Two million sick from Pakistan floods

Two million Pakistanis have fallen ill from diseases because monsoon rains left the southern region under several feet of water, the country's disaster authority said Thursday additional than 350 people have been killed and over eight million people have been precious this year by floods that official say are worse in parts of Sindh province than last year, when the country saw its worst ever disaster.

Malaria, diarrhoea, skin disease and snake bites were between the health problems facing two million public across 23 Sindh districts, said Irshad Bhatti, spokesman of National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA).

"In some areas, diseases also spread out because of dead animals but there is no main break-out of any epidemic," Bhatti added, calling for the donation of mosquito nets and medicine to help the aid effort the World Health Organization (WHO) has said there is a anxious shortage of clean drinking water in the south which has also trigger outbreak of acute diarrhoea and other waterborne diseases.

Cambridge students told to stay out of river

(IANS) Students of Cambridge University cover been warn to stay out of the Cam river after a couple of them were detect with a potentially terminal water-borne disease. The Weil's disease is extending by animal urine in water, and two students had to be in use to hospital after they showed symptom of the disease, the Telegraph reported.

The bacterial disease - also called leptospirosis - is contracted when infected water comes into contact with eyes or broken skin. University students usually jump into the river after celebrating the end of exams. But nurses at the university report a rise in the number of pupils complaining of vomiting and diarrhoea, leading to establishment warning students not to enter the water.

Mark Wormald, chairman of the university's not compulsory group on communicable diseases, alert students in an email.Weil's disease is unusual in Britain with just 40 cases diagnose annually. Still one or two people die each year of the disease.

Immunizing kids against diseases key to achieve child survival goal

Global health and development chiefs in New York have said that immunizing children beside preventable diseases is critical to reach United Nations-led goals to reduce child deaths. At an event hosted by UNICEF, the Republic of Kenya and the GAVI Alliance, health ministers, donors and the heads of UN agencies called for the introduction of latest vaccines that can dramatically reduce deaths due to diarrhoea and pneumonia, the two biggest killers of children under five. Kenya's Minister of Public Health and Sanitation, Dr Rose Mugo, said her county's extended immunization program has decreased deaths among children from 115 per 1,000 live births in 2003 to 75 per 1,000 live births today a 35 percent reduction.

"When we are able to introduce new vaccines against diarrhoea and pneumonia we are sure that the number will drop even further," she said. Dr Guillermo Gonzalez, Nicaragua's former health minister and present Special Advisor to the President, said his country was reaching up to 95 percent of children with routine Immunization. "Since we introduced the rotavirus vaccine three years ago we have experiential 35 to 40 percent reductions in mortality," he said. Margaret Chan, Director-General of the World Health Organization, said she was proud to guide an organization, which together with UNICEF was one of the "midwives" that gave birth to the GAVI Alliance in 2000.

"Vaccines are one of the mainly cost effective health interventions and one of the best buys. We petition to the generosity of donors 'open your purses'," she said. "Diarrhoea and pneumonia are the two biggest killers of children. If you invest you can save millions." Government donors from Norway, the United Kingdom and the United States also pledged to keep sustaining GAVI's global Immunization effort. The United Kingdom's Secretary of State for International Development, Andrew Mitchell, MP, said it was a "global scandal" that children were still failing from vaccine-preventable diseases, and donors needed to do more.

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