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Also in global health news: Pakistan's farm land; PMTCT in Kenya; Burkina Faso's maternal health; health care access in Middle East

Pakistan's Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi said Tuesday the country plans to sell farmland to foreign investors despite warnings by the U.N. that doing so could compromise farmers' rights, Reuters reports.

28 Jan 2010

Neomend completes $30M Series D funding round

Neomend, Inc., an innovator in sealant and adhesion-prevention products for the surgical marketplace, announced today it has completed a funding round of $30 million, with Clarus Ventures, LLC investing $17 million.

28 Jan 2010

Research shows even mild to moderate kidney disease may diminish child's quality of life

Challenging prevailing wisdom that only children with end-stage kidney disease suffer physical, social, emotional and educational setbacks from their disease, research led by Johns Hopkins Children's Center shows that even mild to moderate kidney disease may seriously diminish a child's quality of life.

28 Jan 2010

NewsRx publishes new encyclopedia on vaccines

NewsRx, a 25-year-old publisher and international news organization headquartered in Atlanta, has published a new encyclopedia on vaccines -- Encyclopedia of Vaccines, 2009: An encyK Resource for Parents, Patients & Professionals.

28 Jan 2010

Electrode devices emerge as potential stimulation treatments for depression

Approximately ten to thirty percent of patients with depression do not respond to drug treatments commonly used for the disorder, and this has spurred a search for alternatives. According to Kalorama Information's report "Electrical and Magnetic Neurostimulation," electrode devices that stimulate nerves have emerged as a solution and there is competition among notable device companies to provide the most effective stimulator.

28 Jan 2010

Canada to 'champion' major G8 initiative to tackle maternal, child mortality

As president of the G8 in 2010, "Canada will champion a new G8 identity focused on ending child mortality and other health woes in poorer countries when it hosts the club of industrialized nations in June, the government said Tuesday," Agence France-Presse reports. A spokesman for Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper explained Tuesday that Harper will use his keynote address at the World Economic Forum annual meeting in Davos, Switzerland, to provide more details about the new G8 agenda, according to AFP (1/26).

28 Jan 2010

Patients with NAFLD have higher overall mortality rate, say researchers

Researchers from the Karolinska Institute determined that patients with nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) have a higher overall mortality rate compared with the general population.

28 Jan 2010

Budgetary freeze will impact over 5M Americans afflicted with chronic viral hepatitis

Ms. Lorren Sandt, Chair of the National Viral Hepatitis Roundtable (NVHR) issued the following statement in advance of the President's State of the Union Address. NVHR is a coalition of more than 150 public, private, and voluntary organizations dedicated to reducing the incidence of infection, morbidity, and mortality from chronic viral hepatitis that afflicts more than 5 million Americans:

28 Jan 2010

Polls find Americans want Obama to focus more on economy, less on health care

As President Barack Obama prepares to give his State of the Union address this evening, new polls show public support for congressional health bills is low, with a majority wanting more focus on the economy instead.

28 Jan 2010

PRA International enters into partnership agreement with Oncopartners and IBPC

PRA International, a leading Clinical Research Organization, announces it has entered into a partnership agreement with Oncopartners, a leading Latin American oncology development company, and its exclusive partner IBPC, a non-profit oncology research network comprised of Brazil's largest public oncology hospitals which collectively treat an estimated 140,000 new incidences of cancer annually.

28 Jan 2010

Children with cancer are treated with proton therapy at ProCure Proton Therapy Center

Children with cancer are now being accepted for treatment at the ProCure Proton Therapy Center in Oklahoma, where a wide range of tumors are treated with proton therapy, an alternative to X-ray radiation that spares healthy tissue and results in far fewer short- and long-term treatment side effects.

28 Jan 2010

Pelosi on health reform: 'We will make every effort'

The Washington Post / Reuters: House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said today that abandoning health care reform was not a possibility. "'Let's put it this way. The present (healthcare) system is unsustainable. We can no longer afford it ... We will make every effort to have a health care bill. But we will make progress, whatever it is, one way or the other, we will go forward with that'" (Maler, 1/27).

28 Jan 2010

African vaccine maker plans to increase production capacity sevenfold by 2013

Biovac Institute, a South African vaccine maker, said Monday that it is working with other major pharmaceutical firms to increase its annual capacity sevenfold to 35 million doses by 2013, Reuters reports.

28 Jan 2010

Antibiotic protects against noise-induced hearing loss in young mice

A type of antibiotic that can cause hearing loss in people has been found to paradoxically protect the ears when given in extended low doses in very young mice.

28 Jan 2010

Sepracor's STEDESA NDA: FDA extends PDUFA action date

Sepracor Inc. today announced that it has received notification from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) that the agency now anticipates completing its review of the STEDESA™ (eslicarbazepine acetate) New Drug Application (NDA) on April 30, 2010, which is a three-month extension to the original Prescription Drug User Fee Act (PDUFA) date of January 30, 2010.

28 Jan 2010

Researchers develop PEG-POD tool for gene therapy

Researchers at Tufts University School of Medicine and the Sackler School of Graduate Biomedical Sciences at Tufts have developed a new tool for gene therapy that significantly increases gene delivery to cells in the retina compared to other carriers and DNA alone, according to a study published in the January issue of The Journal of Gene Medicine.

28 Jan 2010