MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russian President Vladimir Putin has signed a law that will ban smoking in most public places and restrict cigarette sales in the world's second-largest tobacco market after China.

The law will ban smoking in some public places such as subways and schools from June 1, and come into force a year later in other places including restaurants and cafes.

It will also ban sales of tobacco products at street kiosks from June 1, 2014, restrict advertising and set minimum prices for cigarettes which now cost 50 to 60 roubles a pack (less than $2).

Putin, who started a new six-year term in 2012 and has promoted healthy lifestyles, hopes the law will help undermine an entrenched cigarette culture and reverse a decline in Russia's population since the collapse of the Soviet Union.

Advocating the law in a video blog before it was submitted to parliament last year, Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev said nearly one in three Russians were hooked on smoking, and almost 400,000 die each year from smoking-related causes.

The Kremlin said Putin had signed the law on Saturday but did not announce it until Monday. It said the law was intended to bring Russia into line with a World Health Organization tobacco control treaty that Moscow ratified in 2008.

The law faced opposition from foreign tobacco companies that dominate a cigarette market estimated to be worth $22 billion in 2011 by Euromonitor International, a market research company.

Russia's population fell from 148.6 million in 1991, the year the Soviet Union collapsed, to 141.9 million in 2011, according to World Bank figures.

(source: thestar.com.my)

PETALING JAYA: The Health Ministry is considering providing incentives to encourage the private sector to set up community pharmacies in rural areas.

Health Minister Datuk Seri Liow Tiong Lai said such incentives was necessary to overcome a shortage of pharmacies in rural areas.

"The Ministry views the situation (lack of pharmacies in rural areas) seriously as many such pharmacies are only mushrooming in the city and concentrated in certain regions," he told reporters after opening the 100th Cosway Pharmacy outlet in Damansara, near here, on Sunday.

Liow in his speech text that was read by the Health Ministry's Pharmaceutical services division senior director Datuk Eisah A Rahman, said according to the ministry's statistics, there were 10,006 registered pharmacies and 1,834 community pharmacies throughout the country.

The concentration of community pharmacies is in Selangor (where there are 433 pharmacies), Penang (213), Kuala Lumpur (201) and Johor (157).

Realising the lack of pharmacies in rural areas and the inequitable distribution, the Health Ministry was looking into a zoning system to distribute pharmacies accordingly in urban and rural areas so that the people would not be deprived of such facilities, Liow said.

To ensure an equitable distribution of pharmacies in the country, the ministry and the Malaysian Pharmacy Association had developed the Malaysian Healthcare Providers Mapping Service.

Currently, the ratio of pharmacists to the population in Malaysia is 1:2,947 people and by 2016 it is expected to reach the optimum ratio of 1:2,000 people set by the World Health Organisation.

(source: thestar.com.my)

A newly identified virus that comes from the same family as SARS has many worried that the world could be facing a threatening new pandemic. But it's still unclear how much of a danger this new virus presents.

The virus has been dubbed EMC, after the Erasmus Medical Centre where it was first identified, or sometimes just NCoV, for "novel coronavirus."

It was first identified in September, when the World Health Organization issued an international alert saying a completely new virus had infected a Qatari man from Britain who had recently travelled to Saudi Arabia.

Since then, 12 cases have been identified, including a cluster of cases reported last week in a British family.

While there have so far been only a handful of known cases, half of those have resulted in death. That's led many to worry about how virulent this new virus might be.

On Wednesday, the World Health Organization (WHO) encouraged countries around the world to keep a close eye on any cases of acute respiratory infections within their borders, asking them to carefully review any unusual patterns.

Specifically, the global health body suggested testing for the new coronavirus should be considered in patients with unexplained pneumonias, as well as those with unexplained or complicated respiratory illness who aren't responding to treatment.

The new coronavirus appears to cause severe pneumonia and sometimes kidney failure. While most of the cases have been related to travel to the Middle East, two family members of a man who just died in Britain appeared to pick up their infections through person-to-person contact.

That's why health officials around the world are tracking the virus carefully, trying to understand how it spreads and how dangerous it is.

On Wednesday, the Public Health Agency of Canada said it "continues to monitor the situation" and any suspect cases will be sent to the National Microbiology Laboratory for examination.

However, the agency warned that "the risk to Canadians is low.

"Evidence suggests that the novel coronavirus is not efficiently transmissible between humans and has greater effects on people with pre-existing medical conditions," the agency said in an email statement to CTV News, noting that the number of worldwide cases has been "very limited" since it was first detected.

