Featured

Non-communicable diseases (NCDs) as termed as ‘silent killers’ and are rising gradually and affecting the country’s productivity. According to experts from the field, an effective public-private partnership can tackle the problem. ‘NCDs are silent killers and have become a global health emergency. Eight out of 10 Indians are suffering from NCDs in urban areas and …

National NCD Summit on Strengthening Policies for Diabetes Care Read More »

According to FOGSI, 56 per cent of the adolescent girls in today’s India are anaemic and 24.4 per cent of the women are obese .It recently announced its long term programme -Vision 2022, focusing on women’s health issues. According to Dr Hema Divakar, president, FOGSI, “Bringing women from pale to pink is the aim of …

FOGSI’s launches its new programme ‘Vision 2022’ with a focus on women health issues Read More »

According to Dainik Bhaskar, the Government of India has decided to introduce pentavalent vaccines nationwide. This just might mark the beginning of the end of one of the oddest sagas in Indian public health. The five-in-one vaccine (which adds protection against hepatitis B and Hib pneumonia to the standard DTP vaccines) is used around the …

Pentavalent vaccines to go nationwide, finally Read More »

At first, the Indian media gave generics giant, Ranbaxy an easy ride when it had to pay over $500M to US authorities over fraud and adulteration allegations (see our commentary here and our follow up piece here). Now the meda pack are in full pursui. Today’s Hindustan Times reports Apollo, India’s largest retail pharmacy chain, has …

Indian media pack goes after Ranbaxy Read More »

A front page story in Canada’s biggest newspaper, The Globe and Mail revisits the great debate over sterilisation in India. The Globe & Mail relies heavily on activists who are highly critical of government policy. One, for example, says  ““The construction of the population problem is a middle-class creation … and it has caste and …

Is India’s population policy coercive and abusive? Read More »

A year-and-a-half-long experiment with universal unconditional cash transfers by SEWA and UNICEF in 22 Madhya Pradesh villages has shown that the poor do use cash for better schooling, health and food.  Cash transfer schemes can work accoding to this study. Renana Jhabvala, president of SEWA Bharat, and Guy Standing, professor at the School of Oriental and …

Do cash transfer schemes work? Study by SEWA and UNICEF shows they do Read More »

Tata Memorial Centre (TMC), a premier cancer treatment institute in the country recently announced that its researchers have found an inexpensive way to screen for cervical cancer and this can prevent 72,600 deaths worldwide each year. The procedure, involving use of vinegar, curbed the deaths caused by the cancer by 31 percent in a group …

Indian doctors develop low-cost screening for cervical cancer Read More »

Many see India — with its innovation, medical industries and democracy — as a future powerful advocate for global health causes in inter-governmental forums. A fascinating piece in the current edition of the respected US journal, Foreign Affairs (the summary is here http://fam.ag/10MY53A but you need a subscription to read the whole thing). The author thinks …

India’s foreign policy too feeble to help global health? Read More »

A candidate drug, which acts in a novel way, has shown promising results in the laboratory against advanced prostate cancer that was insensitive to reduced levels of male sex hormones, according to a paper published in Nature Communications journal. Prostate cancers initially tend to be sensitive to male sex hormones, known as androgens. Treatment to …

Novel drug against advanced prostate cancer Read More »

According to an article in the Times of India, about half the women and a fifth of the men in India are suffering from several types of blood disorders. Senior haematologist, Dr. MB Agarwal was in Delhi for a public forum organised by the city branch of Indian Academy of Paediatrics and the Thalassaemia Society …

50% women and 20% men in India have blood disorders Read More »