Category Health & Science

Low-cost fixes can ease heat stress for garment workers

0 Comments read Climate Change, Gender, Health & Science

By Neena Bhandari

Sydney, 24.10.2025 (SciDev.Net): Simple, low-cost interventions could help reduce heat stress for the millions of people who work in garment factories in Bangladesh, where extreme temperatures make conditions unbearable, according to Australian researchers.

Climate change-led extreme heat and humidity is putting the health and earnings of garment workers in Bangladesh and other low- and middle-income countries at increasing risk, say researchers of a study led by the University of Sydney. Their study published in The Lancet Planetary Health on Monday (20 October), reveals how simple, affordable, low-carbon interventions could reduce heat stress and protect workers’ productivity and earnings in Bangladesh’s ready-made garment sector.

The industry employs over 4 million people in the country, about 60 per cent of them women, according to the International Labour Organization. Fahima Akter Beauty, a 24-year-old single mother from Ashulia suburb on the outskirts of Dhaka, has been working for three years in a factory that manufactures knitwear. She feels it is getting hotter and the heat makes her stressed and restless, leading to poor concentration, headaches and drowsiness.

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Philanthropy partners vital for global health: WHO Western Pacific Regional Director

0 Comments read Health & Science

By Neena Bhandari

Sydney, 10.10.2025 (SciDev.Net): As the US withdraws from the World Health Organization and cuts overseas aid, regional partnerships are critical to safeguarding the health of member countries in a region where climate change and chronic diseases loom large.

These are some of the reflections of the WHO’s Western Pacific regional director, Saia Ma’u Piukala, on the health challenges facing the region and measures needed to overcome them, as he heads to the World Health Summit (12-14 October) in Berlin (Germany). He will join other global health leaders to discuss how health governance and financing models must adapt to the new reality of dwindling foreign assistance before the Regional Committee meeting in Fiji (20-24 October 2025).

In a written interview, he talks about the crucial role of philanthropic partnerships, why multilateralism in health is more essential than ever, and the threat posed by misinformation and disinformation to public health.

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Antibiotics, bugs and immune-stimulating drugs in cancer treatment

0 Comments read Cancer, Health & Science

By Neena Bhandari

Sydney, 28.08.2025 (Oncology Republic): The complex interplay between antibiotics, gut microbiota and immune-modulating drugs in cancer treatment have been the focus of several studies for nearly a decade. It appears that antibiotics can disrupt gut microbiota diversity, which influences how well patients respond to immune checkpoint inhibitors and other immunotherapies, say researchers.

Dr Miles Andrews, consultant medical oncologist and head of Immuno-oncology at The Alfred, and research fellow at Monash University explains. “There have been some studies on the exposure to antibiotics in the 30 to 90 days prior to starting immune checkpoint inhibitor therapy for cancer,” he told Oncology Republic. “And there’s certainly a suggestion that antibiotic exposure is associated with an inferior overall survival across a range of epithelial cancers, for example, kidney and lung cancer, as well as melanoma.”

Several translational research models and pre-clinical models, mainly mice models of cancer, suggest that antibiotic exposure, presumably by altering the gut microbiome, has this negative effect on response to immune checkpoint blockade in cancer.

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