Improving maternal and newborn health in low-income settings requires both health service and community action. Previous community initiatives have been predominantly rural, but India is urbanizing. While working to improve health service quality, we tested an intervention in which urban slum-dweller women's groups worked to improve local perinatal health.

Lack of transparency in clinical trial conduct, publication bias and selective reporting bias are still important problems in medical research. Through clinical trials registration, it should be possible to take steps towards resolving some of these problems.

The Pediatric Dengue Vaccine Initiative (PDVI) is a product development partnership (PDP) based at the International Vaccine Institute (IVI) in Seoul, Korea, and is supported by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

A recent shift in the drug product environment for Africa has seen a score of new products being developed specifically for diseases of the developing world, creating new challenges for regulators in Africa and elsewhere.

With the global expansion of clinical trials and the expectations of the rise of the emerging economies known as BRICs (Brazil, Russia, India and China), the understanding of factors that affect the willingness to participate in clinical trials of patients from those countries assumes a central role in the future of health research.

With the globalization of clinical trials, large developing nations have substantially increased their participation in multi-site studies. This participation has raised ethical concerns, among them the fear that local customs, habits and culture are not respected while asking potential participants to take part in study.

Insecticide-treated hammocks could cut malaria rates in remaining pockets of high transmission in the forests of South-East Asia, researchers say. Hammocks made from nylon, ropes and an insecticide-treated bednet were given to 7,000 people in Ninh Thuan province in central Vietnam.