The Meghalaya Health Department was today sent into a tizzy following a suspected case of bird flu admitted at the Shillong Civil Hospital today. State Director of Health Services Dr KH Lakiang said one Anjalina Paslain (21) has been admitted with "fever and rashes' and has been kept in the "isolation ward'. "The blood and stool samples of the victim has been collected, and will be sent for tests for Bird Flu virus to the National Institute of Communicable Diseases in Delhi tomorrow,' he said, adding, "Nothing can be said as of now.' While not ruling out the possibility of Bird Flu, Dr Lakiang said the tests have been done for "prevention' and "diagnosis'. District Surveillance Officer (Integrated Diseases Surveillance Cell) Dr M Basaiawmoit and other senior officials of the Health Department also did not rule out the possibility, but said nothing can be confirmed till the tests results. Two specialists doctors attending the victim refused to divulge much but at the same time did not rule out the possibility. "Nothing can be said. Certain respiratory problems also have similar symptoms. We have to wait for the test results to come. It will take three to four days,' they said, requesting not to be named.

TOKYO

Sewage gushing out of chocked gutters has inundated several major streets in Lyari, causing inconvenience to the residents and creating a hindrance in the smooth flow of vehicular traffic. The worst-affected areas of the locality include D. D. Chaudhry Road, Police Quarters, Baghdadi police station on Shah Abdul Latif Bhittai Road and its adjacent streets. According to area people, these pools of filthy water on these streets are turning into fertile breeding grounds for mosquitoes and other insects increasing the possibility of an outbreak of diseases. Apart from this, the roads of the locality are also being extensively damaged adding to the problems of the already perturbed Lyariites. In a signed letter addressed to the Lyari Town nazim, copies of which had also been sent to the Sindh governor, chief minister, chief secretary and the city nazim, over 40 residents of the affected areas had deplored that the overflowing sewage from chocked lines of the locality had become a recurring menace and their repeated complaints lodged with the Karachi Water and Sewerage Board (KWSB) officials concerned in this regard had, so far, remained unheeded. They said that since the sewerage system had been laid some 50 years ago, the infrastructure of that period could not cope with the present-day requirements of the locality, which had witnessed a cent per cent increase in its population. They urged the relevant authorities to revamp the entire sewerage system of the locality on modern lines.The area people said that the main cause of this recurring menace of overflowing sewage was old undersized lines. They, however, deplored that the issue had been brought to the notice of the relevant authorities of the KWSB but to no avail. The KWSB people had developed a habit of expressing their inability to replace the undersized lines citing severe financial constraints, they said. Khudadad Colony Residents of Khudadad Colony, situated off Shahrah-i-Quaideen, complained that filthy water overflowing from some chocked sewers had become a recurring issue in their locality. They deplored that sewage gushing out of some chocked sewers often remained accumulated on a number of streets for days together but engineers of the KWSB neither took prompt measures to rectify the fault responsible for the chocked lines nor drained the filthy water from the roads.

London: Science has long been clear that smoking or heavy alcohol consumption causes cancer. But, a new study has found that babies could inherit genetic damage from a father who puffs or drinks too much. A team of international researchers has found that smoking or drinking alcohol can cause chemical changes in the semen in men and the alterations could be potentially inherited by their progenies and their future generations. The researchers came to the conclusion after they analysed the effects of smoking and heavy drinking

Director, Tobacco Institute of India It provides livelihood to 27 million people

A record number of 28 of Japan's 47 prefectures issued photochemical oxidant smog warnings in 2007, including Niigata and Oita prefectures, which issued warnings for the first time, the Environment Ministry said in a report Tuesday. The number of people who reported health problems due to the smog, which causes symptoms such as eye and throat pain, reached 1,910 in 14 prefectures, the ministry said. Warnings were issued in Saitama on 32 days, the highest number, followed by Kanagawa on 20 days, and Chiba and Tokyo on 17 days.

Alarming evidence for the way air pollution damages the cardiovascular system emerged on Monday at the American Association for the Advancement of Science meeting in Boston. Although "clean air' legislation has cleaned up the most visible smog-like pollution in industrialised countries, Lung Chi Chen of the medical school at New York University said microscopic soot particles from vehicle exhausts killed an estimated 30,000-40,000 people a year in the US. Breathing the air in New York City was similar to living with a smoker in terms of risk from heart disease, he said. Several scientists said exposure to ultra-fine particles at levels found in city centres triggered heart disease in laboratory animals. Even the most modern diesel and petrol engines with efficient filters generated the most dangerous particles (less than 2.5 microns in diameter), Dr Chen said. In addition, chemicals called polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons pose a serious threat to human health according to John Incardona, researcher with the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Dr Incardona said PAHs, which affected fish exposed to oil spills, were also "prime suspects for cardiovascular impacts related to air pollution'. Even in "safe' levels, particulate air pollution added to the cardiovascular health burden. "Estimates of toxicity based solely on measurements of particles are likely to dramatically underestimate the net health impact of complex emissions,' said Matt Campen of the Lovelace Respiratory Research Institute in New Mexico. Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2008

New York: Kids who live in neighborhoods with heavy traffic pollution have lower IQs and score worse on other tests of intelligence and memory than children who breathe cleaner air, a new study shows. The effect of pollution on intelligence was similar to that seen in children whose mothers smoked 10 cigarettes a day while pregnant, or in kids who have been exposed to lead, Dr Shakira Franco Suglia of the Harvard School of Public Health in Boston, the study's lead author, said.