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Positive results from immunisation campaign Mission Indradhanush

Progress is being made with India’s Mission Indradhanush (MI), a free vaccination campaign started on the 25th December 2014 by union health minister J P Nadda. The aim of the programme is to expand routine immunisation to include new vaccines, with the programme primarily aimed at children. DNAIndia reports that since the founding of the …

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Price cap in sight for cardiac stents

The Indian government has declared that within 10-15 days (as of the 18th January) the price of cardiac stents is to be capped. This announcement follows a host of condemnation over the high cost of stents along with the corresponding cardiac operations. Criticism had also been aimed at the fact that Indian-produced stents were costing …

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Few families have health cover in Assam

A new survey reveals that pitifully few families living in the northeastern Indian state of Assam have health coverage, reports the Times of India The latest National Family Health Survey, for 2015-16, reveals that just 10.4% of families living in rural Assam have at least one member covered by health insurance or under a health scheme. This …

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Malnutrition in Maharashtra: An intimate crisis

“There are people in the world so hungry, that God cannot appear to them except in the form of bread”, Mahatma Gandhi said. Nearly seventy years after his death, his words are as apposite as they ever were. A national and regional tragedy The world is home to 795 million undernourished people. This equates roughly …

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India stalls in Kenya medical cooperation?

Bilateral talks between India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta resulted in a number of agreements regarding medicinal and agricultural cooperation. It has been reported, however, that Prime Minister Modi has remained silent on the topic of Kenya hiring Indian doctors, thought by many to be a strategy of replacement for Kenya’s …

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Health spending down after demonetisation; rural India bears the brunt

Spending on healthcare is down by 15% in the wake of demonetisation, reports the Times of India. This does not refer to government expenditure on healthcare – which amounts to just 1.2% of the country’s GDP in 2013, among the lowest levels of health spending in the world. It refers to out-of-pocket expenditures by India’s …

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Cashless health cover for millions in Uttar Pradesh

A thumbprint will soon be enough to get access to all kinds of public and private health services for more than a million people in India’s most populous state, Uttar Pradesh. The Times of India reported on the initiative, which is being rolled out by the State Authority for Comprehensive Health Insurance (SACHI). The programme …

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Police or paramedics?

Police in New Delhi are to be trained and given basic medical equipment in order to fulfill the role of paramedics. This is the latest in a long line of attempts to address the problems of India’s inadequate emergency medical service. It is already a common occurrence to find police in New Delhi ferrying people …

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2016: the year’s health news in retrospect

2016 in India saw earthquakes, terror attacks, fires, floods, elections, and civil unrest. Amidst the year’s headlines, there were a number of important health developments too. Were they, overall, positive or negative? India Live Today took a broadly positive slant, emphasising 2016 as “the year India became free of yaws and neonatal tetanus” – alluding …

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Health insurance on the rise, though rural areas still left behind

Fourteen times as many Indians had access to any kind of health insurance in 2015 compared to the number in 2004, according to a Brookings Foundation report. A fourteen-fold increase, amounting to 1500% is a considerable achievement over a 10 year period but the numbers represent an even bigger accomplishment. In 2004 only one percent …

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