India recorded 98,621 rotavirus-inducted diarrhoea deaths in 2008, which is about 22% of global toll from the infection.  Nigeria - the second worst-hit country - recorded about 41,000 deaths, or less than 50% of fatalities as compared to India.  Pakistan (39,000) and Bangladesh (9,000) figures among the top 10 worst-affected nations grappling with rotavirus infection, says a study that appeared in medical journal, "The Lancet Infectious Diseases". It shows 453,000 deaths occurred...

A large and costly AIDS prevention program that the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation pioneered in India eight years ago has had mixed results, according to a preliminary analysis published on Monday in The Lancet. The foundation spent $258 million on the program from 2003 to 2008. It has since put in $80 million more, but is shifting responsibility to the Indian government. The program, called Avahan, focuses on high-risk groups, like...

Malaria is a mass killer, taking just under 800,000 lives a year. Most of them are babies and children under five. A significant number are pregnant women. It is an entirely preventable disease, caused by a parasite transmitted by mosquito bite, but the millions who live under its curse are too poor and have too few options to be able to avoid it. The malaria vaccine [ See: “Malaria vaccine partly...

-AP Severe stress on food, water and jobs She's a 40-year-old mother of eight, with a ninth child due soon. The family homestead in a Burundi village is too small to provide enough food, and three of the children have quit school for lack of money to pay required fees. “I regret to have made all those children,” says Godelive Ndageramiwe. “If I were to start over, I would only make two or...

The death recently in Nairobi of Kenyan environmental crusader and 2004 Nobel Peace Prize winner Wangari Maathai brings to mind the work of another development activist and Nobel peace laureate (2006), Muhammad Yunus of Bangladesh. Their fields were different but their goals were the same: empowering poor, ordinary women for social and economic growth. Perhaps it’s no coincidence that this year’s Nobel Peace Prize has gone to three women who are...