-The Times of India While cases of Malaria and chikungunya show a dip across India, dengue cases have started to climb steadily. Official records of the Union health ministry reveal that there has been a massive increase of dengue infection in the country this year. India had recorded 15,535 cases and 96 deaths in 2009, but the corresponding figure till November, 2012, stood at over 35,000 cases and 216 fatalities. Tamil Nadu has recorded...

-The Hindu A drastic reduction in efficacy seen in the infants during the one-year follow-up period The results of the Phase III trial of the Malaria vaccine RTS,S/AS01 are greatly disappointing. The efficacy of the vaccine in preventing clinical and severe Malaria in infants aged 6 to 12 weeks is much less than what was expected. In fact, the level of protection offered is nearly half of what was reported last year...

-Frontline There are no effective vaccines against Japanese encephalitis, but its spread can be controlled in India through vector management.  JAPANESE ENCEPHALITIS, or JE, has become endemic in many parts of the country, occurring repeatedly in epidemic form in many of them—for instance, in parts of Gorakhpur in northern Uttar Pradesh. One can expect JE-type epidemics year after year in States where prolonged drought-like conditions are followed by heavy monsoons. This leads to...

-The Telegraph Ranchi: Vector control is a baseless charade in Jharkhand, which grapples with a host of maladies like dengue, Malaria, chikungunya, kala-azar and filaria every year and yet lacks a single specialist who can analyse and effectively arrest the scourge. Four posts of entomologists — two each for Ranchi and Hazaribagh zones — and two of assistant entomologists have been lying vacant for at least two years for reasons best known...

-The Hindu Certain genetic variations among primitive Indian tribal populations were found to be shielding them against Malaria, a new study has found. Malaria claims thousands of lives across the globe annually and is caused by parasite Plasmodium through the bite of an infected mosquito. While it is known that mutations in genes could lead to genetic diseases, scientists have studied whether genetic variations would lead to either susceptibility to Malaria or resistance...