Full Coverage: Disease

28.02.2008 According to a recent study, around a million people will die of smoking in India alone in next two years. The country is on the threshold of a tobacco-unleashed epidemic, says Ramesh Menon, a journalist cum documentary filmmaker and recipient of the 2006 Ramnath Goenka Award for Excellence in Journalism.

27.02.2008 SAN FRANCISCO, Feb 26 (OneWorld) - Most of California's furniture contains toxic chemicals that have been linked to cancer, birth defects, hormone disruption, and neurological and reproductive dysfunction, according to a report released today.

26.02.2008 More than 300,000 animals in Afghanistan have become prey to cold temperatures, severely devastating the livelihood of local farmers. Such extreme weather conditions are causing unprecedented miseries in the country, where more than 900 people have died due to cold this winter.

22.02.2008 One million Indians will die every year in the 2010s as a result of tobacco consumption, a study predicts.

21.02.2008 Insufficient statistics and lack of a sound HIV/AIDS prevention policy are undermining Bangladesh’s efforts to protect people against its risks. It is necessary to break the barriers of social stigmas attached to the disease and promote condom use beyond family planning purposes, say health experts.

18.02.2008 Pneumonia has taken epidemic proportions in Afghanistan, where over 170,000 patients have been diagnosed with the disease in past one month. Food insecurity, lack of awareness and unhygienic conditions are only adding to the problems of people, who are facing the harshest winter in many years.

15.02.2008 Even after the ban on its use, the hazardous impact of pesticide Endosulfan sprayed in cashew plantations in Kerala, continues to affect the communities. The state government's relief package of Rs 5 million and other schemes have proved inadequate to rehabilitate the victims.

14.02.2008 Smoking kills nearly a million people a year in India. A new study reveals that tuberculosis rather than cancer is the common cause of death among Indians who smoke. The study also says that only 2% of smokers quit – and that too because they are too sick to continue.

13.02.2008 A support group in Pune, in the state of Maharashtra, has now started reaching out to those who live with the painful memory of a suicide in the family. More than 100,000 people take their own lives every year in India, where levels of stress are increasing by the day.

07.02.2008 After Bangladesh and India, the avian flu has spread its tentacles to Pakistan. The country has a huge poultry farming sector, with at least 12,000 farms of varying sizes. The health ministry has sent out letters to concerned authorities to remain on high alert.

07.02.2008 KARACHI, Feb 6 (IPS) - Saifullah Paracha, a Pakistani national incarcerated in the United States military prison in Guantanamo, Cuba since September 2004, suffers from a serious heart condition and may not live unless provided special care, says his lawyer.

01.02.2008 Tatulia is one of the many villages in Bangladesh where residents are forced to drink arsenic-contaminated water. A project implemented by the Department of Public Health Engineering along with UNICEF hopes to reach proper water and sanitation resources to 30 million people in the country.