanding display of concerted global action in a war against microbial invaders. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">The progress in expanding polio and measles vaccination efforts and their elimination from many regions further demonstrated that vaccines are among the most powerful public health tools. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">Azad said that India is committed to new forms of partnership with low-income countries through innovative support mechanisms and South–South cooperation.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">He hoped that this joint venture would collectively shape the future of India’s inputs into the global HIV vaccine development attempts. -- NNN-BERNAMA<o:p></o:p></span></div></div>

HIV Infections in India Drops By 56 Pct

NEW DELHI (NNN-Bernama) -- India is among the few countries that have made significant reductions in HIV infections amid extensive interve...

Researchers Make Critical Antibiotic Alternative Discovery

Researchers Make Critical Antibiotic Alternative Discovery

By Phil Mercer Researchers say anti-bacterial protein; PlyC could be effective antibiotic alternative. Photo © VOA News SYDNEY — Rese...

India to Give Free Medicines to Nation's Poor

<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="direction: ltr; text-align: justify; unicode-bidi: embed;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="direction: ltr; text-align: justify; unicode-bidi: embed;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">By Anjana Pasricha<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="direction: ltr; text-align: justify; unicode-bidi: embed;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="direction: ltr; text-align: justify; unicode-bidi: embed;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">NEW DELHI — India plans to provide free medicines to the nation's poor, marking a major step forward in improving access to life-sustaining drugs. India’s public healthcare system is unable to cope with the needs of the country’s vast population.      <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="direction: ltr; text-align: justify; unicode-bidi: embed;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Bharat Tiwari, 68, is despondent because doctors at a government-funded hospital in New Delhi have deferred surgery needed to treat his heart ailment. Such deferments are not unusual at the overstretched facility.    <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="direction: ltr; text-align: justify; unicode-bidi: embed;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="direction: ltr; text-align: justify; unicode-bidi: embed;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Tiwari says he has been told to return after two months. He has had medicines costing thousands of rupees in recent months, and worries about how to sustain the expenses.  <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="direction: ltr; text-align: justify; unicode-bidi: embed;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="direction: ltr; text-align: justify; unicode-bidi: embed;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">His son, who has brought him from a distant village in Uttar Pradesh for treatment, says the $100 spent every month on his father’s medications adds up to a quarter of the family income. He was hoping a surgery would reduce the expenses on drugs.  <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="direction: ltr; text-align: justify; unicode-bidi: embed;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="direction: ltr; text-align: justify; unicode-bidi: embed;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Tiwari’s problems may lessen once the government implements a $5.4-billion plan to provide free generic drugs to all patients. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="direction: ltr; text-align: justify; unicode-bidi: embed;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="direction: ltr; text-align: justify; unicode-bidi: embed;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">The initiative is seen as a huge leap forward in a country where drugs account for a major part of out-of-pocket healthcare expenses. Most Indians choose private medical treatment because government hospitals and clinics that provide free care are overcrowded and understaffed, and do not give free medicines. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="direction: ltr; text-align: justify; unicode-bidi: embed;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="direction: ltr; text-align: justify; unicode-bidi: embed;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Dr. K. Srinath Reddy, President of Public Health Foundation of India in New Delhi, says the cost of medicines in India, compared to per capita income, is very high. As a result many patients cannot afford them, particularly when they are needed for illnesses that require long-term treatment such as cancer or diabetes. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="direction: ltr; text-align: justify; unicode-bidi: embed;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="direction: ltr; text-align: justify; unicode-bidi: embed;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">“It increases the out of pocket expenditure markedly and can even impoverish them to the extent of driving them below the poverty line. Even for cardiovascular diseases for example in Kerala, where we conducted a study with some of our collaborators, at least 14 percent of the patients had to give up life saving medicines because they could not afford them," Reddy said. "This could be a problem elsewhere too and we know that many of the patients, who cannot afford medicines, do have interrupted treatment.” <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="direction: ltr; text-align: justify; unicode-bidi: embed;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="direction: ltr; text-align: justify; unicode-bidi: embed;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="direction: ltr; text-align: justify; unicode-bidi: embed;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">The medications will be provided by India’s thriving generic-drug industry, which produces medicines for a fraction of the cost of branded drugs. Initially about 350 generic medicines will be dispensed - these include expensive drugs needed to treat AIDS, cancer and heart ailments. All these diseases are on the rise in India.  <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="direction: ltr; text-align: justify; unicode-bidi: embed;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="direction: ltr; text-align: justify; unicode-bidi: embed;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">However, concerns have been expressed about implementing such a system in a country where many initiatives targeted at the poor have been mired in corruption. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="direction: ltr; text-align: justify; unicode-bidi: embed;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="direction: ltr; text-align: justify; unicode-bidi: embed;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">George Mathew, chairman of New Delhi’s Institute of Social Sciences, says the intention is good. But he is not certain it will work effectively.  <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="direction: ltr; text-align: justify; unicode-bidi: embed;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="direction: ltr; text-align: justify; unicode-bidi: embed;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">“This is a very important concern, how this will reach the target group. Unless a very, very good system is worked out, this will create a lot of problem," he said. "And this can end up in another scandalous scheme.” <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="direction: ltr; text-align: justify; unicode-bidi: embed;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="direction: ltr; text-align: justify; unicode-bidi: embed;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Optimists point to Indian states - Tamil Nadu and Rajasthan, which have already begun distributing free medicines. The Tamil Nadu government says about half the state’s population is taking advantage of the scheme. The numbers are on the rise in Rajasthan as well.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="direction: ltr; text-align: justify; unicode-bidi: embed;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="direction: ltr; text-align: justify; unicode-bidi: embed;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">This has made healthcare experts like Dr. Reddy hopeful that the plan can be implemented successfully. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="direction: ltr; text-align: justify; unicode-bidi: embed;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="direction: ltr; text-align: justify; unicode-bidi: embed;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">“In Rajasthan, in fact, which is the most recent entrant into the scheme, we have seen that patient attendance at primary health centers has started going up once the free medicines have been distributed - which means that the confidence of the people in the public system is being progressively restored now that they know that the public system is much more responsive,” he stated.  <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="direction: ltr; text-align: justify; unicode-bidi: embed;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="direction: ltr; text-align: justify; unicode-bidi: embed;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">However, there are often long lines and lengthy waits for doctors to prescribe the medicines and collect the drugs. At public hospitals in Tamil Nadu and Rajasthan, corridors and stairwells often fill with people waiting their turn. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="direction: ltr; text-align: justify; unicode-bidi: embed;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="direction: ltr; text-align: justify; unicode-bidi: embed;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">As a result, patients like 31-year-old Hemant Sharma are skeptical whether they will ever get the free drugs. He has been braving long lines at a New Delhi government hospital to be treated for a liver ailment.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="direction: ltr; text-align: justify; unicode-bidi: embed;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="direction: ltr; text-align: justify; unicode-bidi: embed;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">He points out that the wait for doctors and treatment is long and tedious. He fears the wait for the medicines could be a similar struggle and a sick man may never manage to get hold of them. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="direction: ltr; text-align: justify; unicode-bidi: embed;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="direction: ltr; text-align: justify; unicode-bidi: embed;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Despite the skepticism, there is hope that the move could help millions of Indians who cannot afford to fund their healthcare and move the country toward universal health coverage. Officials say the plan will begin implementation nationwide from October, and about half the nation will have access to free drugs by 2017. ---VOA News<o:p></o:p></span></div></div>

India to Give Free Medicines to Nation's Poor

By Anjana Pasricha NEW DELHI — India plans to provide free medicines to the nation's poor, marking a major step forward in improving ...