Long considered a disease of rich countries, cancer is no longer sparing Africa, where, to general indifference, the number of deaths is soaring. The absence of prevention, poor infrastructure, lack of medical staff, and late diagnoses, but also an increase in life expectancy in low-income countries, have made cancer Africa’s new health scourge. “Cancer has long been considered a disease of rich countries, for the simple reason that one must live long enough to get cancer,” said Pierre Bey, Director of the International Network for Canc...

If yoga comes into the life of every common people, it will help in bringing down incidents of rape in the country, veteran BJP leader Murli Manohar Joshi said on Sunday, reports The Times of India. In a remark that may spark a controversy, he also said that Muslims do yoga five times in a day and termed "Prophet Mohammad as the greatest yogi". "I believe if yoga comes into the life of common people, then the daily incidents of rape, I would not say, they will cease to exist, but there will defin...

Only two in every hundred women in Bangladesh suffered from severe malnutrition in 2013, down from four a year ago, reveals a survey. The improvement in nutrition situation is largely due to a change in women’s dietary habits, says the study titled “State of Food Security and Nutrition in Bangladesh: 2013” released by Food Security Nutritional Surveillance Project (FSNSP). “The situation improved as they ate more protein foods,” said Zeba Mahmud, director of James P Grant School of Public Health at Brac Un...

Across the world, a child’s survival is a lot like drawing a lottery ticket. Factors based purely on chance — where a child is born, how much money his or her family has and what their ethnic background is — can determine if a child lives past age 5. [caption id="attachment_12915" align="alignleft" width="300"] Rong Mala, 30, holds her 6-day-old child, Rakhal, as she waits to see the paramedic at a government clinic in Bangladesh.[/caption] That’s the conclusion from a report published last week by Save the Children, which looked at...

In more than 35 years as a pediatrician, Dr. Kathleen Braico has helped countless children get a healthy start to life. A recent trip to Bangladesh likely compounded those numbers significantly. Braico, of Queensbury, traveled to the nation of 160 million people in a Rotary-sponsored trip, training medical personnel at Kumudini Hospital in the impoverished region of Mirzapur, Tangail. Braico spoke passionately about the hospital — a facility created seven decades ago by Shaha, a man whose mothe...