-Down to Earth Serotype DENV 2 has returned after a gap of a few years, which could be a reason for higher number of cases this year More than 2,916 people have already been reported affected by dengue this year in Delhi. This has been the highest since 2010 when more than 3,782 cases were reported. Small puddles of water created by intermittent rains are the main reason behind this surge as...

-The Indian Express Pune: Rajendra Kumar, Rajkot's district collector, has had a first-hand experience of the disease his office is tracking. "On the very first day of fever, I had my blood tested to rule out dengue," he says. "I was extremely weak and had to be hospitalised in the first week of September." The district has seen 280 cases of dengue so far this season. In Pune, National Institute of Virology deputy director Dr...

-The Times of India PARIS: The world's most effective vaccine candidate against dengue is all set for trials in India and if all goes to plan, the vaccine will be available globally by 2015. The vaccine will be tested on 120-odd adults in the beginning, the results of which should be available by 2013. Thereafter, a largescale study on children — the main target group — will be undertaken. In an exclusive interview,...

-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...

Malaria deaths in India could be more than 40 times higher that what is presently estimated. New research published in the Lancet shows that malaria kills 1.2 million people worldwide each year - twice as high as the figure in the World Malaria Report, 2011. In India, the study estimates that "4800 malaria deaths in children younger than 5 years and 42000 malaria deaths in those aged 5 years or older," for...