Global Fund approves $2.4 bn to fight AIDS, TB, malaria

November 5th, 2009 more images more images more images more images Medical aid group raises alarm about AIDS funding JOHANNESBURG — The global recession and pressure to divert funds to other health crises are hurting the fight against AIDS, a medical group warned Thursday, with one health worker saying he feared a return to the days when the AIDS virus was a death sentence in Africa. Medecins Sans Frontieres campaigners said at a news conference in South Africa that clinics funded by international donors in Uganda were being told not to take on new patients.

November 4th, 2009 WASHINGTON - The world's largest trial of one of the leading malaria vaccine candidates, called RTS,S, is now underway in seven African countries: Burkina Faso, Gabon, Ghana, Kenya, Malawi, Mozambique and Tanzania. The trial, which is expected to involve up to 16,000 children, is on schedule, with more than 5,000 children already enrolled, according to researchers.

October 31st, 2009 WASHINGTON - There is a need for biomedical research and new interventions to eradicate malaria worldwide, say scientists at National Institutes of Health (NIH) and National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID). While malaria has been controlled in many local and regional populations, the permanent elimination of malaria parasites throughout the world remains an elusive goal, and the disease continues to claim nearly one million lives each year.

October 27th, 2009 more images more imagesBill Gates urges more spending on global healthWASHINGTON — The billionaire co-founder of Microsoft is touting what he sees as an investment with enormous returns — the money spent to improve health care in poor countries and the millions of lives saved because of it. "Global health money improves lives more effectively than any other spending," Bill Gates told a roundtable discussion Tuesday on a new initiative called The Living Proof Project that's being launched by Gates and his wife, Melinda.

October 22nd, 2009 NEW DELHI - The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has announced 76 grants for bold and innovative ideas to improve global health and three of them have been bagged by Indian researchers. Ranjan Nanda, K.V.S.

October 21st, 2009 NEW DELHI - A coalition of over 50 child health organisations from across the world will observe Nov 2 as the first World Pneumonia Day. Two million children under five years of age die from pneumonia each year - more than from AIDS, measles and malaria combined, according to Global Coalition against Pneumonia.

October 14th, 2009 GENEVA - Diarrhoea, which can be corrected through inexpensive and simple means, kills an estimated 1.5 million children each year, a UN study released Wednesday showed. The number of children in the developing world dying of diarrhoea outpaces the combined youth fatalities from AIDS, malaria and measles, according to research done by the World Health Organisation (WHO) and the UN Children's Fund (Unicef).

October 12th, 2009 BANGALORE - A group of sex workers from across Karnataka came together here Monday to inaugurate Ashodaya Academy, a regional centre on HIV and AIDS to be run by the sex workers themselves to fight the spread of the disease. The academy is located in Mysore, nearly 150 km from here, and is said to be the first of its kind in the entire Asia Pacific to be run by sex workers for prevention of HIV and AIDS.

October 2nd, 2009 WASHINGTON - A new study suggests that the mosquitoes that transmit malaria can actually help scientists find potential new ways to fight this disease. Researchers at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL) in Heidelberg, Germany, and the Institut National de la Sante et de la Recherche Medicale (INSERM) in Strasbourg, France, have found that variations in a single gene affect mosquitoes' ability to resist infection by the malaria parasite.

October 1st, 2009 NEW DELHI - Some African countries like Kenya and Uganda are unable to sustain their HIV and AIDS prevention programmes due to the global economic recession and India should take lessons from that as it is home to the world's third largest HIV population after South Africa and Nigeria, says a UN official. "India has been doing a really great job.

September 24th, 2009 Summary Box: Results out on AIDS vaccine testTHE STUDY: The world's largest test of a potential AIDS vaccine, sponsored by the U.S. Army and conducted by the Thailand Ministry of Public Health.

September 23rd, 2009 NEW YORK - French first lady Carla Bruni-Sarkozy has been honoured for her humanitarian efforts in fight against AIDS. The 41-year-old beauty was felicitated for her work for the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria at a Midtown bash on Monday.

September 18th, 2009 Birth control could help combat climate changeLONDON — Giving contraceptives to people in developing countries could help fight climate change by slowing population growth, experts said Friday. More than 200 million women worldwide want contraceptives, but don't have access to them, according to an editorial published in the British medical journal, Lancet.

September 18th, 2009 FDA approves new HIV test from Abbott LaboratoriesWASHINGTON — The Food and Drug Administration has approved a new test from Abbott Laboratories that detects both types of the virus that causes AIDS. The FDA says the company's Abbott Prism HIV O Plus test can detect HIV types 1 and 2.

September 4th, 2009 WASHINGTON - The discovery of two powerful new HIV antibodies will help tackle HIV more effectively. Researchers will now try to exploit a newfound vulnerability on the virus to craft novel approaches to designing an AIDS vaccine.