AIDS awareness campaign in West Bengal embarrasses many

HIV/AIDS West Bengal

Medicinal tree survives tissue culture process

a team of scientists at the National Chemical Laboratory (ncl), Pune, has succeeded in propagating the medicinally important tree Calophyllum inophyllum (common names: sultan champa /laurel tree) by tissue culture.

Bytes

hiv origin: The origin of HIV that causes AIDS has been found in wild chimpanzees living in southern Cameroon, according to an international team of scientists. A virus called SIVcpz (Simian Immunodeficiency Virus from chimps) was thought to be the source, but had only been found in a few captive animals. Now, a natural reservoir of SIVcpz in animals living in the wild has been identified.

A survey on AIDs reporting

HIV/AIDS Southern Africa

Protest over AIDS drug patent

A patent application for a key aids drug in India recently provoked a written protest to the Delhi patent office on May 9, 2006, by the Indian Network for People Living with hiv/aids and the Delhi Network of Positive People. It was followed by a protest march the next day in Delhi.

In Court

toxic pool: The Local Area Environment Committee (LAEC) recently termed the Eloor and Edayar industrial belt in Kochi, Kerala, a "toxic hot spot" filled with heavy metals and pesticides. LAECrecently submitted an environmental audit report to the Supreme Court Monitoring Committee. It found the presence of heavy metals from samples collected from Eloor, Edayar and Kuzhikandam creek in the area. LAEC's study revealed that the presence of metals like iron, cadmium, manganese, nickel, copper and chlorides were in excess of the prescribed limits.

The underbelly of aid

Off Beat

Research on some diseases is taking off in a big way. These diseases have been out of the ambit of routine immunisation programmes, because they have traditionally been concentrated in developing countries. Now that they are increasingly being transmitted to the developed world because of increased and easier contact, research is concentrating on them. But new research is tinkering with existing vaccines rather than focussing on radical, cutting-edge solutions.

No Need

In India, as in the rest of the developing world, the new vaccination regime is taking root. But to blame global players alone would be giving the Indian government’s medical establishment to generous an absolution. The whole system is in a mess.

Techno tracks

The technology for developing new vaccines and the research that goes into it is becoming increasingly sophisticated and dependent upon an enormous corpus of funds to get off the blocks. This is raising important issues relating to pricing, access and international equity.