Anti-microbial resistance, theme of this year's World Health Day Drug resistance renders medicines ineffective Celebrating World Health Day 2011, the World Health Organisation (WHO) has called for intensification of the global commitment to safeguard antibiotics for future generations. With growing resistance by microbes to antibiotics threatening the continued effectiveness of many medicines, WHO has made anti-microbial resistance the theme of this year's World Health Day. It has urged governments and stakeholders to implement policies...

One in three women worldwide gives birth without expert help, a study from UK charity Save the Children suggests. It said if a global shortage of 350,000 midwives were met, more than one million babies a year could be saved. Some 1,000 women and 2,000 babies died every day from easily preventable birth complications - Afghanistan was the worst place to have a baby, it said. The charity urged world leaders to show...

The United Nations health agency today released its first ever list of the most vital medicines for saving the lives of mothers and children, and stressed the need to ensure their availability in developing countries. The list of the top 30 medicines includes oxytocin, a drug used to treat severe bleeding after childbirth, the leading cause of maternal death, as well as simple antibiotics to treat pneumonia, which kills an estimated...

There’s no evidence that India’s growing prosperity has led to less malnutrition among Indian children, according to a new study by scientists from Harvard and the University of Michigan. One plausible explanation, the authors wrote, is that India’s rapid economic growth “may have benefited only the privileged sections of society.” Technology jobs have driven the boom, but 75 percent of the population is supported by farming or manufacturing, noted S. V. Subramanian,...

Save the Children, an NGO has called for greater investment in female health workers as essential to saving mothers' and children's lives. “Every year, close to two million children die before their fifth birthday, and around 67,000 women die annually from complications related to pregnancy and childbirth — but investment in women as community health workers can play a major role in dramatically reducing these figures,” said a statement issued by...