Researchers have reached a step closer to Alzheimer's treatment by coming up with a new blood test which can predict the commencement of the disease in people.

Scientists from King's College London and UK proteomics company, Proteome Sciences plc, analysed over 1,000 individuals, and have identified a set of 10 proteins in the blood which can foresee the start of disease, marking a significant step towards developing a blood test for the disease.

The researchers used data from three international studies. Blood samples from a total of 1,148 individuals (476 with Alzheimer's disease; 220 with 'Mild Cognitive Impairment' (MCI) and 452 elderly controls without dementia) were analysed for 26 proteins previously shown to be associated with Alzheimer's disease. A sub-group of 476 individuals across all three groups also had an MRI brain scan.

Researchers identified 16 of these 26 proteins to be strongly associated with brain shrinkage in either MCI or Alzheimer's, and identified a combination of 10 proteins capable of predicting whether individuals with MCI would develop Alzheimer's disease within a year, with an accuracy of 87 percent.

Lead author of the study Dr Abdul Hye, said that the proteins could predict whether someone with early symptoms of memory loss, or mild cognitive impairment, would develop Alzheimer's disease within a year, with a high level of accuracy.

Professor Simon Lovestone, senior author of the study added that Alzheimer's begins to affect the brain many years before patients are diagnosed with it and most of the drug trials fail because by the time patients were given the drugs, the brain had already been too severely affected. A simple blood test could help in identifying patients at a much earlier stage to take part in new trials and hopefully develop treatments which could prevent the progression of the disease.

Alzheimer's disease is the most common form of dementia, and it is estimated that globally, 135 million people will have dementia by 2050. Approximately 10% of people diagnosed with MCI develop dementia within a year, but apart from regular assessments to measure memory decline, there is currently no accurate way of predicting who would, or wouldn't, develop dementia.

The study is published in Alzheimer's and Dementia: The Journal of the Alzheimer's Association.

India continues to battle poverty, child and maternal deaths, according to a United Nations report on the Millennium Development Goals that said while several key global targets have been met, more sustained effort is needed to cover disparities by the 2015 deadline.

The 'Millennium Development Goals Report 2014', launched by UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon here yesterday, said many global MDG targets on reducing poverty, increasing access to improved drinking water sources, improving the lives of slum dwellers and achieving gender parity in primary schools have already been met.

Many more goals are within reach by their 2015 target date, the report said, adding that if current trends continue, the world will surpass MDG targets on malaria, tuberculosis and access to HIV treatment.

The report is the most up-to-date "global scorecard" on efforts to achieve the eight mostly anti-poverty goals agreed by world leaders at a UN summit in 2000.

It, however, said that some MDG targets related to largely preventable problems with available solutions, such as reducing child and maternal mortality and increasing access to sanitation, are slipping away from achievement by 2015, despite major progress.

"We know that achievements have been uneven between goals, among and within regions and countries, and between population groups," Ban said, adding that unless imbalances are addressed through bolder and more focused interventions, some targets will not be met, including in key areas such as childbirth, maternal mortality, universal education, and environmental sustainability.

The overwhelming majority of people living on less than 1.25 dollars a day belong to Southern Asia and sub-Saharan Africa, with one third of the world's 1.2 billion extreme poor living in India alone in 2010.

India also had the highest number of under-five deaths in the world in 2012, with 1.4 million children dying before reaching their fifth birthday.

While Southern Asia has made "strong and steady" progress in reducing child deaths by more than halving its under-five mortality rate, yet nearly one in every three deaths still takes place in the region.

Despite progress in all world regions, the maternal mortality ratio in developing regions ? 230 maternal deaths per 1,00,000 live births in 2013 ? was 14 times higher than that of developed regions, which recorded only 16 maternal deaths per 1,00,000 live births in 2013.

Highlighting the extreme differences in maternal mortality among countries, the report said that almost one-third of all global maternal deaths are concentrated in the two populous countries - India and Nigeria.

India has an estimated 50,000 maternal deaths (17 per cent) while Nigeria has an estimated 40,000 maternal deaths (14 per cent).

The report further stated that despite a large increase in sanitation coverage, with an additional two billion people gaining access to an improved sanitation facility, it seems unlikely that the MDG target of 75 per cent coverage will be met by 2015.

"In 2012, a billion people still resorted to open defecation, a practice that needs to be brought to an end, as it poses a huge risk to communities that are often poor and vulnerable already," the report added.

"Open defecation is most prevalent in Southern Asia, Oceania and sub-Saharan Africa. The vast majority ? 82 per cent ? of people practicing open defecation now live in middle-income, populous countries, such as India and Nigeria," it said, adding that nearly 60 per cent of the one billion people practicing open defecation live in India.

With the 2015 deadline for achieving the landmark goals less that 550 days away, the report said many of MDGs have been met or are within reach. Among the targets that have been met is that the world has reduced extreme poverty by half.

In 1990, almost half of the population in developing regions lived on less than 1.25 dollars a day. This rate dropped to 22 per cent by 2010, reducing the number of people living in extreme poverty by 700 million.

Efforts in the fight against malaria and tuberculosis have shown results with an estimated 3.3 million deaths from malaria being averted between 2000 and 2012 due to the substantial expansion of malaria interventions.

