Scale up services for pregnant HIV-positive: UNAIDS |  |
- Scale up services for pregnant HIV-positive: UNAIDS
- Nearly 90 percent babies immunised in Haryana district
- How Twitter broke its biggest story, #WeGotBinLaden
- 3 Penn State faculty members awarded Evan Pugh Professorships
- Boron-nitride nanotubes show potential in cancer treatment
- 'Government to fund health mission for five more years'
- New strategies reducing malaria deaths in Odisha
- UT Dallas bioengineering head to be inducted as Fellow of Royal Society
- 57 people die of swine flu in India
- Childcare needs of urban poor ignored: Experts
| Scale up services for pregnant HIV-positive: UNAIDS Posted: 26 Apr 2012 09:18 PM PDT ( From http://www.rxpgnews.com ) New Delhi, April 26 - As India's AIDS control department is working on its next AIDS control mission -, a top UN official Thursday said the country must scale up its treatment and care facilities for HIV positive mothers. India has nearly 2.5 million HIV positive, the third largest population across the globe. If we want zero AIDS-related deaths, India needs massive scale up of treatment and care services. By 2015, we need at least 15 million people on treatment worldwide, Charles Gilks, country director for UNAIDS, said at the national AIDS control organisation - summit. India has not even reached 50 percent of what needs to be done. It should focus to improve services for pregnant mothers, Gilks added. The three-day summit on the lessons from national AIDS control programme phase 3 - is seeing participation from health officials, community workers, experts from civil society and global experts. While two-decade old AIDS control body under the ministry of health and family welfare is taking ahead programmes in absence of some reduced global funding this year, the department's additional secretary Aradhana Johri said: The government is committed to enhancing the funding given the withdrawal of external funding. We have an unfinished agenda. Stigma, discrimination and denial faced by HIV positive people is still very high, she added. http://www.rxpgnews.com    |
| Nearly 90 percent babies immunised in Haryana district Posted: 26 Apr 2012 07:23 PM PDT ( From http://www.rxpgnews.com ) Rohtak, April 26 - Nearly 90 percent babies below one year of age in Haryana's Rohtak district have been immunised, much more than the national average, despite illiteracy and people's ignorance hindering government efforts, an official said. The official Wednesday told a team of reporters that the rate of immunised babies in the district has gone up from 50 percent in 2005 to 61 percent in 2008 and to 82 percent in 2011. The national average in 2011 was 62 percent. The local administration claims the rate at present is between 90 to 95 percent. 'The government and several other agencies attached to this cause are determined to achieve 100 percent immunisation rate,' said Kuldip Singh, deputy civil surgeon of Rohtak. The district records 19,000 child births every year. 'We have taken several initiatives, including sending SMS alerts to parents to remind them of the scheduled dates for immunisation and educating locals with the help of posters and pamphlets,' he added. According to officials, the Accredited Social Health Activists -, the Auxiliary Nurse Midwife and Anganwadi workers were playing a crucial role in assisting the administration and motivating people. However, despite the steady growth, some factors like people's illiteracy and ignorance were hindering the government efforts, said an official. According to Hemlata Singh, an ASHA worker in an urban medical centre, there were cases of parents opposing their babies' vaccination, calling it a 'totka' -. 'There was a 24-year-old mother who had delivered a son, when I asked her to get him immunised she refused, declaring the use of syringes as a 'totka'. When I put pressure on her, she started abusing and threatening me,' Hemlata said. 'The backward castes and minority groups need to be educated as they have a lot of apprehensions over immunisation,' she added. Rohtak's Civil Surgeon V.K. Govila, however, claimed that he had not heard of any such case. Immunisation... http://www.rxpgnews.com   |
