A special medical team from Delhi is scheduled to arrive in Gujarat in a day or two to study the cause of death of four children after they were given oral vaccines for measles in Adipur-Kutch on Wednesday. An official spokesman of the State government said Foods and Drugs Division officials had collected samples of the same vaccines from other major centres in the State including Ahmedabad, Surat, Vadodara, Rajkot and...

India faces the challenge of inappropriate use of antibiotics while Bharat copes with poor access to treatment, resulting in a policy conundrum and inaction. India was recently in the news for the wrong reasons. The serious threat posed by the newly discovered microbe, NDM-1 (New Delhi metallo--lactamase-1), resistant to many antibiotics, triggered alarm and panic. Predictions that the country will not meet the millennium development goal for child mortality caused dismay....

Save the Children, an NGO has called for greater investment in female health workers as essential to saving mothers' and children's lives. “Every year, close to two million children die before their fifth birthday, and around 67,000 women die annually from complications related to pregnancy and childbirth — but investment in women as community health workers can play a major role in dramatically reducing these figures,” said a statement issued by...

Young women are part of a campaign to bring much-needed social change and improve sanitation facilities If you don't have a toilet at home, you might not get a bride in India. In a silent revolution of sorts, Indian women across the country, especially in rural and semi-urban areas, have a single condition before they agree to a match – the groom must have a toilet in his home. The "No Toilet,...

The Rajasthan government on Sunday suspended a drug inspector and an employee of the government Umaid Hospital in Jodhpur, where 13 women have died of excessive bleeding during childbirth in the past two weeks. It announced an ex gratia of Rs.5 lakh each to the next of kin of the deceased, besides blacklisting two pharmaceutical and surgical equipment firms. The decisions were taken at a high-level meeting convened at Chief Minister Ashok...