A leaked email shows that a plan for a campaign to scuttle the South African government's draft intellectual property policy was about to proceed, despite a denial by the pharmaceutical industry that it had approved the campaign.

SEOUL, South Korea — Visiting North Korea is by no means easy.

Drug users are at high risk for tuberculosis (TB), and they have been the drivers of TB epidemics in many countries.

Extensively drug-resistant tuberculosis (XDR-TB) appears to be spreading in South Africa, fueled by patients who are discharged despite failing therapy, researchers reported.

Morbidity and mortality rates for all three infectious diseases are normally much higher in prisons due to overcrowding, unsanitary conditions and inadequate screening and treatment.

Drug companies in South Africa have been accused of planning a covert, well-funded campaign to delay the introduction of laws that threaten their profits. Leaked documents show that pharmaceutical companies planned a $450,000 campaign, involving a high-profile consultancy based in Washington, DC, against changes to intellectual property laws that would enable their patents on new medicines to be bypassed in the interests of public health. This would allow the manufacture of cheaper copies of their medicines.

A 12-year-old World Health Organization programme for prequalifying medical products has helped international organisations and others to safely purchase billions of US dollars’ worth of quality medicines per year, but now is at risk due to funding shortages, a new study released today found.

Nowadays when Tarsil Orao (50) wakes up in his little hut in a village near Bilaspur, Chhattisgarh, he does not reach out for a customary morning cup of tea. The cost of tea leaves, sugar, milk and fuel is more than his household can absorb on the meagre income he earns as a casual agriculture labourer. Come lunchtime, there is but one dish on the menu - cooked white rice. Vegetables and lentils are out of the household too. Now it is rice once a day, every day and twice only on days that the subsidised rice they get is still available. Children and adults alike eat the same.

A Congressional budget agreement released Monday night cuts foreign aid by $1 billion from the level set for fiscal year 2013, but prioritizes global health and humanitarian programs, according to a House Appropriations Committee release. The agreement meets President Obama’s request for Global Fund and HIV program allotments.

A small study by investigators from the Johns Hopkins Children's Center and Byramjee Jeejeebhoy Government Medical College in India reveals high prevalence of tuberculosis (TB) infection among young children, troubling rates of disseminated disease and alarming patterns of drug resistance.