In 2015, the Union ministry of environment, forests & climate change (MoEF&CC) had announced new emission norms for thermal power plants across India. For power stations located within 300 km of the Delhi-NCR region, the deadline for meeting the norms is December 2019. A new survey by Centre for Science and Environment (CSE) indicates that most plants will not meet the deadline. This means that thermal power plants in Delhi-NCR will continue to contribute to the overload of toxic pollution in the capital’s air. That’s not all. The Delhi-NCR region has over 3,000 legal brick kilns, which had been largely practicing…
Author: Abdallah el-Kurebe
By EarthScience2018 New research links outdoor air pollution — even at levels deemed safe — to an increased risk of diabetes globally, according to a study from Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis and the Veterans Affairs (VA) St. Louis Health Care System. The findings raise the possibility that reducing pollution may lead to a drop in diabetes cases in heavily polluted countries such as India and less polluted ones such as the United States. Diabetes is one of the fastest growing diseases, affecting more than 420 million people worldwide and 30 million Americans. The main drivers of…
Dr Amos Ujulu, Director of Disease Control Department (DCD), Adamawa State Primary Health Care Development Agency (ASPHCDA), says the state has recorded 1,564 cases of cholera this year. Ujulu disclosed this during his presentation on the recent outbreak of cholera to the State Executive Council Meeting in Yola. He said that over 100 communities were affected by the outbreak of cholera in the northern part of the state. He listed the affected local government areas as Maiha, Mubi North and Mubi South, adding that the disease further spread to some parts of Cameroon bordering Nigeria. According to him, the state…
Australian scientists on Thursday said they have taken a crucial step toward in developing a new malaria vaccine by using a novel “atomic-scale” blueprint to track how the parasite invades human cells. “With this unprecedented level of detail, we can now begin to design new therapies that specifically target and disrupt the parasite’s invasion machinery, preventing malaria parasites from hijacking human red blood cells to spread through the blood and, ultimately, be transmitted to others,” Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research Associate Professor Wai-Hong Tham said in a statement. Her team’s discovery was published in scientific journal Nature. The researchers’ work involves using…
The World Health Organisation (WHO) has said that a new drug – Carbetocin – has the potential to save thousands of women’s lives in childbirth annually. WHO said Carbetocin now serves as a new competition – with improved benefits – to Oxytocin, a stand-by drug used to prevent potentially-fatal bleeding after childbirth. WHO said excessive bleeding after childbirth still kills around 70,000 mothers a year and currently, Oxytocin is the first-choice medication, but it must be kept cold, unlike the new drug, Carbetocin. The study, partly led, among others, by WHO and published on Wednesday, suggested that the new drug…
The 194 Member States of the World Health Organisation (WHO) have finally ratified the framework on tobacco control. The ratification, aaccording to WHO, comes almost six years after the first protocol was adopted. The WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (WHO FCTC) announced that with the ratification of the UK, the necessary number of parties to the Protocol to Eliminate Illicit Trade in Tobacco Products has been reached for its enter into force in 90 days. It’s a “clear message of the international community’s commitment to combating illicit trade in tobacco products worldwide,” said WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, adding that it’s the “first…
The United Arab Emirates (UAE) flagship carrier, Emirates Airline, has launched a joint project with U.S. Crop One Holdings, to build the world’s largest vertical farming facility. The facility would be near Dubai’s Al Maktoum International Airport, Emirates said in a statement on Tuesday, June 26, 2018. “Emirates Flight Catering (EKFC), the flight catering division of Emirates, and Crop One, a leading global vertical farm operator, will co-invest $40 million in the large project,’’ the statement said. Sheikh Ahmed bin Saeed Al Maktoum, chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Emirates, said the massive investment “aligns with the UAE’s drive for…
The Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) says it plans to assist more than one million people in the Northeast to grow between six and eight months’ worth of food in the 2018 rainy season. Mr Suffyan Koroma, the FAO representative in Nigeria said this on Wednesday in Maiduguri in his message at the launch of the organisation’s rainy season programme. Koroma said an estimated 149, 730 households are expected to benefit from the programme whose overall objective is to ensure restoration of livelihood, particularly in agriculture for a full recovery in the sub region. He said the launch has become…
A group of researchers from Kenya, Tanzania and Spain have joined forces to develop a breed of cassava which would be more resistant to the destructive effects of climate change. The cooperative project, funded by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) is targeted at achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and will have researchers from various agricultural research institutes in the three countries, including the Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology (JKUAT) in Kenya, Mikocheni Agricultural Research Institute (MARI) in Tanzania, and the Basque Institute for Research and Development in Agriculture (NEIKER) in Spain. Professor Elijah Ateka…
By Kristen Hovet Contracting HIV is no longer the death sentence that it was in the 1980s and early 90s. The first cases of AIDS in the United States were reported in 1981, and since then the antiretroviral drugs used to treat HIV have come a long way in both safety and efficacy. HIV-positive individuals who take antiretroviral medications are estimated to have a life expectancy close to the national average, provided they take the medications as prescribed. Without adequate treatment, however, an individual with HIV can be expected to survive an average of about 10 years. Recent medical advances, however,…