Knowledge and awareness of AIDS and HIV transmission in China is still low, even in big cities like Shanghai, according to a survey released Friday.

More than 6,000 people in six Chinese cities were interviewed for the research — supported by UNAIDS — which also found that there was still serious stigmatisation of people living with HIV in China.

Beijing’s Renmin University conducted the survey.

Less than a fifth of respondents said they would use a condom i…

Even as China’s toxic milk scandal deepened, the United Nations called for concerted action to remove melamine from the food chain and restore public confidence in dairy products.

“Food safety is not the sole responsibility of public authorities,” UN health and food agencies said in a joint statement. “The food industry is also responsible for ensuring a safe supply of food to the consumer,” notably small children, they said.

Melamine-tainted milk has made 53,000 Chinese …

Japanese firms that import dairy products from China have been ordered by the government to test them for melamine, a toxic chemical at the centre of a growing milk scandal.

Jiji Press said the order, which includes firms which use the products in processed food, came after melamine was found in four items made by one of Japan’s leading food makers, which had earlier issued a recall as a precaution.

The Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare order requires importers to tes…

China has announced that nearly 50 Chinese brands have been tested and found to contain no melamine, a toxic chemical at the center of a worsening milk scandal.

The government said it had tested 47 brands of milk and yoghurt and detected no trace of melamine, the chemical discovered in baby milk powder that has sickened 53,000 children and killed four so far.

China’s General Administration of Quality Supervision checked 296 batches of dairy products from the brands across…

Cholera cases in Iraq appear to have fallen sharply this year, the World Health Organization has confirmed. However the agency warned against complacency and demanded accurate reporting to prevent any further spread of the disease.

The health watchdog has confirmed 306 cases in 10 of Iraq’s 18 provinces in 2008, “far below the 4,700 reported last year and even below Iraq’s annual average of 600,” according to a UN statement.

However, the UN added that cases are building u…

An ambitious global plan to drastically cut malaria deaths around the world received a fillip when world leaders who had gathered for an anti-poverty summit on Thursday pledged to commit nearly three billions dollars for the purpose.

The funds, which include 1.1 billion dollars from the World Bank, will be used to support rapid implementation of the first ever Global Malaria Action Plan (GMAP), a new strategy that can save more than 4.2 million lives between 2008 and 2015, sponsors s…

The European Commission announced Thursday that the export of mercury will be banned in the European Union from 2011 in order to reduce health risks.

Alongside the ban, which includes mixtures of metallic mercury with other substances, the new rules to be introduced in March 2011 will oblige all mercury already in Europe to be “safely stored” so as not to cause a hazard.

“Mercury poses a threat to human health and the environment in the European Union and globally,” said …

China came under intense pressure Thursday as the EU announced plans to ban some food products from the country. Furthermore the UN also criticized diary firms for trying to hoodwink the public.

The European Commission said it was preparing an “explicit, total” ban on all products originating from China for infants and young children containing milk, a spokeswoman told journalists.

The measure was intended “to ensure that such products are not imported in any form,” she s…

A UN task force has said that the world has failed to take the costly but basic steps needed to save millions of women and children from death at childbirth.

“Despite two decades of efforts the world failed to make a dent,” said Margaret Chan, director general of the World Health Organization, and member of a taskforce overseeing the UN-backed campaign for the Health Millennium Development Goals.

Chan blamed “decades of failure to invest” in the infrastructure needed for …

Although Europe’s powerful car-making industry is exerting intense pressure on an EU environment panel to water down plans to force automakers to slash carbon dioxide emissions, it appears to have failed this time.

A majority in the European Parliament’s environment commission voted down efforts to weaken European Commission plans to fine car-makers for failing to meet emissions targets, a spokesman said.

The two biggest political groups in the parliament, the conservativ…

American scientists have warned that the potential link between mobile telephones and brain cancer could be similar to the link between lung cancer and smoking.

Scientists are currently split on the level of danger the biological effects of the magnetic field emitted by cellular telephones poses to humans.

