Delhi Mayor Arti Mehra has assured Health Minister Yoganand Shastri of "full cooperation' in preventing and controlling water and vector-borne diseases. Ms. Mehra said on Wednesday that though there had been a noticeable decline in such diseases, a lot was still required to be done.

The alarm bells are ringing louder by the day as Earth's climate changes rapidly due to emission of greenhouse gases. We must remember that carbon dioxide emitted today will add to climate change for 150 years. Traditional knowledge can be harnessed to halt climate change, writes Ketaki Saksena

Though malaria is yet to strike all parts of Assam in epidemic form, 27 deaths due to the disease have been reported from different parts of the State till date with the hill district of Karbi Anglong being the worst affected with 18 deaths. Health Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma said that apart from some parts of Karbi Anglong, there has been no rush of malaria patients in any of the hospitals and health centres of the State. He said that last year, as many as 141 persons died due to the disease and 60 deaths were reported by the end of May.

Officer-in-charge at the National Institute of Malaria Research-Goa Dr Ashwani Kumar and Dr Hemant Kumar are upbeat over their experiments with bed nets treated with deltamethrine that have shown excellent results in controlling malaria. Says Dr Ashwani Kumar, "A total of 18 sites were taken up in the experiments out of which at nine places bed nets treated with deltamethrine were distributed. At the nine sites malaria cases have shown a decline, while at the other nine locations where no nets were given the situation has not seen much difference.'

The Colombo Municipal Council (CMC) yesterday launched a campaign to eradicate dengue which has reached dangerous proportions in the City. The campaign is mainly aimed at creating awareness about the disease and prosecuting action on those who have failed to comply with the CMC's request to keep their premises clean.

during the 2007 outbreak in Kerala, the chikungunya virus mutated into more virulent forms, says a study by researchers at the Defence Research and Development Establishment, Gwalior. The mutations,

MUSHALPUR

The prevalence of filaria has declined in East Godavari district as health authorities have intensified a drive to contain it. Its prevalence was recorded at 2.8 per cent in 1995 and it came down to 0.27 in 2006. Health authorities collected 19,640 blood smears from January 1 to April 30 in 2008 and found 26 micro-filaria positive cases coming up to 0.13 per cent and 36 filaria diseases which come up to 0.18 per cent. More filaria cases were noticed in Amalapuram and Rama-chandrapuram municipalities and some cases from Biccavole and other areas in the district.