Health issues in India
Diabetes cases in India are rising. Some studies suggest that it is India’s fastest growing disease. India housed an estimated 72 million cases of diabetes in 2017. This figure is expected to increase considerably to 134 million by 2025. A victim of its own success? The reasons for this rapid increase in diabetes cases are […]
The gutkha scam has been making headlines in Tamil Nadu, where senior officials including the health minister have been implicated in a multi-crore corruption scandal involving bribes paid by chewing tobacco companies. Officials stand accused of accepting bribes paid by manufacturers of gutkha, a chewing tobacco mixture which has been banned in Tamil Nadu since […]
Tens of millions of Indians face nutritional deficiencies in the coming decades because of carbon dioxide (CO2) pollution, a recent study suggests. Rising levels of CO2 in the atmosphere are killing crop quality in India. This means commonly consumed foodstuffs in the country, such as rice and wheat, will lose much of their nutritional value. This […]
Is lack of pesticide awareness killing our farmers? Vijay Sardar – a resident of Dahigaon in the Akola district of the state – was admitted to Government Medical College (GMC) in Akola on August 7th with contact pesticide poisoning. He died five days later, aged 32. As of August 17th, there have been an additional […]
Type 1 diabetes can reduce life expectancy if onset occurs when the patient is young, claims a study recently published in The Lancet. In India, diabetes numbers are surging. Disconcertingly, rates are increasing among India’s young population. It was recently revealed that around 97,000 children in India suffer from type 1 diabetes. In Delhi alone […]
India’s efforts to tackle HIV is bearing fruit. The numbers of new HIV infections, AIDS-related deaths and people living with HIV all fell substantially. However, the success did not come without a caveat. India may be making progress against HIV but experts have warned it is not yet on course to meet targets of reducing […]
“It is dirty everywhere”, this is how Amish Das describes his home: Boragaon, a landfill site which sprawls across 94 acres of wetland in Guwahati City in northeastern Assam. Amish, whose story was recounted in a feature for The Independent last year, has lived in Boragaon his entire life. His living is made through scavenging, […]
Less than one tenth of people infected with hepatitis are aware of it – and fewer than a tenth of those who are aware receive the necessary treatment. These were the grim figures issued by Dr Poonam Khetrapal Singh ahead of World Hepatitis Day this year. Dr Singh – the World Health Organization (WHO) Regional […]
Kerala has learnt its lessons after the Nipah tragedy. It is to introduce a policy to control and prevent hospital acquired infections. The move comes after the Nipah virus outbreak in the state earlier this year, in which all but four of those who succumbed to the virus contracted it in hospital. “We are working […]
This article was originally published on The News Minute and has been republished with permission. By Nimeshika Jayachandran The doctors at Chennai’s Institute of Child Health and Hospital for Children in Egmore will soon be implementing mandatory screening for congenital hypothyroidism and adrenal hyperplasia. “A nationwide study which was conducted by the Indian Council of […]
