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An initial trial of a dengue vaccine may pave way for possible treatment of the disease in near future. The results suggest it isn`t ideal, but scientists say the study is still encouraging news in the global fight against the disease known as “break-bone fever.”

There is currently no treatment or vaccine for dengue, which causes symptoms including fever, severe joint pain, headache and bleeding. The mosquito-borne disease infects up to 100 million people worldwide every year, mostly in Asia, Africa and Latin America.

Human excrement, asbestos, mould and dead flies have been found in cigarettes being smoked regularly in Britain, a newspaper reported.

Investigators working for the tobacco industry spent weeks rummaging through litter bins for cigarette packets to assess the scale of the black market.

They found that about one-third of packets contained fakes or cigarettes brought in by smugglers.

The survey in Birmingham by MS Intelligence, a Swiss-based brand protection company, found that 30.9 percent of packets were either bogus or purchased abroad.

Indian scientists have found a safe orally-administered drug against kala azar, a disease that puts at risk an estimated 165.4 million people in Bihar, Jharkhand, West Bengal and Uttar Pradesh.

Termed by WHO as a “neglected disease”, kala azar or visceral leishmaniasis, the second-largest parasitic killer in the world after malaria, has proved resistant to most medicines.

Provisional figures released by the union health and family welfare ministry, show that kala azar claimed 20 lives and afflicted 14,227 people till July.

Sleeping pills seldom worked for 40 percent of the poppers who suffer from insomnia, says a survey of 20,000 people, according to a British study.

Some 42 percent of the patients currently on medication have been sleeping badly for over 11 years or more. A further 22 percent had insomnia lasting two to five years, while one in six had suffered between six and 10 years, the survey revealed.

Experts said the study suggested that sleeping pills were not combating long-term sleep problems and that cognitive behavioural therapy has been proven to be more effective.

Scientists are developing a new and cheaper vaccine for hay fever which they say would bring swift and lasting relief to the sufferers.

The `exciting` vaccine, which is in development, could help control symptoms of grass pollen hay fever with injections over the course of a few months, scientists claim.

The prototype vaccine is also designed to tackle grass pollen hay fever, also known as summer hay fever, `The Telegraph` reported.

Obese kids who are older actually consume fewer calories per day than their healthy peers, while younger overweight children consume more calories than their healthy peers.

These findings are the outcome of a new study by University of North Carolina (UNC) School of Medicine paediatrics researchers, who compared the eating habits of overweight children aged between nine and 17 years compared to those younger than nine years.