On Tuesday, European scientists revealed the new virus easily infects the cells of the airways of the human lung. In fact, the virus is as adept at infecting the cells of the upper airways as the one that caused SARS and one that causes common colds – which are also from the coronavirus family.

At this point, though, it's still not known how easily it spreads and how virulently it causes illness.

"What we need to be watching for are any signs that this virus gains the ability to transmit efficiently from human to human," the WHO's Gregory Hartl told reporters this week. "So far, we have seen no signs of efficient transmission in humans."

So far, it seems, the virus does not cause illness very easily, and that has infectious diseases experts, such as Dr. Neil Rau, reassured.

"I don't think it is a big cause for concern at this stage," he told CTV News. "...I think we need a lot more info on whether this is a rarely encountered virus that often kills, or quite widespread but rarely can kill people."

Rau says there is a lot of interest in this virus because it comes from the same family as SARS. But so far it doesn't appear to be anything like SARS, which affected more than 8,000 patients within months of its emergence in China and caused more than 700 deaths.

"I think the great deal of interest in this virus is that it is from the same family as the SARS virus but the overall pattern of disease is very, very different and very, very reassuring," Rau said.

Volker Thiel, one of the immunobiologists who released this week's research, says he was surprised at how easily the virus could infect cells. But he cautioned that doesn't mean the virus can easily pass from person to person.

"We have shown that the airway cells can easily be infected. But this does not mean that the virus can easily be transmitted," he told The Canadian Press. "I think this distinction is important."

(source: www.ctvnews.ca)

A group of experts recently participated in a workshop organized by the World Health Organization and the Stop TB Partnership to propose goals to guide the world's fight against tuberculosis after 2015.

Thirty-one experts participated in the meeting including modeling experts, epidemiologists, civil society advocates, research and development entities, development and technical agencies, and representatives from high burden tuberculosis countries. The group shared the aspirational goal of zero TB deaths, zero TB disease and zero suffering.

The experts broadly agreed on a set of interim targets for 2025, including the reduction of TB deaths by 75 percent by 2025 compared with 2015. The achievement of the goal would drop worldwide TB deaths from a projected 1.2 million in 2015 to 300,000 in 2025.

A closely related second goal is the reduction of the TB incidence rate by 40 percent by 2025 when compared to 2015. A third goal was related to universal health coverage, a potential prominent feature in the broad post-2015 development agency.

To achieve the proposed interim targets, the experts said that a dramatic scale up of TB diagnosis and treatment will be required, in addition to further universal health coverage advancement, poverty reduction, economic development, substantial research and development research, and widespread uptake of new tools.

The participants agreed that even bolder targets should be created for 2030 and 2040.

The World Health Assembly will discuss the new TB elimination strategy and targets in 2014, which will be at the core of the next global TB elimination plan by the Stop TB Partnership.

(source: vaccinenewsdaily.com)

An Indonesian health official has acknowledged a shortage of intensive care units for babies, after the case of a new-born shocked the nation.

Five-day-old Dera Nur Anggraini died on Saturday due to breathing difficulties.

Her father said she was refused treatment by at least eight public and private hospitals.

Dien Emawati, head of Jakarta's public health office, said some of the hospitals had no neo-natal intensive care units or had been full.

The case of baby Dera has turned into a national media frenzy, with newspapers and television channels following it relentlessly, says the BBC's Karishma Vaswani in Jakarta.

She was born with a throat deformity and her family said all attempts to get her admitted to a bigger hospital for treatment failed.

Her father has also been quoted as saying that he could not afford to pay the fees requested at one private hospital.

Dera's twin sister, Dara, is reportedly being treated at a hospital in Jakarta, with her condition is improving.

Ms Emawati acknowledged that there was a shortage of facilities for new-borns requiring intensive care in the capital.

She said there are only 143 neo-natal ICU units in government and private hospitals in Jakarta, a city with a population of 10 million people.

In 2011, Indonesia passed an ambitious healthcare law pledging to provide health insurance to all of the country's 240 million citizens from January 2014, our correspondent adds.

But critics have questioned the sense of such a law when current healthcare facilities are already heavily over-burdened and under-resourced.

(source: www.bbc.co.uk)

GENEVA--The World Health Organization on Saturday urged countries to be vigilant over the spread of a potentially fatal SARS-like virus after a new case in Britain brought the global number to 12.

"Based on the current situation and available information, WHO encourages all Member States to continue their surveillance for severe acute respiratory infections (SARI) and to carefully review any unusual patterns," the United Nations health agency said in a statement.

On Friday, British health authorities said that a third member of a family had been diagnosed with so-called novel coronavirus, but was not in danger.