However, society “must not repeat the situation we had with the relationship between smoking and lung cancer where we … waited until every ‘i’ was dotted and ‘t’ was …

Even as more nations around the world imposed curbs on Chinese imports following the tainted milk scandal, authorities in China decided to withdraw one of the country’s best-known candy brands from the market.

The makers of White Rabbit candy — a hugely popular candy presented to US president Richard Nixon on his landmark 1972 trip — announced on Friday it was halting domestic sales after its products were found to contain melamine.

It came as the European Union joined …

The heart of a 16-year-old boy who died in a road accident in Chennai, South India, on Wednesday now beats inside a 9-year-old girl. In a precious instance of humanism rising amidst a tragedy, the teenager’s doctor parents took this brave decision of donating his heart, eyes, kidneys, liver and bone marrow after he was declared brain dead. The parents said they did not want to burn their son’s body and decided to extend this gift of life to others who were in dire need of it. While his other organs were preserved in various specialty hospitals, the boy’s heart was rushed in a police vehicle from Apollo Hospitals in Teynampet to Frontier Lifeline in Mogappair in a record time of 11 minutes. Chennai Traffic Police facilitated the move by ensuring green lights at every signal.

The teenager’s heart suited the 9-year-old girl because her heart had swollen (dilated cardiomyopathy) and the chest cavity had expanded to fit in the donor heart. According to medical experts the harvested organ has to be transplanted within four hours and the sooner it is done the better the outcome.

A new report shows that the abortion rate in the United States has hit a 30-year low. The decline is particularly marked among teens, who once had the highest rate of abortion in the country.

“Many Americans will welcome the news that there are fewer abortions, particularly among teens, and that a larger proportion of abortions are now happening very early in pregnancy,” said Sharon Camp, president of the Guttmacher Institute which compiled the report.

The teen abortion r…

A new study has indicated that the use of a once-a-day inhaler for chronic bronchitis or emphysema for more than one month increases the risk of heart attack, stroke or cardiovascular death by 58 percent.

An analysis of 17 clinical trials involving 4,783 patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) revealed the adverse cardiovascular outcomes for those using inhaled anticholinergics as opposed to a placebo or some other kind of treatment.

“A regulatory reass…

A new study has revealed that Gary Cooper, Clark Gable, Joan Crawford, Spencer Tracy, Bob Hope, Henry Fonda and other stars of Hollywood’s “Golden Age” were paid millions of dollars in today’s money for promoting cigarettes.

Once-secret tobacco industry documents show that American Tobacco, Reynolds, Liggett (and) Myers and other majors of the time paid lavish sums to A-list stars to endorse cigarette brands in newspaper advertisements, it said.

Almost 200 stars, including tw…

Asia Pacific countries could be vulnerable to health risks and food shortages as a result of climate change, the World Health Organization has warned.

Climate change is among the topics being discussed in a regional WHO conference being held in Manila, and governments are being pushed to put health issues in their national climate change mitigation plans, officials said.

Outgoing WHO regional director Shigeru Omi said that while they have been successful in dealing with c…

At the start of a four-day conference on the prevention and treatment of strokes in Vienna, an expert has warned that mortality from strokes is rising in Asia due to rapid lifestyle changes in the continent.

“This condition has overtaken cancer and assumed epidemic proportions mainly because of its spread in Asia,” said Michael Brainin, the head of the international conference.

The increase in strokes worldwide has been linked to high cholesterol, high blood pressure, and…

Police said that at least eight people were injured as dozens of homophobic hooligans attacked participants of Bosnia’s first-ever gay rights festival in Sarajevo on Wednesday.

The scuffle broke out at the end of the opening ceremony of the four-day festival in front of the Academy of Fine Arts in downtown Sarajevo.

“When I was getting out of the academy, I was suddenly struck in the back,” Pedja Kojovic, a local journalist, told AFP. “Three other people then came running…

Japan’s textile manufacturers are betting big on eco-fashion as the concept catches on in the society.

Environment-friendly new products from recycled cotton to organically-dyed cashmere and a revolutionary treatment to make wool shrink-resistant without using chemicals were among the innovations showcased at a trade fair in Paris to woo the fashion capital’s top designers.

