26th March: The swine flu threat can no longer be brushed aside as minor with the number of cases up to 211, traversing five states and claiming 16 lives. Yesterday Gujrat also reported one case, a 25-year-old from Anand.

He has been placed in an isolation ward and is under ventilator support. Pune is the worst hit with 9 deaths and 126 cases.Click here to find out why Pune is the worst hit. Medicos are advising people to keep calm, saying that most victims had other health complications. Click here to find out how to keep the disease away.

24th March: According to the latest reports the national death toll due to swine flu has gone up to 14. On Friday officials in Mumbai confirmed that a six year old boy and his grandmother tested positive for the virus. They hadn’t travelled to Pune recently and hence couldn’t contracted the virus from there. Pune has reported over 100 swine flu cases and 8 deaths.

The disease has also hit the states of Rajasthan, Andhra Pradesh, Goa and Karnataka. Click here to find out how to keep the disease away.

The H1N1 menace has cast an ugly pall on the entire nation with 129 cases and 12 deaths reported in the last 20 days. Four states have been hit by H1N1 virus. Maharashtra, Rajasthan, Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka have reported a combined 129 cases out of which 69 are from Maharashtra alone.

People will hope there is no repeat of the 2009 situation. According to Wikipedia there were 1410 deaths and 19,947 infected back then. Since then H1N1 cases have been on the decline not just in India but all over the world. Read More

Mumbai: Testing times lie ahead for citizens. After a brief interlude for a greater part of last year, Mumbaikars are feeling the chills again, as the dreaded swine flu virus is back to stalk the city. While most medical experts mask their fears, five citizens have already contracted the deadly disease, within a matter of days.

After a period of dormancy since June last year, the virus resurfaced in Pune earlier this month, rekindling fears of a resurgence of the disease in Mumbai. Confirming these fears, a six-year-old Mulund boy and his grandmother tested positive with the virus. The count of patients soon shot up to five, with a 57-year-old, a 53-year-old and a 37-year-old falling prey to the bug in close succession, on March 22, March 24, and March 25 respectively.

Super Religare Laboratories (SRL), one of the private laboratories authorised to perform H1N1 screening in the state, detected the H1N1 virus in three newly diagnosed patients. While authorities are downplaying the chances of a pandemic, statistics spell out a different, rather disturbing reality. Read More

JAKARTA, Indonesia (AP) — A 17-year-old has died of bird flu in Indonesia. He is the country's sixth fatality from the virus so far this year.

Health ministry spokeswoman Murti Utami said Tuesday the boy from eastern Lombok island developed symptoms early this month after coming into contact with sick chickens.

He died March 9 after one week's hospitalization.

Utami says laboratory results came back several days ago confirming he had the deadly H5N1 virus. Read More

Gobabis — Three workers from Farm Kroonster 448 in the Omaheke Region died in the Gobabis State Hospital last week from an illness related to anthrax.

It is suspected that five farm workers of Farm Kroonster contracted anthrax after they ate meat of a cow that died on its own at that farm.

Two out of the five are still being treated at the Gobabis State Hospital for an illness related to anthrax, said a nurse on duty at the hospital on condition of anonymity on Monday.

The registered nurse said the two farm workers who are still admitted are in a critical condition and all movements from that ward are restricted.

"You can confirm this with the hospital matron. Even the remains of the deceased three farm workers are still being kept here in our mortuary for further laboratory investigations," she explained.

Approached for comment this morning, Omaheke Regional Health Director Puumue Katjiuanjo refused to talk to this reporter.

He simply commanded his two secretaries to close his office doors, and said he did not want to see or talk "to this Nampa journalist". Read More

A drug that helps the immune system to break down cancerous tumours has been developed.

It has worked on breast, bowel, prostate, ovarian, brain, bladder and liver cancers, while previous studies show it can also be used to fight some blood cancers.

If given early, the drug could even be a cure, researchers say.
The antibody has so far been tested only on mice, but researchers hope to give it to people within two years.

Its effectiveness centres on a protein called CD47, which is found on the surface of cancer cells in high quantities. The protein prevents them from being engulfed and eaten by immune cells called macrophages.

The drug masks the so-called ‘don’t-eat-me signal’, allowing the immune system to attack the cancer – a goal of many researchers for decades. Read More

BLUE BELL, Pa., March 26, 2012 /PRNewswire via COMTEX/ -- Inovio Pharmaceuticals, Inc. INO +4.88% announced today that the United States Patent and Trademark Office granted U.S. Patent No. 8,133,723, covering Inovio's SynCon® universal vaccine related to H1N1 influenza. The patent granted to the Trustees of The University of Pennsylvania has been licensed exclusively to Inovio under its existing license agreement with the university.

The patent includes claims that cover the synthetic consensus H1 antigen and DNA constructs and vaccines that include this antigen, including universal influenza vaccine INO-3510. This patent also covers methods of treating a patient using the SynCon® universal influenza vaccine.

Dr. J. Joseph Kim, Inovio's president and CEO, said: "This patent is significant for Inovio. It validates the patentable novelty of our SynCon® technology and vaccines created using this technology. We have filed for additional patents to protect our broad emerging portfolio of SynCon vaccine products against multiple diseases. Furthermore, this issued patent covers an important component of our universal influenza vaccine, which is in clinical development. Inovio's universal flu vaccine is designed to protect against many if not all strains within multiple selected subtypes--most importantly against the perpetually emerging new strains for which there has never been truly preemptive protection."

