A minister in Ivory Coast has been sacked over his alleged role in the disappearance of millions of dollars meant for victims of pollution.

Adama Bictogo says he has not done anything wrong.

The case relates to a 2006 incident in which thousands became ill after toxic waste was dumped in Abidjan.

Multinational Trafigura, which shipped it, denied any wrongdoing but made a series of payments in relation to the case without admitting liability.

The World Health Organization is expected to declare polio a global emergency after outbreaks in countries previously free of the disease.

The WHO wants to boost programmes in Nigeria, Pakistan and Afghanistan, the only countries where the disease is still endemic.

It says tackling polio is "at a tipping point between success and failure".

India, once regarded as one of the most challenging countries, was declared free of the disease in February.

A third of malaria drugs used around the world to keep the spread of the disease at bay are counterfeit, recent data has suggested. According to a study published in the reputed journal the Lancet, around 7 per cent of the drugs tested in India was found to be of poor quality with many being fake.

Researchers who looked at 1,500 samples of seven malaria drugs from seven countries in Southeast Asia said poor-quality and fake tablets are causing drug resistance and treatment failure. “Much of this morbidity and mortality could be avoided if drugs available to patients were efficacious, high quality, and used correctly,” said the Lancet.

Fake and substandard malaria drugs are a growing threat to efforts to beat back the disease, a new study sponsored by the federal government has concluded.

Scientists from the National Institutes of Health analyzed 27 sets of tests of antimalaria drugs purchased in Southeast Asia and Africa between 1999 and 2010. The researchers published the results on Monday in The Lancet Infectious Diseases.

ICDDR,B is spreading its technical know-how to African countries to help them overcome tropical diseases.
Two doctors of the organization who are also experts in cholera management, returned home on Wednrsday after a two-week visit to the Horn of African countries-including Somalia and Kenya.
They trained more than 50 health professionals there including doctors and nurses, in cholera case management.

President Barack Obama on Friday said the United States has a “moral imperative” to lead the fight against hunger and malnutrition in Africa despite shrinking national budgets around the world.

The Obama administration has drafted some of the world’s largest food and finance companies to invest more than $3 billion in projects aimed at helping the world’s poorest farmers grow enough food to not only feed themselves and their families but to earn a livelihood as well.