Health issues in India
Toxic alcohol has potentially killed more than a hundred people in India. The suspected cause? The illegally produced alcohol was ‘laced with methanol’. This incident, like the many others involving bootleg alcohol before it, has been likened by some to a massacre. Personal accounts paint a horrific scene Pintu Kumar, a farmhand in northern […]
A ban on painkiller Saridon has been lifted by the Supreme Court. The headache relief medicine was one of the 343 fixed dose combination (FDC) drugs banned in a notification by the Centre last year. FDCs are pharmaceutical products which contain two or more active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs). Safety concerns drove the Centre’s decision to […]
Doctors’ strikes in multiple Indian states are hitting public and private hospitals alike. A strike by private doctors in Uttarakhand is forcing many patients to turn to government hospitals for treatment. The week-long strike has resulted in public health facilities becoming overburdened by a sudden spike in demand. The issue has come to the attention […]
The Centre’s flagship healthcare scheme – Ayushman Bharat – has faced funding concerns ever since it was announced. A meeting between economists and government officials has done little to allay those fears. Ayushman Bharat – or, to give it its full title, Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Yojana (PMJAY) – includes provisions to cover the 100 […]
A sharp and worrying rise in pollution rates is being felt especially in the north of India, whose metros dominate the list of India’s most polluted cities. Bihar capital Patna tops the list. Kanpur and Varanasi – both in Uttar Pradesh – follow in second and third place respectively. Delhi places fourth in the rankings, […]
While leprosy was declared eliminated in India in 2005, such a large population allows for the definition of one case per 10,000 population to still maintain a substantial number of individuals who still suffer from the disease. Current reports may even indicate the disease is showing a resurgence. However, this has been disputed by the […]
Indian public funding for research and development into neglected diseases has shown the strongest global growth since 2009. Funding increased significantly in 2017, growing by Rs 135 crore or around 38 percent, contributing to a significant boon into research of diseases such as tuberculosis. Globally, funding for neglected disease research reached its highest level ever […]
India’s medical tourism industry is on the rise. An optimistic forecast by the Union Ministry of Tourism projects a 200 percent growth for the sector by 2020. This would make the industry worth US$ 9 billion in the next two years. It is triple its value in 2015, the year almost 234,000 medical tourists visited […]
Clinical trials play an instrumental role in healthcare, aimed at ensuring that new medical treatments are safe and effective. The number of clinical trials conducted in India every year has steadily been rising in recent years. India is presently poised to become ‘one of the largest clinical trial hubs’, contract research organisation George Clinical announced […]
Public hospitals in the national capital are struggling with a frightening shortage of ventilators. Health Issues India recently highlighted the story of Farhan, a three-year-old boy suffering from a rare disorder called Leigh syndrome. The hospital treating him lacked a spare ventilator. This forced the boy’s family to manually ventilate him, by pumping air into […]