Inovio researchers have previously shown that its H1N1 influenza SynCon® vaccine provided 100% protection of animals challenged with the 2009 swine origin H1N1 virus and, separately, the H1N1 virus that caused the 1918 Spanish flu that killed over 40 million people. Additional animal studies have also shown that the vaccination generated protective HAI titers against other important H1N1 strains. The first H1N1 human data from Inovio's phase I study of VGX-3150, which consists of SynCon constructs against H1N1 and H5N1, is expected in Q2 2012. Read More

LALITPUR: Some 8,500 chickens have been culled and 1,500 eggs destroyed in Lalitpur, following the detection of the avian influenza (H5N1) causing bird flu there.

The bird flu virus was detected in chickens of a poultry farm owned by one Dhiren Gurung of Sainbu-5 some five days ago. This was the first bird flu case in the district.

Similarly, lab test of the sample extracted from chickens of the poultry farm adjoining Gurung's farm turned out to be positive on Sunday. The farm was owned by one Kamal Ghimire.

The District Livestock Service Office, however, had faced problems to destroy chickens excreta following the obstruction from Gurung. Gurung wanted compensation for destroying the chicken excreta in his farm.

But, later he was agreed to have it destroyed following a meeting held among the bodies concerned on Monday. Chief of the District Livestock Service Office, Department of Animal Health Services, representatives from police administration and poultry entrepreneurs were present at the meeting. Read More

Anand: A confirmed case of swine flu (H1N1 influenza) was reported in Rampura locality of Bakrol in Anand -- the first in Gujarat after the previous nation-wide outbreak of the epidemic.

"Ghanshyam Rathore (26) tested positive for swine flu, and his wife, mother and father are being given prophylactic treatment," District Health Officer SB Shah said.

The health officials have also started administering Tamiflu to the family members as a precautionary measure, he said.

Rathore, who got married on March 12, developed fever, cough and cold soon thereafter. He got admitted to a private hospital three days ago. Source

Common midges are likely be spreading a disease which has caused thousands of lambs and calves to be born dead or horribly deformed, scientists have found.

Schmallenberg virus, which has caused devastation across Europe, has now been confirmed on 209 farms in southern and eastern England, with cases stretching as far north as Lincolnshire.

Scientists examining the virus, which appears to be an entirely new disease, now believe they have identified how it is spread.

Researchers in Belgium, where hundreds of farms have been hit since December, have found three species of midge that carry the virus and so are likely to be responsible for passing the virus between animals.

All three species of midges – Culicoides obsoletus, Culicoides dewulfi and Culicoides pulicaris – are native to Britain.

Culicoides obsoletus is one of the most abundant species found on farms in the UK and is also responsible for transmitting the Bluetongue virus, which caused widespread disease in livestock in 2007 when insects were blown across the channel. Read More

Honeybees face a double whammy from insecticides and disease, according to a new study that could explain the global decline in the insects.

The sudden drop in honeybees in recent years has led to widespread debate over the cause, with many blaming intensive farming methods that use more pesticides.

However this was dismissed by other studies that found disease is just as damaging.

Now a French study, published in the journal Scientific Reports, suggests that it could be a combination of both, as pesticides weaken honeybees and they then die of disease.

The decline in honeybees first hit the headlines around 10 years ago with the mysterious death of whole hives in America, known as Colony Collapse Disorder or CCD. It is now believed that the US has fewer managed pollinators than at any time in the past 50 years. Many countries in Europe have also seen a decline and honeybee numbers in the UK have halved in the past 25 years. Read More

Inner-city women who breathe powerful airborne pollutants called polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons while pregnant are more likely to have children who develop behavioral problems by the time they reach school age, researchers report.

The findings bolster what's known about the influence of prenatal conditions on later health.

In recent years, scientists have found that in utero exposure to a host of toxins including pesticides, outdoor air pollutantss, secondhand tobacco smoke and prescription drugs influence a child's susceptibility to many conditions for years to come.

Earlier this month, Yale researchers reported that studies in mice suggested that cell phone radiation might lead to neurological changes in the part of the brain associated with ADHD. The brain and nervous system of a fetus, still too immature to eliminate toxins or repair damaged DNA, may be particularly sensitive to these assaults. Read More

* About 4,660 animals died in suspected FMD cases

* Livestock has no immune protection against new strain

* 6.3 mln buffalo, cattle, 7.5 mln sheep, goats at risk in Egypt

March 22 (Reuters) - A new strain of foot and mouth disease (FMD) has hit Egypt and threatens to spread throughout North Africa and the Middle East, jeopardising food security in the region, the United Nations' Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) said on Thursday.

There have been 40,222 suspected cases of the disease in Egypt and 4,658 animals, mostly calves, have already died, the FAO said in a statement citing official estimates.

"Although foot-and-mouth disease has circulated in the country for some years, this is an entirely new introduction of a virus strain known as SAT2, and livestock have no immune protection against it," the Rome-based agency said. Read More