"Although this new case offers further indications of person-to-person transmission, no sustained person-to-person transmission has been identified," said the WHO.

"Testing for the new coronavirus should be considered in patients with unexplained pneumonias, or in patients with unexplained severe, progressive or complicated respiratory illness not responding to treatment," it added.

Clusters of cases, and cases among health workers, should be thoroughly investigated wherever they occur, it underlined.

Britain's Health Protection Agency said the latest person to contract the virus was a relative of two other cases announced earlier this week.

The first member of the family, who was confirmed on Monday as having the virus, had recently traveled to the Middle East and Pakistan. The two relatives had no recent travel history.

A total of 12 cases have been reported to the WHO, with five of them fatal — three in Saudi Arabia and two in Jordan.

Coronaviruses are to blame for most common colds but can also cause SARS (severe acute respiratory syndrome).

A SARS epidemic killed more than 800 people when it swept out of China in 2003, sparking a major international health scare.

(source: www.chinapost.com.tw)

MANILA - The World Health Organization (WHO) issued a directive on Sunday for all health officials to find out if the novel coronavirus (NCoV) is spreading in countries aside from the United Kingdom (UK), where early cases have been reported.

It also advised countries to continue their surveillance efforts for severe acute respiratory infections (SARI).

"Testing for the new coronavirus should be considered in patients with unexplained pneumonias, or in patients with unexplained severe, progressive or complicated respiratory illness not responding to treatment," said the WHO.

The WHO added that new cases and clusters of the NCoV should be reported promptly to health authorities and them.

"Any clusters of SARI or SARI in healthcare workers should be thoroughly investigated, regardless of where in the world they occur," it said.

Last Wednesday, the UK government confirmed its first human to human transmission of the SARS-like virus.

The patient is believed to have caught the infection from a close family relative, who had travelled to the Middle East.

However, the WHO said it is not advising its member-states to issue a travel advisory since the confirmed victims in UK have no recent travel outside the country.

"WHO does not advise special screening at points of entry with regard to this event nor does it recommend that any travel or trade restrictions be applied," said the WHO.

As of Saturday, the World Health Organization has recorded 12 cases of human infection with NCoV, including five deaths. (HDT/Sunnex)

(source: www.sunstar.com.ph)

HEALTH experts are urging the United States and other countries to boost their ability to identify fake or subpar medicines and close loopholes that allow products to be falsified or diluted.

In an international system in which different companies in many countries make ingredients for single treatments, no country alone can effectively enforce quality control on drugs that can be the fine line between life and death, stressed a report by the independent Institute of Medicine (IOM).

"Falsified and substandard medicines are a grave public health problem because they are ineffective, promote drug resistance, and even cause severe illness and death, particularly in developing countries where they regularly flood the market," said Lawrence Gostin, health law expert at Georgetown University Law Center who led the group of 12 experts who did the study.

"We're calling on WHO, in collaboration with regulators, companies, and civil society worldwide, to adopt a global code of practice, build national regulatory capabilities, and promote international cooperation," Gostin said.

Fake versions of the cancer drug Avastin were given to US patients in 2011 and 2012, for example, but similar problems occur even more frequently in poor countries, the committee found. Avastatin is made by Switzerland's Roche.

"Given the international nature of modern manufacturing and trade, every nation has a stake and a role to play in ensuring the production and sale of high-quality medications," said Gostin, who is director of the World Health Organization (WHO) Collaborating Center on Public Health Law and Human Rights.

Counterfeit and substandard medications with little or no active ingredients can hasten drug resistance, do not treat disease, and boost health care costs. In addition, products that contain dangerous ingredients have sickened and killed people around the world, the report explains.

It urges the WHO to increase its cooperation with regulators worldwide.

"What we're seeing in the United States - and doubly so in developing countries - is a race to the bottom," Gostin said. "Unscrupulous drug suppliers seek the state or country with the weakest regulatory and law enforcement standards. We need to encourage a status competition for the finest regulatory oversight."

So the report urges a mandatory drug tracking system.

US "agreement on a federally mandated tracking system has been slowed by costs associated with changing drugs' primary packaging and labels as well as wholesale repackaging, the report found. "Without a national system, however, companies face the burden of meeting competing state demands. For example, California will require unique serial numbers on bottles and vials by 2015," it said.

The report also urges adoption of the terms "substandard" and "falsified" to refer to products that pose a public health risk, asking parties to refrain from using the term "counterfeit" except in trademark infringement cases.

"Consistent use of terms would improve nations' abilities to document the extent of the problem, determine causes, and discuss possible solutions," it added.

(source: www.theaustralian.com.au)