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Taiwan banned smoking in all indoor public places, becoming the 17th country in the world and the second in Asia to take the move to protect people's health.

The ban is a victory for anti-smoking campaigners and health workers, but is a nightmare for die-hard smokers who can now only smoke at home or in the open.

"Since Ireland banned indoor smoking in 2004, 14 countries and one territory - Bermuda - have followed suit, and Taiwan is the 17th worldwide to ban indoor smoking," the John Tung Foundation, the leader in Taiwan's anti-smoking campaign, said in a statement.

Taiwan is the second country in Asia to ban indoor smoking after the Himalayan Buddhist kingdom Bhutan, which banned the sale of cigarettes and smoking in 2005.

Under the new rule, smoking is banned in all offices and indoor facilities such as department stores, restaurants, cafes, cinemas, airports and railway stations.

Smoking is also banned in indoor working environments where three or more people work together.

Those violating the rule face a fine of between 2000 and 10000 Taiwan dollars.

Indoor facilities that provide cigarette lighters or ash trays will face fines of 10000 to 50000 Taiwan dollars.

The new rule further restricts cigarette sales, barring shops from displaying cigarettes where customers can reach them.

From ABC News, Australia

A new United Nations report on infant and child mortality has some blunt messages for governments in the Asia Pacific region.

It says they must spend more on health services, reduce the income gap and slow the pace of privatisation in the health sector.

The United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) report for Asia and the Pacific says Asia's economic growth over recent decades has been the key to lowering infant and child mortality rates across the region.

UNICEF's regional director for Asia and the Pacific, Anupama Rao Singh, has told Radio Australia's Connect Asia program the region has made great strides in lowering infant and child mortality rates since the 1970s but warns in recent years the gains have been parred.

"The good dimension is that there has been progress in the decline of infant and child mortality rates if you compare it from the 1970s to date," he said.

"Many countries are on track to achieving the millennium development goal of reducing infant and child mortality by two thirds by 2015.

"This progress has tended to taper off in the last 15 to 17 years. The 70s and 80s saw a much more rapid decline."

But there are major challenges in which public policy in Asia is making it much harder for infant mortality goals to be reached.

Public health systems are under-resourced and financed with less than 1 per cent of government budgets invested in the sector, while income disparities are also widening.

The report warns that if Asia Pacific fails to extend essential services to the poor and marginalised groups as well as making efforts to narrow income disparities, it may result in one million child deaths in the region in 2015.

Rotavirus infection is the leading cause of severe acute diarrhea among young children worldwide.^[1,2] An estimated 527,000 children aged <5 years die from rotavirus diarrhea each year, with >85% of these deaths occurring in low-income countries of Africa and Asia.^[3] Two licensed rotavirus vaccines have shown efficacy of 85%-98% against severe rotavirus diarrhea in trials conducted in the Americas and Europe,^[4,5] and they have been introduced into routine immunization programs in 11 countries in these regions and in Australia. Additional trials of these vaccines are ongoing to assess efficacy in low-income countries of Asia and Africa, where vaccine performance might be affected by factors such as concurrent enteric infections, greater prevalence of malnutrition, and a greater prevalence of unusual rotavirus strains. Results of these additional trials are expected within the next 1-2 years. To collect epidemiologic and burden-of-disease data that could form the basis of vaccination policy worldwide, beginning in 2001, the World Health Organization (WHO), in collaboration with partners, established networks of hospital-based sentinel surveillance sites for detection of rotavirus diarrhea and characterization of rotavirus strains. This report presents an analysis of results from the WHO surveillance networks for 2001-2008, which indicated that approximately 40% of diarrhea hospitalizations among children aged <5 years worldwide were attributed to rotavirus infection. The most common rotavirus strains found were G1, G2, G3, G4, and G9, and the distribution of strains varied markedly across regions. These data demonstrate the substantial burden of rotavirus diarrhea worldwide and highlight the potential health impact of vaccination...

LUANDA (Reuters) Jan 12 - The World Health Organisation (WHO) said on Monday there was no indication the deadly Ebola virus had crossed to Angola from the Democratic Republic of Congo, where it has killed 13 people.

"The epidemic is in the province of Kasai in Western Congo. There is no evidence it has spread to Angola," Luis Sambo, WHO regional director for Africa, said after meeting with Angolan President Jose Eduardo dos Santos.

"At this moment there is no reason to be alarmed."

His comments came after Angola closed part of its northeastern border with the Congo where an Ebola outbreak, in addition to killing 13 people, is believed to have infected 40 more.

The incurable haemorrhagic fever, which has a mortality rate of 50-to-90 percent, is transmitted by contact with the blood, secretions, organs or other bodily fluids of infected people.

Burial ceremonies where mourners have direct contact with the body of the deceased can play a significant role in the transmission of Ebola. Health care workers have frequently been infected while treating Ebola patients.

In 2005, 329 people died in Angola's northern town of Uige, close to the border with Congo from a cousin to Ebola known as the Marburg virus.

(Reporting by Henrique Almeida; Editing by Michael Georgy and Michael Roddy)

January 15, 2009 (Otsu, Japan) � A series of papers in a special issue of Circulation is highlighting new data on cardiovascular disease in Asians specifically. The researchers stress that the presentation of disease there is often different from that seen in the West, and responses to treatment can also differ, necessitating separate study in Asian populations. And given that it is now widely acknowledged that 85% of cardiovascular deaths worldwide will soon occur in low- and middle-income countries, there is a pressing need for such research, they note...