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New research sheds light on origins of cryptococcal fungal infection

New research has shed light on the origins of a fungal infection which is one of the major causes of death from AIDS-related illnesses. The study, published today in the journal PLoS Pathogens, funded by the Wellcome Trust and the BBSRC, shows how the more virulent forms of Cryptococcus neoformans evolved and spread out of Africa and into Asia.

4 May 2011

Beijing Kanglian, Dehaier sign cooperation agreement for rural healthcare project

Dehaier Medical Systems Ltd., an emerging leader in the development, assembly, marketing and sale of medical devices and homecare medical products in China today announced that it has signed a cooperation agreement with Beijing Kanglian Medicines Co, Ltd, to develop, operate and implement for a new rural healthcare construction project in Hunan and Anhui provinces.

2 May 2011

Living conditions, sanitation and community organization play a key role in child malnutrition

Giving poor families land on which to grow crops has been shown to improve child nutrition. New research also shows that giving families non-agricultural land and better housing also is beneficial for children's growth and nutrition.

2 May 2011

Bioniche Life Sciences opens new livestock vaccine manufacturing facility

Bioniche Life Sciences Inc., a research-based, technology-driven Canadian biopharmaceutical company, today officially opened its new Animal Health and Food Safety Vaccine Manufacturing Centre at its corporate headquarters in Belleville, Ontario, Canada.

30 Apr 2011

WHO highlights global threat of NCDs, need for action at Moscow meeting

Non-communicable diseases are a "slow-moving catastrophe" that could overwhelm even the richest countries without action to address their underlying causes, WHO Director-General Margaret Chan said at the First Global Ministerial Conference on Healthy Lifestyles and Non-communicable Disease Control in Moscow on Thursday, the U.N. News Centre reports.

30 Apr 2011

Also in global health news: Libya food shortage; PMTCT in Swaziland; TB detection in U.K.; food issues in Foreign Policy magazine

Libya will run out of food within two months unless efforts are stepped up to get shipments into the war-torn country, the World Food Program warned on Thursday, Deustche Presse-Agentur/M&C reports.

30 Apr 2011

USAID announces shift in gender programming, organizational structure

USAID Administrator Rajiv Shah this week announced the agency has transformed its Economic Growth, Agriculture, and Trade (EGAT) Women in Development Office into a new Office of Gender Equality and Women's Empowerment, Devex reports (Leonzon, 4/27).

29 Apr 2011

Drought in the Horn of Africa threatening food security

"A drought in the Horn of Africa, triggered by the same La Nina episode that caused massive flooding in Australia last year, is plunging millions of pastoralists closer to food insecurity," Greenwire/New York Times reports in a story looking at how the drought is affecting several areas in the region.

29 Apr 2011

Food poisoning costs the United States billions: Report

According to a new report published Thursday, 14 different pathogens causing food poisoning cost the United States $14 billion annually in terms of human disease. The report comes from the University of Florida Emerging Pathogens Institute that found that out of all the pathogen-food combinations they studied, campylobacter in poultry was the single worst offender, causing more than 600,000 illnesses per year, hospitalizing more than 7,000 people and costing, annually, $1.3 billion and 9,500 quality-of-life years.

29 Apr 2011

Address global hunger to strengthen security, FAO director general candidate says

The world must address hunger to strengthen security worldwide, Franz Fischler, a former EU agriculture commissioner from Austria who is a candidate to lead the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization, said on Tuesday, Reuters reports.

28 Apr 2011

Report on U.S. food aid recommends ways to improve quality

A report on the quality of U.S. food aid released on Tuesday "has identified improvements experts hope will make relief campaigns more effective at fighting hunger," CNN reports.

28 Apr 2011

Pfizer announces global launch of new child nutrition products

Pfizer Inc. today announced the global launch of its new advanced GOLD range of child nutrition products, developed to meet the changing nutritional and feeding needs of young children. The GOLD range of infant and follow-on formulas, and growing-up milks provides the right balance of high-quality nutrients needed to support ideal health, growth and development in growing children.

28 Apr 2011

U.S. Labor Department campaign to educate workers on heat-related illnesses

Secretary of Labor Hilda L. Solis today will announce, from Anaheim, Calif., a national outreach initiative by the U.S. Department of Labor's Occupational Safety and Health Administration to educate workers and their employers about the hazards of working outdoors in the heat and steps needed to prevent heat-related illnesses.

27 Apr 2011

University of Arkansas receives USDA grant for childhood obesity project

University of Arkansas scientists and educators are attacking childhood obesity in a project funded by a $4.78 million grant for five years from the National Institute of Food and Agriculture of the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

26 Apr 2011

University of Texas receives $5 million USDA grant to fight childhood obesity

The use of family-focused gardening in the fight against childhood obesity may become a growing trend with a near $5 million grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture to a Texas higher education partnership.

26 Apr 2011

Delegation of retired world leaders traveling to North Korea to address food shortages, other issues

Former President Jimmy Carter will lead a four-member delegation of retired world leaders on a trip to North Korea this week to discuss "how to ease sanctions on Pyongyang that have exacerbated a serious food crisis" and other issues, Agence France-Presse reports.

26 Apr 2011

UC Davis professor receives $4.8 million federal grant for child obesity study

UC Davis professor Adela de la Torre, a national expert on Chicano and Latino health issues, today received a five-year, $4.8 million federal grant to discover the best ways to help Mexican-heritage children in California maintain healthy weights.

26 Apr 2011

Avian flu remains endemic in six countries, could take at least a decade to eradicate, FAO says

It will take at least 10 years to eradicate the H5N1 virus from poultry in the six countries where it is endemic, the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization said in a report released on Thursday, Agence France-Presse reports.

25 Apr 2011

Recent releases in Global Health

When health ministers gather for the World Health Assembly in May they will try to come up with a solution to "a dilemma that has dogged decision-makers for decades - whether and when to destroy the last remaining stocks of the smallpox virus," David Heymann and Emma Ross, both of the Global Health Security Centre at Chatham House, write in an article in The World Today.

25 Apr 2011

China releases first report on foreign aid

China on Thursday released its first report on the country's investment in foreign aid over the past few decades and its impact on developing countries, noting that "its rise as an aid donor is a good development at a time when the global financial crisis is straining most other countries' spending," the Associated Press/Washington Post reports.

22 Apr 2011