Frequent travels, past displacement and current repatriation of millions of Afghans have put the Afghan population at risk of infection with novel, possibly drug-resistant strains of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) and treatment for such infections may prove challenging for the development of effective vaccines and antiretroviral therapies, a recent study shows.

The study, Patterns of HIV infection among native and refugee Afghans, was aimed at characterising and comparing the HIV epidemics prevailing among the Afghan refugees in Pakistan and the native Afghans in Kabul.

Contrary to apprehensions in Indian official circles, Pakistan still wants India to join the ambitious Iran-Pakistan-India (IPI) gas pipeline project. ''If India desires, they are still welcome to join the project,'' Pakistan's Petroleum and Natural Resources Minister Asim Hussain told The Tribune during his visit to India recently to discuss the transit fee and other issues connected with the US-backed Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India (TAPI) gas pipeline.

Bill Gates, co-chair of Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, has praised India for managing to eradicate polio despite all odds. “In 2012, we need to keep India and all the other places that are polio-free from getting re-infected,” he said.

Only three years ago, India had more polio cases than any nation, he noted. This is a milestone for global polio eradication and for children's health worldwide, Mr. Gates said in his fourth annual letter released worldwide on Wednesday.

India and Pakistan today agreed in-principle to have a uniform transit fee for ferrying natural gas through the proposed $7.6 billion pipeline from Turkmenistan.

India will pay a transit fee to Pakistan and Afghanistan for getting its share of 38 million standard cubic metres per day of gas through the Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India pipeline, while Islamabad has to pay ferrying charges only to Afghanistan for allowing passage of the fuel.

The United Nations and leading world organizations celebrated India’s first polio free year and termed it as a major milestone in their fight against this dreaded disease.

The World Health Organisation (WHO) Director-General Margaret Chan, termed it as the “greatest public health achievement” of India, the Bill Gates, of Bill and Milinda Gates Foundation described it as a major milestone in the global fight against polio.

Mass public campaign a success but experts warn of need for continued vigilance

Not even superstition can render this Friday the 13th unlucky for India. Today, the nation will reach a major milestone in the history of polio eradication – a year without any case of wild polio being recorded. For a nation that notoriously had, only two years ago, the largest number of polio cases in the world (741), this is clearly an unprecedented achievement.

On Friday, India will reach a major milestone in the battle against polio. January 13 will mark a year without a fresh case of polio in the country. Once all samples collected till January 12 have been cleared, India will be off the World Health Organisation’s list of polio-endemic countries, to be released on February 12. To be “polio free”, India will need to keep this performance up for two more years, and ensure that all samples stored in laboratories are free of the virus — this, officials said, was the bigger challenge.

Tehran is considering a twofold increase in power exports to neighbouring Turkey after a new electricity transfer line between the two countries becomes operational.

Iran is currently exporting about 230 kilovolt per day(kV/d) of electricity to Turkey and the new transfer line will increase that capacity to 400 kV/d.

Afghanistan's cabinet cleared the way for the war-torn state to sign a deal with China National Petroleum Corp (CNPC) for the development of oil blocks in the Amu Darya basin, the Afghan president's office said on Monday.

The deal covering drilling and a refinery in the northern provinces of Sar-e Pul and Faryab will be the first international oil production agreement entered into by the Afghan government for several decades.

A consortium led by state-owned steel giant SAIL has suddenly turned around and demanded that the government provide interest-free loans to the tune of Rs 45,000 crore to develop the prized Hajigak mines in Afghanistan and build a steel plant. The Afghan government had recently awarded the seven member consortium B, C and D blocks of the Hajigak mines in the Bamiyan province, located about 130 km west of Kabul. The three blocks together have reserves of 1.28 billion tonne.