THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Citing increasing incidence of diseases like oral cancer, the Congress-led UDF Government in Kerala today announced a ban on the manufacture and sale of gutka and pan masala containing tobacco in the state with immediate effect.

Announcing the decision at a press conference here, Chief Minister Oommen Chandy said the ban on gutka and pan masala containing tobacco and nicotine was enforced under the provisions of Food Safety and Standards Regulation Act, 2011.

The government is planning to make cancer a “notifiable disease”, which will mean every case will have to be reported. Till now infectious diseases like polio, plague, H1N1, H5N1 (bird flu) figure in the list of notifiable diseases. Recently, tuberculosis was made a notifiable disease. Cancer would become the first non-communicable disease to be included in the same category.

Officials in the Union health ministry disclosed that government is seriously considering to make cancer a notifiable disease and the decision in this regard will be taken very soon.

AUSTRALIAN beef has been implicated in a health scare in the United States, and is now the subject of a recall in at least one state.

The Department of Agriculture confirmed yesterday it had received notification from its American equivalent that shipments of Australian beef were believed to be the source of a potentially deadly E. coli contamination detected in ground beef products in the state of South Carolina last week.

Drought and disease have devastated life of coconut growers in the district. Rubbing salt into their wounds is the slump in price of copra and coconut.

Various diseases, including pest attack and stem bleeding, have ravaged crops on thousands of acres. Coconut trees in the rain-fed regions of Madhugiri, Pavagad, Sira and Koratagere have withered, leaving the distraught farmers in debt trap. The diseases have destroyed crop in and around 15 acres of plantation at Baragur in Chikkanayakanahalli taluk and scores of acres in Hosakere, Nittur, CS Pur hoblis in Gubbi taluk

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.

CHENNAI : As if the spurt of Dengue induced deaths in Tirunelveli region isn’t alarming by itself, the sheer number of cases recorded in 2012 is a shocker.

According to the health department, in just five months this year, there have been 1,632 cases of dengue recorded officially in Tamil Nadu. With over 21 people having already succumbed this year, this is much more than the eight deaths last year.

Millions of Indians are facing a new health risk. Increasing water scarcity is forcing farmers to grow vegetables and fodder using untreated sewage waste water across urban and rural cities.

The Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FAAI) has in the past issued several warnings on pesticide residues and crop contaminants, including aflatoxins, patulin and ochratoxin in Indian fruit and vegetables. These pesticides are known to adversely effect the nervous system and can result in lung damage and cancer

KOCHI: To prevent the illegal dumping of waste in public places, the Corporation will soon launch a special health squad. The squad will be divided into four units consisting of officials from the health department of the Corporation.

Announcing the plan to set up the units at the launch of the pre-monsoon cleaning programme ‘Mazhayethum Munpe’, Mayor Tony Chammany said that the primary objective of the health squad is to make sure that the waste treatment methods are strictly followed by the public.

Less than 2 p.c. of global trials are conducted in India

With India being home to 16 per cent of global population and 20 per cent of global disease burden, it (country) is gradually transforming into a clinical research destination for pharmaceutical companies. But the biggest concern is whether the country is becoming a dumping ground for clinical trials?