“These are the survivors. The low quality textile manufacturers have all disappeared because they c…

A new study has found that youngsters in the United States are three times more likely to be prescribed antidepressants and stimulants and twice as likely to be given antipsychotic drugs than their counterparts in Germany and the Netherlands.

The use of antidepressants and stimulants such as Prozac and Ritalin to treat hyperactivity, attention deficit and bipolar disorders in teenagers and young children has become a subject of sharp controversy.

Proponents say these powe…

Drugs made by Swiss pharma giant Novartis’s Sandoz generics unit in South Africa may be contaminated, the World Health Organization has warned after an inspection of the facility revealed more than 40 faults.

The WHO said it had sent an official “Notice of Concern” letter to Sandoz on September 12 after an inspection of the unit’s Kempton Park factory in South Africa.

That had revealed 41 separate cases classified as “non-compliances and deviations from the WHO Good Manuf…

A new study has indicated that people with a family history of brain cancer have a significantly higher risk of developing the cancer as compared to people with no such family history.

Individuals whose immediate relatives suffered from glioblastomas — usually a fast-growing and deadly type of tumor in the brain or spinal cord — had twice the risk of contracting the same kind of cancer, concluded the authors of the research, published in the September 23 issue of the journal Neurol…

The Anatolia news agency is reporting that a suspected bacterial infection may have caused the deaths of 13 newborn babies within 24 hours at a state hospital in western Turkey.

The babies, who were all born premature and underdeveloped, died at the newborns unit at Tepecik hospital in the western city of Izmir on Saturday and Sunday.

A team of doctors specializing in infections and newborn care, who began an inspection at the ward on Monday, said their initial analysis o…

The United Nations has announced that Shin Young-Soo of South Korea has been elected as the new director for the Western Pacific region of the World Health Organisation.

Shin, 64, a professor at Seoul National University College of Medicine, will serve a five-year term that begins February 1, 2009. He replaces Japan’s Shigeru Omi, who is winding up his second five-year term.

Shin was chosen over Viliami Ta’u Tangi, the concurrent deputy prime minister and health minister…

Officials have said that the Chinese city of Shanghai has began testing a Paris-style rental programme Monday to encourage people to get back on bikes. It may be noted here Shanghai was once home to the world’s biggest bicycle industry.

The programme was launched to coincide with World Car Free Day on Monday and is part of the city’s preparations to host the 2010 World Expo, whose theme is “Better City, Better Life”, Shanghai Metro said.

The limited trial began at a metro…

Chinese state media is reporting that the company whose tainted baby milk triggered a food safety scare failed to report complaints about the product for months. The current scandal has drawn in 53,000 sick children.

Sanlu Group, the dairy firm first found to be selling melamine-contaminated goods, began receiving complaints of sick children last December, Xinhua news agency reported, citing a cabinet probe.

It also said Communist officials in the north Chinese city of S…

Two bluestone fragments found at Britain’s prehistoric Stonehenge monument could prove that the mysterious stone circle was once a centre of healing, archaeologists said Monday.

The first excavation inside the circle since 1964 uncovered fragments of stone that could have been used as lucky charms, said Professors Tim Darvill and Geoffrey Wainwright as they presented the preliminary findings of their two-week dig last April.

The archaeologists believe the Stonehenge monum…

Nearly two billion people in the Asia-Pacific region will be at risk from dengue fever unless governments do more to fight the debilitating disease, the World Health Organisation said Tuesday.

The UN agency said it would ask the 37 countries and territories that make up its Western Pacific section to endorse a regional strategy for dealing with the mosquito-borne virus, which it deems among 40 emerging diseases of global importance.

A dengue pandemic swept across the regi…

A simple test for cervical cancer, designed to be used in developing countries, could strike a massive blow against the disease notorious as a “silent killer” of women, doctors said on Sunday.

Screening for cervical cancer is routinely done in rich countries and has helped cut mortality from this disease in advanced economies by between 50 and 80 percent.

But the technique requires access to sophisticated labs, which makes it unsuitable for countries that lack financial r…