| How Twitter broke its biggest story, #WeGotBinLaden Posted: 26 Apr 2012 05:00 AM PDT ( From http://www.rxpgnews.com ) Nearly a year after U.S. Special Forces killed Osama bin Laden, the events of May 1, 2011 remain one of the busiest traffic periods in Twitter history. More than 5,000 tweets were sent per second when Twitter became the first source with news of bin Laden's death. But how did the news break and quickly spread across the Twittersphere? A team of Georgia Tech researchers, together with colleagues at Microsoft Research Asia and University of California-Davis, looked at more than 600,000 tweets for answers. By analyzing tweets sent during a two-hour time frame beginning just minutes before the first rumor, they found that opinion leaders and celebrities played key roles. Their data also shows that the Twitterverse was overwhelmingly convinced the news of bin Laden's death was true, even before it was confirmed on television. The study confirms the widely held belief that Keith Urbahn (@keithurbahn), an aide to former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, was indeed the first person to break the news on Twitter. His tweet was sent at 10:24 p.m. Eight minutes later, a CBS producer (@jacksonjk) tweeted her own confirmation. When a reporter with The New York Times (@brianstelter) retweeted both reports, the news began to spread more widely. Rumors spreading on Twitter is one thing, said Mengdie Hu, a Ph.D. candidate in the School of Interactive Computing who led the study. Determining if they are true is another, especially in this era of social media and the rush to break news. To make a determination, Hu and her team used machine-learning methods to examine more than 400,000 English tweets in the sample. If the message mentioned the death as a fact or in very confident terms, it was classified as certain. If any hesitation or rumors were mentioned, the tweet was sorted as uncertain. Within minutes of Urbahn's post, 50 percent of tweets were certain. By the time TV networks broke into programming 21 minutes later, nearly 80 percent... http://www.rxpgnews.com   |
| 3 Penn State faculty members awarded Evan Pugh Professorships Posted: 26 Apr 2012 05:00 AM PDT ( From http://www.rxpgnews.com ) Three Penn State faculty members have been named Evan Pugh Professors, joining a list of only 62 recognized since the title's inception in 1960. Even Pugh Professorships are the highest honor the University bestows on its faculty. The latest honorees are Jainendra K. Jain, Erwin Mueller Professor of Physics, Eberly College of Science; James F. Kasting, Distinguished Professor of Geosciences, College of Earth and Mineral Sciences; and Bruce E. Logan, Kappe Professor of Environmental Engineering, College of Engineering. The Evan Pugh Professorships, named for Penn State's first president, are awarded to faculty members who are nationally or internationally acknowledged leaders in their fields of research or creative activity; have demonstrated significant leadership in raising the standards of the University with respect to teaching, research or creativity, and service; and demonstrate excellent teaching skills with undergraduate and graduate students who have subsequently achieved distinction in their field. Jainendra K. Jain joined the Penn State faculty in 1998. As a condensed matter theorist, his research has focused on the area of strongly interacting electronic systems in low dimensions. He is best known for work leading to the discovery of exotic particles called composite fermions and for developing the theoretical basis for the phenomenon knows as the fractional quantum Hall effect. Jain holds a Ph.D. from Stony Brook University and completed postdoctoral work at the University of Maryland and Yale University. He is a Fellow of the American Physical Society, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation and the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation. He is a recipient of the Oliver E. Buckley Prize of the American Physical Society. Visit James Kasting joined the Penn State faculty in 1988. He specializes in the evolution of Earth's... http://www.rxpgnews.com   |
| Boron-nitride nanotubes show potential in cancer treatment Posted: 26 Apr 2012 05:00 AM PDT ( From http://www.rxpgnews.com ) A new study has shown that adding boron-nitride nanotubes to the surface of cancer cells can double the effectiveness of Irreversible Electroporation, a minimally invasive treatment for soft tissue tumors in the liver, lung, prostate, head and neck, kidney and pancreas. Although this research is in the very early stages, it could one day lead to better therapies for cancer. The study was carried out by researchers in Italy at the Institute of Life Sciences, Scuola Superiore Sant'Anna in Pisa with BNNTs provided by researchers at NASA's Langley Research Center, the Department of Energy's Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility and the National Institute of Aerospace. Irreversible Electroporation is a new therapy for difficult-to-treat cancers in soft tissues. It is offered in many cancer treatment centers across the United States, and is being studied for effectiveness on a wide variety of specific cancers. Researchers at the Institute of Life Sciences began experimenting with BNNTs to see if the nanotubes could make the treatment more effective. Irreversible Electroporation is a way of putting holes in the wall of a tumor cell, said Michael W. Smith, chief scientist at