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 […]
Parents of children affected with thalassemia in Telangana have hit back at a new policy reducing health benefits for families battling the disease. Thalassemia is a genetically inherited blood disorder. With between 10,000 and 12,000 children are born with the disease every year, India is believed to be home to forty million people who l […]
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 […]
Bengaluru’s early summer has brought with it a chickenpox outbreak – and children are being hit the hardest. Hospitals across the city are reporting an increase in admissions with chickenpox cases. Dr S. M. Prasad of the Indian Academy of Paediatrics has noted “chickenpox cases see a rise as summer sets in” and says limited […]
A teen activist has a message for Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi on climate change. Greta Thunberg, a 16-year-old climate change activist from Sweden, has become a global youth icon in recent months with her small act of solidarity for climate change. skipping school to protest outside the Swedish Parliament – an act which became […]
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, […]
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 […]
Mosquitoes present one of India’s most prominent health threats because of the diseases they carry. Infectious diseases such as malaria, dengue fever, and recently, the Zika virus have caused much alarm in India and are responsible for several lakh deaths every year. Numerous novel methods have been suggested for curbing mosquito populations or reducing their […]
