A new study has found that babies delivered by elective Caesarean section before 39 weeks of pregnancy, to mothers who previously had an elective C-section, are much more likely to have serious health problems than newborns delivered under the same circumstances at 39 weeks.

The study, conducted in part at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Medicine, also found that babies delivered at 41 and 42 weeks faced a similarly elevated risk as those delivered before 39 weeks. However, only a very small percentage of newborns in the study were delivered this late.

Scientists at St. Jude Children's Research Hospital have demonstrated a more effective treatment for bacterial pneumonia following influenza. They found that the antibiotics clindamycin and azithromycin, which kill bacteria by inhibiting their protein synthesis, are more effective than a standard first-line treatment with the "beta-lactam" antibiotic ampicillin, which causes the bacteria to lyse, or burst.

The finding is important because pneumonia, rather than the influenza itself, is a principal cause of death from influenza in children and the elderly. During pandemics -- such as the one that may arise from avian influenza -- up to 95 percent of influenza deaths are due to pneumonia. A bioterrorism attack using the influenza virus would

Commonly used pneumococcal polysaccharide vaccines do not appear to be effective for preventing pneumonia, found a study by a team of researchers from Switzerland and the United Kingdom.

In many industrialized countries, polysaccharide pneumococcal vaccines (PPVs) are currently recommended to help prevent pneumococcal disease in people aged 65 and over and for younger people with increased risk due to conditions like HIV. Studies have shown conflicting results regarding the efficacy of PPV.

10 December 2008 | Geneva/Hanoi/New York --

Hello All,
This is to draw your attention on the launch yesterday [Dec 10, 2008] by
the World Health Organization of the World Report on Child Injury
Prevention:

More than 2000 children die every day as a result of unintentional or accidental injuries. Every year tens of millions more worldwide are taken to hospitals with injuries that often leave them with lifelong disabilities, according to
a new report by WHO and UNICEF.

The World report on child injury prevention provides the first
comprehensive global assessment of unintentional childhood injuries and
prescribes measures to prevent them. It concludes that if proven
prevention measures were adopted everywhere at least 1000 children's
lives could be saved every day.