BNNT, LLC and formerly a staff scientist at NASA's Langley Research Center. Smith explained that when a hole of proper size is made in the wall of a cell, the cell reacts in a predictable fashion. Although the exact mechanism has not been pinpointed, researchers suspect that such a hole could trigger cell suicide. The cell will literally go, Oh, something's terribly wrong, and kill itself. That's called apoptosis, he added. Smith read about the Italian researcher's trials with BNNTs in a journal, and he offered the researchers a sample of the very high-quality Jefferson Lab/NASA Langley/NIA BNNTs. These BNNTs are highly crystalline and have a small diameter. Structurally, they also contain few walls with minimal defects, and are very long and highly... http://www.rxpgnews.com   |
| 'Government to fund health mission for five more years' Posted: 25 Apr 2012 11:59 PM PDT ( From http://www.rxpgnews.com ) New Delhi, April 25 - The United Progressive Alliance - government's flagship health scheme, the National Rural Health Mission - is set to get another lease of life with Health and Family Welfare Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad claiming that the government will fund the project for another five years. Speaking at a Ranbaxy drug launch on the occasion of World Malaria Day, Azad claimed that due to our persuasion, the prime minister and Planning Commission have agreed to fund NRHM during the next Five Year Plan -. Although health is a state subject, the central government has been funding the project and the funding was to stop at the end of the 11th Five Year Plan, he added. However, the minister rued that the state governments were not seizing this opportunity and urged them to properly utilize central funds being given under NRHM and strengthen the agencies for combating diseases like malaria. NRHM got a higher allocation of Rs.20,822 crore - in the 2012-13 budget presented in March. The scheme is aimed at improving the availability and accessibility of quality healthcare in rural areas. http://www.rxpgnews.com   |
| New strategies reducing malaria deaths in Odisha Posted: 25 Apr 2012 05:52 PM PDT ( From http://www.rxpgnews.com ) New Delhi, April 25 - India's health ministry is pinning its hopes on new strategies to bring down malaria deaths in Odisha's tribal and urban populations. In the last two years, our key strategies are working well. We have introduced new mosquito protection nets, a new guideline for malaria treatment and have been getting positive response from the tribal community, S.K. Sharma, a scientist at National Institute of Malaria Research -, a part of the health ministry, told IANS. In 2010, Odisha saw the highest number of malaria deaths in the country at 247. However, the next year, the number of deaths came down to 73, said the National Vector-Borne Disease Control Programme -. This year, over 28,000 people in the state have so far been found suffering from malaria but there have been no deaths, said a NVBDCP report. For the towns and cities, NVBDCP's Urban Malaria Scheme has been trying to curb mosquito breeding and addresses issues such as trimming drains, water disposal and sanitation, emptying water containers once a week and observing a weekly Dry Day. However, the tribal areas, which lie in the Maoist guerrilla zones, remain the focus area. Highly endemic tribal areas are our target group. There have been some challenges for health workers such as wide forest areas, inaccessibility, resistance from Naxals - and, of course, drug resistance, said Sharma, who was part NIMR's field unit at Rourkela, a city in Odisha. NVBCDP data also said that the districts that reported high number of deaths in 2010 have mortality fall in 2011 due to scaled-up strategies, better monitoring and supervision at all levels. To prevent mosquito bites, Sharma said the NIMR was conducting two trials on World Health Organisation-sponsored long-lasting insecticide-treated nets -. Duranet is in the 2009-2012 trial phase while Permanet is undergoing field trial for the 2011-2014 period. These mosquito bed nets have been showing good results among... http://www.rxpgnews.com   |
