-Down to Earth People in low-, middle-income countries often have to pay out of their pocket and seek care elsewhere Funding in primary healthcare systems in low- and middle-income countries is insufficient and access to it inequitable, a new study has reiterated. Patients often have to pay for the services out of their pocket, the report published in the journal The Lancet Global Health April 4, 2022 noted, adding that these systems have...

-Livemint.com A new paper suggests the second covid-19 wave had a more fatal impact on Chennai’s poorer neighbourhoods than richer ones Poorer communities saw far more excess deaths during the pandemic than richer neighbourhoods, evidence from a new Chennai-based study shows. Taken with data from other parts of the country, the findings suggest that India’s poor, particularly the elderly, may have disproportionately borne the burden of the pandemic’s fatal impact. In a study...

The increase in the total number of suicides committed in India during 2020 in comparison to the previous years has hit the headlines recently. While some media commentators have stated that the economic distress (caused by job loss, income loss, failure of business, and growing hunger, among other things) in 2020 could have led to more suicides being committed, others have said that home isolation and deteriorating mental health (associated...

-The Hindu The ‘Lancet Countdown on Health and Climate Change’ notes that 295 billion hours of potential work were lost across the globe in 2020 due to heat exposure. India has become 15% more vulnerable to extremes of heat than in 1990, according to ‘the Lancet Countdown on Health and Climate Change’, a flagship report of the medical journal The Lancet that provides periodic updates on the scientific literature on the relationship...

-TheCitizen.in At least 25,000 children lost their mother to covid in the past year An estimated 1.5 million children in 21 countries, including 119,000 in India, suffered the death of their primary or secondary caregiver between April 2020 and March 2021, according to a recent study. Published in the Lancet medical journal, the study titled ‘Global minimum estimates of children affected by COVID-19’ estimates that 25,500 children in India lost their mother to...