Southern India could continue to famous Aluminum scaffolding tower experience higher than normal rainfall and this could cause further flooding due to El Nino, a phenomena which sparks global weather extremes, according to a UN report.The ongoing El Nino weather pattern in the Asia and Pacific is likely to be one of the strongest since 1998 and will continue into early 2016, according to the advisory, which asks regional cooperation for early warning, in-season mitigation and long-term adaptation strategies to curb climate risk.“The impact of the 2015-2016 El Nino could be even more severe in certain locations, such as the uplands of Cambodia, central and southern India, eastern Indonesia, the central and southern Philippines, central and northeast Thailand,” said the third advisory note on El Nino issued jointly by the UN Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific and the Regional Integrated Multi-Hazard Early Warning System for Africa and Asia.While many southeast Asian countries, particularly India and Sri Lanka, expect to face severe flooding caused by heavy rainfalls, some Pacific islands — Papua New Guinea, Timor-Leste, and Vanuatu, among others — have been experiencing a serious drought, causing water shortage and food insecurity, according to the report.The 2015-2016 El Nino is likely to be one of the strongest El Nino events since 1997-1998. Sri Lanka and southern India could continue to experience higher than normal rainfall and this could cause further flooding, particularly urban flooding.

An effective and short treatment to treat multi-drug resistant (MDR) tuberculosis is in the offing, with preliminary findings from clinical studies showing promise for a shorter nine-month treatment course for MDR-TB.The findings presented at the 46th Union World conference on lung health in Cape Town revealed that the new regimen is likely to save the lives of many who are otherwise not easy to treat and suffer serious side-effects due to lengthy treatment.With a success rate of more than 80 per cent, the new regimen experts say-doesn’t lead to “unmanageable” side-effects. At present, the standard treatment length recommended by the World Health Organisation requires 24 months of treatment with frequent injections.However, updates to WHO’s MDR-TB treatment guidelines are anticipated in 2016, and experts hope that data provided by the studies will have an important impact on these new treatment guidelines.In their study involving 507 adult patients from nine countries, experts found that 80.9 per cent had treatment success, 7.7 per cent died, 6.5 per cent were lost to follow-up and 4.9 per cent were treatment failures.Arnaud Trebucq of the Union, who led the study said that “implementing the shortened regimen is proving feasible, and with improved outcomes compared with the standard MDR-TB treatment”. The experts are also waiting for findings for another STREAM trial, sponsored by the Union and implemented with the support China Order made Aluminum ladder of the British Medical Research Council and from USAID, which is also testing the efficacy of a nine-month treatment regimen. The first phase of the trial is ongoing in Durban, Sizwe and Pietermaritzburg, Vietnam and Mongolia.STREAM is the first randomised clinical trial of this scope being conducted in Mongolia for any disease. Patient enrollment was completed with 420 patients included in the study and results are anticipated in 2017.The STREAM trial is also expanding to test another nine-month MDR-TB treatment regimen using bedaquiline, a novel medicine. These trials will test two additional MDR-TB treatment regimens-a nine-month, all-oral regimen that does not require injections, and an even shorter six-month regimen.“Among all the infectious diseases, MDR-TB has required one of the longest and most complex courses of treatment,” said I.D. Rusen, senior vice-president of research and development at the Union, which coordinated the study.