| UT Dallas bioengineering head to be inducted as Fellow of Royal Society Posted: 25 Apr 2012 05:00 AM PDT ( From http://www.rxpgnews.com ) Dr. Mathukumalli Vidyasagar, an internationally known expert in control and system theory, has been elected a Fellow of The Royal Society, the oldest continuously operating scientific society in the world. Vidyasagar, head of the Department of Bioengineering at The University of Texas at Dallas, joins the ranks of the most distinguished international scientists drawn from all areas of science, engineering and medicine. Vidyasagar's selection recognizes his contributions to various aspects of control and system theory, robotics, statistical learning theory and computational biology. His citation reads: He has combined probability theory, combinatorics, and artificial intelligence to produce a beautiful unified theory of statistical learning, and used it to solve NP-hard design problems. Vidyasagar's pattern in life has been to master a subject area, write a book about it, and then move to a different research problem at the forefront of the field. Two of his books co-authored with Dr. Mark W. Spong, dean of UT Dallas' Erik Jonsson School of Engineering and Computer Science, are among the most popular textbooks on robot dynamics and control. Joining the Fellowship of the Royal Society is the proudest moment of my career. The joy and satisfaction this election brings is immeasurable. Vidyasagar holds the Cecil H. and Ida Green Chair in Systems Biology Science at UT Dallas and leads the bioengineering department in the Jonsson School. The department collaborates with other schools within the University, UT Southwestern Medical Center and the University of Texas at Arlington. Dr. Vidyasagar has made many fundamental contributions in several areas of engineering, including control theory, robotics, and learning theory, which have earned him numerous awards and an international reputation as an outstanding scientist, Spong said. His latest work in the area of computational biology, in collaboration with UT Southwestern Medical... http://www.rxpgnews.com   |
| 57 people die of swine flu in India Posted: 24 Apr 2012 10:02 PM PDT ( From http://www.rxpgnews.com ) New Delhi, April 24 - As many as 57 people have died, mostly in Maharashtra, of swine flu in the country till April 18 this year, the Rajya Sabha was informed Tuesday. Health Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad agreed that swine flu or H1N1 has re-surfaced in Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Maharashtra, Rajasthan and Tamil Nadu. In Maharashtra, 20 people died of the virus from January to April 18 this year, he said. The state also recorded the highest number of swine flu cases with 463 people infected with the virus. In Rajasthan and Andhra Pradesh, 12 deaths each were reported. While in Rajasthan 107 cases were registered, 112 cases were reported in Andhra. Deaths were also reported from Karnataka -, Gujarat -, Tamil Nadu - and Madhya Pradesh -. The minister said they had prepared safety guidelines in 2009 in the wake of the pandemic outbreak that killed over 750 people. Apart from India, the flu outbreak was also witnessed in over 200 countries, including in the US and Britain. Azad said they have issued an advisory again to all the states, asking them to gear up their medical facilities, including critical care. http://www.rxpgnews.com   |
| Childcare needs of urban poor ignored: Experts Posted: 24 Apr 2012 09:18 PM PDT ( From http://www.rxpgnews.com ) New Delhi, April 24 - Childcare needs of the urban poor continue to remain ignored despite social schemes, experts said Tuesday at the release of a micro study conducted in 28 unauthorised colonies in the national capital. The survey, conducted by NGO Delhi Forum for Creche and Childcare Services -, spanned across 1,380 households in 28 slums. The survey showed that nearly 60 percent women spend four to eight hours at work when they have to leave children unattended at home in absence of any care and protection - nutritional, health and social. Children need a lot more than just food and their needs have not been articulated. We need to be their voice and build people's pressure till there is a law that recognizes the rights of young children, said National Commission for Protection of Child Rights -chairperson Shanta Sinha. If we are capable of launching Agni-5, surely we are capable of providing safe and healthy arrangements for childcare, Sinha added. In the surveyed areas, nearly 72 percent women said they need creche services for child's nutritional health and security. The women, dependent on anganwadi services, said the centres were functional for limited hours during the day which were not feasible for women. Around 29 percent children were left to be attended by their siblings, while over 45 percent women left children with neighbors and elderly at home. It is unacceptable that basic services and childcare services are in such a poor state. All work by women inside and outside the house should be recognized for its economic contribution and its social and human impact, said Vandana Prasad, a health activist. Only a comprehensive strategy, which includes creches and maternity protection, along with a strengthened integrated child development services - could respond to this situation of malnutrition and neglect, she added. Over 800 women from 28 slums participated at the meet organised by Delhi FORCES here. A... http://www.rxpgnews.com   |
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