Dhaka: About 28 percent of Bangladesh's total population (41.7 million) is living in urban areas, said a Unicef report released on Wednesday.
Among the top 21 mega cities of the world, according to the report, Dhaka ranks 9th position with 14.3 million people, while Tokyo 1st with 36.5 million, Delhi 2nd with 21.7 million, Sao Paolo 3rd with 20.0 million.

GLOBAL health campaigns like grand goals. On January 30th Bill Gates joined the head of the World Health Organisation (WHO), 13 drug-company executives and others in pledging to eradicate or control by 2020 ten of the world’s nastiest diseases, which afflict more than a billion people. Guinea worm, sleeping sickness, bilharzia (which doctors call schistosomiasis) and the others rot tissue and cripple the organs. Even if they do not kill, they stunt children and sap adults’ energies.

KOLKATA, 17 MAY: Manas Bangla ~ a network of 13 community-based organisations engaged in the distribution of medical and social support to approximately 10,000 homosexual men, transgenders and Hijras in West Bengal ~ has not received funds from the West Bengal State AIDS Prevention and Control Society (WBSAPCS) since 31 March, and there has been no official statement regarding the continuation of Manas Bangla, according to its representatives.

A US aid program aimed at helping foreign countries battle the AIDS epidemic saved 740,000 lives from 2004-2008, according to a US study published Tuesday.

The US President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, or PEPFAR, was started by former president George W. Bush in 2003 with a five-year, $15 billion investment in global AIDS in 15 countries.

The analysis by scientists at Stanford University School of Medicine in California examined health and survival information for 1.5 million adults in 27 African countries.

Drug maker Lupin Ltd is expected to soon launch its generic version of the anti-HIV drug, Combivir, in the United States. The move was likely to lend a significant upside to the Mumbai-based company’s bottom line in the forthcoming quarters, a source said.

Lupin’s drug, a combination of lamividine and zidovudine tablets, is a generic version of Viiv Healthcare’s Combivir that is prescribed in combination with other antiretroviral agents for the treatment of HIV-1 infection. “Lupin is likely to launch generic Combivir in the US as early as this month,” the source said. The 1968-founded company is waiting for the final approval from the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

A total of 175 people have succumbed to the dreaded AIDS in Punjab during the year 2011-2012.

These facts were revealed in the data supplied by the SMO Civil hospital. The disease is spreading at a fast pace in the border districts of Punjab as per the data. According to official annual data report prepared by the District Civil Surgeon Office, the total number of HIV positive cases registered in Amritsar during the period from 2011-12 were 1,243 from which 749 were males, 425 females and 69 children.

Every 17 seconds a person in the world is diagnosed with diabetes, it kills more people than HIV/AIDS and breast cancer combined, and an estimated 183 million people are unaware that they have diabetes. Diabetes is rife in Kuwait. The true incidence is not accurately known but what is certain is the fact that it is one of the highest in the world. It transcends race, gender, age and social status, Kuwait Times Reported.

Alarmed over the fact that there are more than 8,000 HIV positive people in the state, expecting mothers, particularly in rural pockets, will soon be offered an HIV test as part of the pre-natal care by the authorities in order to safeguard the next generation. This initiative has been taken by Jharkhand State Aids Control Society (JSACS) in collaboration with National Rural Health Mission (NRHM).

Punjab is among the states least affected by the problem of HIV/AIDS, while Andhra Pradesh and Maharashtra are the worst-hit by the infection, the National Aids Control Organisation (NACO) informed the Supreme Court today. NACO provided the information to a Bench of Justices GS Singhvi and SJ Mukhopadhaya that is hearing a bunch of petitions challenging the Delhi High Court verdict decriminalising homosexual activity among consenting adults in privacy.