Word: billion
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...ever since the first case of H1N1 flu was reported in Mexico last March, health officials from Washington to Beijing have been girding for a difficult fall and winter. The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that anywhere from 15% to 45% of the world's population - 1 billion to 3 billion people - will catch the illness. "We know that influenza usually takes off in the winter months," says Alan Hay, director of WHO's World Influenza Center in London. "We assume that to be the case with H1N1. But there's no way to know precisely how a pandemic will...
While the World Health Organization concocts the recipe for the flu vaccine, private companies manufacture and sell the doses, mostly to governments. At current capacity, they can produce around 900 million doses of H1N1 vaccine a year: a total that is "woefully inadequate for a world of 6.8 billion people," according to WHO head Margaret Chan. While some companies have donation schemes for the developing world - British pharmaceutical giant GlaxoSmithKline, for example, is donating 50 million doses to WHO - the lion's share will go to wealthy countries, despite the fact that underlying health conditions make populations in the developing...
...booming economy made India one of the fastest growing and most competitive aviation markets in the world. Six new carriers launched while established airlines laid on new routes and bought new jets. In the last four years, Indian carriers ordered 400 Boeing and Airbus jetliners worth about $37 billion...
...Brace for impact. The global recession has hit air carriers everywhere, but a sharp decline in passenger numbers is especially bad news for India. With oil prices rising to $73 a barrel, Indian airlines - which carry just 2% of the world's passengers - could sustain more than $2.5 billion in losses this year, accounting for one-fourth of the projected $9 billion in losses for the entire industry, according to the International Air Transport Association. Weighed down by overcapacity, debt and the government's refusal to provide bailouts, Indian carriers are being forced to slash their operations and reduce ticket...
...Hardest hit by the economic downturn has been national carrier Air India: It reported annual losses of $1 billion in the fiscal year ending March 31, along with an accumulated debt of $3.5 billion; that debt load is expected to rise to $7 billion by 2012 if it takes delivery of 111 new aircraft already on order. Air India alone accounts for 10% of the total projected losses for the global airline industry this year - even though it carries just 0.35% of global traffic. Air India is suffering from an aging fleet and a bloated staff roster...