About a year after Sayed Asif Mahmud began hanging around Bangladesh’s bidi factories to document those who make the hand-rolled cigarettes with low-grade tobacco, a cheap and popular alternative for pre-packaged ones across southeast Asia, he stopped. “I’m always in a dilemma with whether I’m the right person to tell someone else’s story,” he tells TIME. “Why am I doing this? For me or for them?”
[caption id="attachment_8250" align="alignleft" width="300"]
Two women remove dust from thrashed tobacco in a factory. Rangpur, February 2008.[/caption]
That was in late 2008, as he was finishing h...
A local non-government organisation in Bangladesh says its program to integrate HIV/AIDS education into school curriculum is making big strides.
For more than 30 years, Bangladesh health education body PIACT has focused on issues relating to reproductive health, gender equality, poverty alleviation and indeed the prevention of HIV/AIDS.
Since 2007, the group has pushed to include HIV/AIDS education into the textbooks of secondary schools across Bangladesh.
And while the program has faced opposition at all levels, P...
The creation of babies using sperm and eggs from three people has moved a step closer in the UK.
A public review into the three person IVF technique has been broadly supportive, says the Department of Health.
But a number of technical and scientific details need to be finalised before the plans go before Parliament.
The move would be restricted to mitochondrial disease, affecting one in 6,500 UK babies born each year, reports BBC.
This may lead to muscle weakness, blindness, and heart failure.
Using the parents’ sperm and eggs plus an ...
The High Court yesterday ordered the government to enforce the law on safe food in two months to ensure public health and safety.
The law secretary has to make Safe Food Act 2013 effective after finalising the draft of its relevant rules and issue a gazette notification in this regard within the stipulated time, the court said.
The ruling comes at a time when concerns are growing over excessive use of toxic pesticides and preservatives in food items, including vegetables, fruits, fish, milk and processed food.
Recent government study has also found chickens and eggs contain high level of antibiotics and chromium, reports the Daily Star.
Intake of such contaminated food can cause respiratory, kidney and liver related problems, skin disease and even cancer. Expecting mothers a...
Beximco Pharmaceuticals Limited (“BPL” or “the Company”), the fast-growing manufacturer of generic pharmaceutical formulation products, active pharmaceutical ingredients and intravenous fluids, today announces that it has received GMP (“Good Manufacturing Practices”) accreditation from Taiwan Food and Drug Administration (TFDA) as the first Bangladeshi company. The company has received the approval for its oral solid, Inhaler and sterile eye drop facilities.
Taiwan FDA is considered as one of the most stringent regulatory agenc...
Bangladesh is moving to boost maternal health services in poorly-served rural areas by targeting voice and text messages at expectant and pregnant mothers and their families. The aim is to educate and support mothers in places where health services are weak.
“There is a gap between rural and urban areas in terms of maternal health services. Government and non-governmental organizations must address the gap to meet the Millennium Development Goals (MDG),” Iqbal Anwar, a reproductive health researcher at the International Centre for Diarrhoeal Disease Research, Bangladesh (ICDDRB) in Dhaka, told IRIN.
