77 MILLION POISONED BY ARSENIC IN DRINKING WATER IN BANGLADESH

Nearly 90% of Bangladeshis use groundwater Up to 77 million people in Bangladesh have been exposed to toxic levels of arsenic from drinking water in recent decades, according to a Lancet study.

The research assessed nearly 12,000 people in a district of the capital Dhaka for over a period of 10 years.

More than 20% of deaths among those assessed were caused by the naturally occurring poisonous element, it found.

The World Health Organization said the exposure was "the largest mass poisoning of a population in history".

It began after hand-pumped wells were installed in the 1970s to tap groundwater.

Scientists say even small amounts of arsenic over a long period can cause cancer of the bladder, kidney, lung or skin.

Bangladesh was chosen for the study because nearly 90% of the population uses groundwater as its primary source of fresh water.

AIDS PATIENTS SHOULD START TREATMENT EARLIER

People infected with the virus that causes AIDS should start treatment earlier than currently recommended, the World Health Organization says.

The UN agency issued new guidance yesterday advising doctors to start giving HIV positive patients AIDS drugs a year or two earlier than usual.

The advice could double the number of people worldwide who qualify for treatment, adding an extra three to five million patients to the five million already awaiting AIDS drugs.

SMOKING KILLS FIVE MILLION PEOPLE A YEAR

Tobacco use kills at least five million people every year, a figure that could rise if countries don't take stronger measures to combat smoking, the World Health Organisation said on Wednesday.

In a new report on tobacco use and control, the UN agency said nearly 95 per cent of the global population is unprotected by laws banning smoking. WHO said secondhand smoking kills about 600,000 people every year.

TWO DEATHS IN FRANCE FROM MUTATED H1N1

The World Health Organization is investigating reports of mutations in the swine flu for virus, after 6 countries recorded cases in which the virus was transforming. Experts in France have analyzed 1200 strains and this was the first drug resistant case.

The mutation could increase the ability of the virus to affect the respiratory tracts and lung tissue, a statement from the French government's Health Surveillance Institute said.

PHILIPPINES TRY TO CONTAIN DEADLY DISEASE LEPTOSPIROSIS

This is an infection caused by exposure to water contaminated with rat and other animal urine. The World Health Organization and UN health experts have begun field investigations.

This outbreak is the result of massive storms that claimed more than a thousand lives.

A CHINESE TOWN IS QUARANTINED AFTER A DEADLY PLAGUE OUTBREAK

The town is in a Tibetan area in north-west China. It was sealed off after two of its residents died from pneumonic plague, according to reports from the local government and state media.

Ziketan town in Qinghai province was put under quarantine when lab tests showed it had been struck by the highly virulent disease, as reported by the Qinghai health bureau.

A 32-year-old herdsman had died from the plaque, while 11 others had been diagnosed with it. Ziketan, which is located in the Hainan Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, had enough supplies to get by on its own for the time being, the health bureau stated, giving no indication of when the quarantine would be lifted.

The health bureau urged people who had visited Ziketan on or after July 16Th to seek immediate help if they developed coughing or fever. Pneumonic plague spreads through the air, making it easier to contract than bubonic plague, which requires that a person is bitten by an infected flea.

It is also more lethal, with a fatality rate of up to 100 percent if left untreated, compared with 60 per cent for bubonic plaque.

ARE SWINE FLU DEATHS UNDERCOUNTED ?

My friend's daughter was a young school teacher in Los Angeles and she died last week. She told her mother she wasn't feeling well so her mom took her to the hospital. She went in to see the doctor and they were giving her some breathing treatments.

Her mother was in the waiting room when the doctor came out and told her that her daughter was dead. The mother didn't know why her daughter was dead. She was working everyday and she walked into the hospital on her own and didn't show any symptoms or anything.

I asked the mother whether her daughter had any students going back and forth across the border and she didn't know. The health department doesn't usually let the public know if there is an epidemic unless it gets out of control. They were reluctant to give a level 6 alarm, but the World Health Organization did announce a pandemic.