Filling the need for trusted information on national health issues
Researchers Use Breeding Method To Create Plant With High Levels Of Artemisinin In an effort to produce more artemisinin than is naturally found in the plant artemisia annua, researchers at York University’s Centre for Novel Agricultural Products are using “fast-track breeding methods to create a plant that contains much higher…
HHS announced on Monday that manufacturing and packaging issues have reduced by more than half the number of H1N1 vaccine doses that will be available in October when the U.S. vaccination campaign is set to start, Reuters reports.
European Laboratories Form Consortium To Study Neglected Tropical Diseases A handful of European universities and industries have formed a consortium to “boost drug development for the treatment of two deadly diseases, the African sleeping sickness and Leishmaniasis, which affect millions of people worldwide,” afrol News reports. “This new project combines…
“GlaxoSmithKline has started testing its pandemic H1N1 swine flu vaccine in humans, and expects to start giving the results to government agencies next month, the drug maker said on Friday,” Reuters reports.
PEPFAR and the global medical technology company BD announced an iniative Tuesday that will work to improve blood collection safety in clinics and hospitals in sub-Saharan Africa – an issue that PANA/Afrique en ligne reports has “become more critical than ever in sub-Saharan nations and other developing countries severely impacted by the HIV/AIDS pandemic.”
TIME examines the international fight against H1N1 (swine) flu, including current efforts to produce an H1N1 vaccine and prepare the northern hemisphere for the expected surge in infections this fall.
Beginning on Thursday, “Mumbai, India’s commercial capital, will shut schools and movie theaters as swine flu-related deaths jumped, ignoring federal government advice to keep educational institutions open,” Bloomberg reports.
The AP/San Francisco Chronicle examines Los Alamos National Laboratory researchers’ efforts to create an automated network to monitor animals in an effort to predict disease outbreaks because two out of every three human diseases “originated in animals.”
The Agence-France Press examines the debate over how much developed countries are spending to fight the H1N1 virus.
Inter Press Service examines how efforts underway in Namibia have helped to decrease the number of infants born with HIV while also increasing the number of HIV-positive infants on life-saving antiretrovirals (ARVs).
