-The Telegraph New Delhi: A medical panel has produced India's first-ever rule book to tackle widespread vitamin D deficiency that prescribes regular, possibly lifelong, doses to even healthy adults but warns that doctors may be over-testing and over-prescribing the drug. An expert group set by the Endocrine Society of India, an association of specialists, has prescribed vitamin D to healthy adults, adolescents, infants and all pregnant women after 12 weeks of gestation...

-The Hindu Forty years after being established with a mandate to generate data on the nutritional status of socially vulnerable groups, the National Nutrition Monitoring Bureau (NNMB) has been shut down by the Union Health Ministry. The bureau, under the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR), had been critical in informing the government’s poverty alleviation interventions with periodic assessments of nutrient deficiency among tribal communities, pregnant women, adolescents and “at-risk” elderly population...

-The Indian Express Decades of mismanagement have hobbled India’s mental health programme An event commemorating World Mental Health week opened at the WHO in Geneva this week. At a key session, the Disease Control Priorities project released its recommendations to governments to address the burden of mental disorders. This was timely for India, for few countries have witnessed so many high-profile debates related to mental health while ignoring the centrality of mental health...

-The Hindu Salem (Tamil Nadu): The successful functioning of the anganwadi centres being run under Integrated Child Development Scheme (ICDS) have helped over 3.18 lakh children to improve their healthcare in the district. Officials said that there are 2,696 anganwadi centres in all the 22 blocks in the district. Supplementary nutrition, immunisation, health check-up, referral services, pre-school non-formal education and nutrition and health education are rendered to adolescent girls in the age...

-Frontline A survey conducted by the Women and Child Development Ministry and UNICEF in 28 States and Delhi presents a dismal picture of crucial maternal and child health indicators. ONE OF the success stories that successive governments at the Centre have regularly narrated is the improvement in maternal and child health indicators, including coverage of various facilities and services that directly or indirectly affect the health and well-being of these cohort...