New WHO data finds that unsafe food kills an estimated 1.2 million people over the age of five in Southeast Asia and Africa each year, including three times more adults than previously thought, Reuters reports. "It is a picture that we have never had before," WHO Food Safety Director Jorgen Schlundt said. "We now have documentation of a significant burden outside the less than five group, that is major new information." [More]

The Wall Street Journal examines "big pharma's growing interest in a corner of healthcare - emerging-market inoculations," in light of a recent move by Novartis to purchase an 85 percent stake in the Chinese vaccine maker Zhejiang Tianyuan Bio-Pharmaceutical Co. In the summer, drug maker Sanofi-Aventis SA made a similar move to acquire a majority stake in India's Shantha Biotechnics, the newspaper notes. [More]

Cholera, an acute diarrheal disease caused by the bacterium Vibrio cholerae, has reemerged as a global killer. Outbreaks typically occur once a year in Africa and Latin America. But in Bangladesh the epidemics occur twice a year - in the spring and again in the fall. [More]

Fero Industries, Inc. is pleased to provide certain disclosures relating to the ten pending patent applications of Pyro Pharmaceuticals, Inc. As previously announced, the Company has initiated the process of acquiring Pyro Pharmaceuticals, Inc. through an exchange of Pyro’s capital stock for shares of the Company’s common stock, with Fero remaining as the parent entity and Pyro as a subsidiary. The acquisition of Pyro is expected to close by November 30, 2009. [More]

Napo Pharmaceuticals, Inc. has in-licensed from the University of California Regents additional small-molecule cystic fibrosis transmembrane conductance regulator (CFTR) inhibitor technology including gastrointestinal (GI) and polycystic kidney disease (PKD) indications. [More]

The WHO on Thursday said the Philippines is requesting "international help to fight a deadly outbreak of an infectious disease following two devastating tropical storms," Agence France-Presse reports. Parts of Manila, which are still flooded almost four weeks after Tropical Storm Ketsana hit, are experiencing an outbreak of the bacterial infection, leptospirosis (10/22). [More]

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation today announced 76 grants of US$100,000 each to pursue bold ideas for transforming health in developing countries. The grants support researchers across 16 countries, including nine in Europe and Africa with ideas as diverse as using the power of sunlight to kill malaria-causing mosquito larvae and developing a device that repels mosquitoes without insecticides. [More]

A cholera outbreak in Zimbabwe has infected more than 100, resulting in five deaths, state media said Tuesday, Reuters reports, "raising fears of a repeat of last year's epidemic that claimed more than 4,000 lives. [More]

"Survivors of two powerful storms that caused widespread destruction in the Philippines in recent weeks are threatened by outbreaks of potentially life-threatening diseases, as the country braces for another super-typhoon," named Lupit, that is expected to make landfall on Thursday, the Guardian reports. [More]

According to a report released Tuesday, policies set by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) have restricted government spending on health services, "denying sick Kenyans access to drugs and quality healthcare," Business Daily reports. [More]

A clinical trial of an Indian-made "modified killed-whole-cell" oral cholera vaccine "that meets WHO standards" has found that the vaccine is safe and effective in children living in parts of India where the disease is endemic, Reuters reports. The researchers, who reported their findings in the journal Lancet, hope to soon introduce the vaccine into other cholera endemic settings. [More]

A Lancet comment examines an Affordable Medicines Facility for malaria (AMFm) program to help countries procure subsidized artemisinin-based combination treatments (ACTs). [More]

Napo Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (Napo) recently hosted an educational panel to address the impact of the lack of access to clean water and enteric disease on global health, the environment, and human rights. [More]

Reuters examines how floods, droughts and rising temperatures, thought to be caused by climate change, are compromising African farm lands and leading to health problems for already vulnerable populations - a topic discussed at the "first pan-African climate hearings." [More]

A vaccine to treat cocaine dependence appears to reduce use of the drug in a subgroup of individuals who attain high anticocaine antibody levels in response, according to a report in the October issue of Archives of General Psychiatry, one of the JAMA/Archives journals. However, only 38 percent of vaccinated individuals produced high enough antibody levels and those who did maintained them for only two months. [More]