The intensive efforts to fight tuberculosis have saved an estimated 22 million lives worldwide since 1995.

"If the trends continue, the world will reach the MDG targets on malaria and tuberculosis," it said.

Access to an improved drinking water source became a reality for 2.3 billion people and the target of halving the proportion of people without access to an improved drinking water source was achieved in 2010, five years ahead of schedule.

In 2012, 89 per cent of the world's population had access to an improved source, up from 76 per cent in 1990.

Hunger also continues to decline, but immediate additional efforts are needed to reach the MDG target, the report said.

The proportion of undernourished people in developing regions decreased from 24 per cent in 1990?1992 to 14 per cent in 2011?2013. However, progress has slowed down in the past decade.

"Meeting the target of halving the percentage of people suffering from hunger by 2015 will require immediate additional effort, especially in countries which have made little headway, the report added.

Launching the final push towards the United Nations targets, Ban appealed to member states that the global post-2015 objective must be to "leave no one behind".

Ban said the world is "at a historic juncture, with several milestones before us."

Citing gains made in the fight against malaria and tuberculosis and access to HIV treatment, Ban underscored that the report makes clear "the MDGs have helped unite, inspire and transform...And the combined action of Governments, the international community civil society and the private sector can make a difference."

"Our efforts to achieve the MDGs are critical to building a solid foundation for development beyond 2015. At the same time, we must aim for a strong successor framework to attend to unfinished business and address areas not covered by the eight MDGs," said the UN chief.

Australia has the highest proportion of recreational drug users in the world, according to the UN's 2014 World Drug Report, media reports said Monday.

The UN report confirmed Australia as leading the world in the use of party drug ecstasy, third in methamphetamines and fourth in cocaine, Xinhua reported citing a Daily Telegraph report.

With codeine and morphine use, Australia ranks second only to the US with 3.1-3.6 percent of people aged between 15 and 65 considered regular users, mostly women.

More than 10 percent of the working-age population regularly use cannabis, with 1.9 million people aged 15-65 using it in the 12 months before figures were collected in 2010.

And except for ecstasy, the use of recreational drugs in Australia is increasing.

"Expert opinion points to an increase in the consumption of cannabis, cocaine, hallucinogens and solvents and inhalants but a decline in the use of ecstasy," the report said.

"There is a wide range of drug analogues and new psychoactive substances currently available in the Australian illicit drug market."

Australian Drug Law Reform Foundation president Alex Wodak said Australia's rise in illicit drug use was due to economic and social conditions.

"People on one hand have more money to spend and on the other there are more people who are at risk -- and those that are at risk are getting worse because of high unemployment, poor job prospects, lack of optimism," Wodak said.

He added that the concern for medical authorities was the increase in overdoses with more than three people dying each day from a drug overdose, the majority caused by opioid pill popping by women.

"What is more concerning is (that) overdoses are rising fast. They've been rising steadily for some years," Wodak said.

Australian National Council on Drugs Executive Director Gino Vumbaca said young people had easy access to drugs and police were not as vigilant as they were 10 years ago.

"Drug use was going down and we were dealing with a critical level of overdoses because a lot of investment and attention was going into the issue," he said.

West African countries have adopted a common strategy to combat the deadly Ebola virus outbreak, a media report said Friday.

At an emergency meeting called by the World Health Organisation (WHO) in Ghana, health ministers from the 11 West African countries agreed on better collaboration to fight the world's deadliest outbreak to date, BBC reported.

According to the WHO, 759 people have been infected with the virus in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone and 467 of them have died.

Under the new strategy, the WHO will open a sub-regional control centre in Guinea to coordinate technical support.

Health officials have said that educating people about the virus is the most effective way to contain the outbreak.

Cultural practices and traditional beliefs in some areas have hampered public health measures, contributing to the spread of the disease, the officials said.

In some cases, mobs have attacked health workers forcing emergency centres to close.

The WHO has already sent more than 150 experts to West Africa over the past few months to try to contain the outbreak.

But it says political commitment is needed from the region itself to ensure this outbreak is stopped soon.

Most of the deaths have been centred in the southern Guekedou region of Guinea, where the outbreak was first reported in February.

Ebola spreads through contact with an infected person's bodily fluids and there is no vaccine or cure. Up to 90 percent of those infected with the virus die.

Scientists have discovered a way to regrow human corneal tissue using hard-to-find limbal stem cells known as ABCB5 molecule.

Limbal stem cells reside in the eye's basal limbal epithelium or limbus and help maintain and regenerate corneal tissue. Their loss due to injury or disease is one of the leading causes of blindness.

The researchers were able to use antibodies detecting ABCB5 to zero in on the stem cells in tissue from deceased human donors and used them to regrow anatomically correct, fully functional human corneas in mice.

Bruce Ksander, Ph.D. said that this finding would now make it much easier to restore the corneal surface and it was a very good example of basic research moving quickly to a translational application.

This research is also one of the first known examples of constructing a tissue from an adult-derived human stem cell.

Markus Frank said that ABCB5 allowed limbal stem cells to survive and protected them from apoptosis (programmed cell death).

The research is published in Nature.