The number of people dying from malaria in India has been hugely underestimated, according to new research. The data, published in the Lancet, suggests there are 13 times more malaria deaths in India than the World Health Organization (WHO) estimates. The authors conclude that more than 200,000 deaths per year are caused by malaria. The WHO said the estimate produced by this study appears too high. The research was funded by the US National...

Use of verbal autopsy may result in many false positives: WHO Malaria has symptoms similar to many other diseases It cannot be correctly identified by local population Expressing serious doubts over the high estimates of 200,000 malaria deaths in India as reported in the latest edition of The Lancet, the World Health Organisation (WHO) on Thursday questioned the methodology adopted by the authors of the study. The Lancet uses verbal autopsy method which is...

Union health minister Ghulam Nabi Azad called for a "jihad" against tobacco use after a report released on Tuesday identified India as the world's second largest consumer of tobacco. An estimated 274.9 million Indians consume tobacco, the first Global Adult Tobacco Survey said. Nearly 0.9 million tobacco-related deaths occur in India annually as compared to 5.5 million world wide. India is also the world's third largest producer of tobacco, the report added. "A...

The Millennium Development declaration was a visionary document, which sought partnership between rich and poor nations to make globalisation a force for good. Its signatories agreed to explicit goals on a specific timeline. The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) set ambitious targets for reducing hunger, poverty, infant and maternal mortality, for reversing the spread of AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria and giving children basic education by 2015. These also included gender equality,...

Two "neglected diseases" -- dengue and cysticercosis -- are costing India nearly $45 million between them every year. According to WHO, around 1 billion of the world's poorest people suffer from such neglected tropical diseases, mostly in urban slums. The global health watchdog said in its latest report the societal monetary cost of cysticercosis -- an infectious disease caused by the pork tapeworm Taenia solium -- is estimated to be $15.27...