-PTI A team of doctors deputed by the union ministry of health and family welfare has come up with a blueprint to curb TB cases in Mumbai, a top municipal official in Mumbai said. "The pilot project will be adopted across the country after it succeeds in Mumbai," additional municipal commissioner Manisha Mhaiskar said. The project, to be carried out under Revised National Tuberculosis Control Programme, would be integrated with the basic public health...

Almost a year after the Supreme Court legalised passive euthanasia (mercy killing), allowing withdrawal of life support for Patients living in a permanent vegetative condition, the government has decided to stay out of the issue and not make any law on the subject. The Supreme Court in its March 7 judgment last year had specified guidelines for high courts to follow before giving a final go-ahead for withdrawal of life-sustaining drugs...

Millions of Indians are suspected to be carriers of the drug-resistant bug After the scary New Delhi metallo-beta-lactamase-1 or the “superbug” was detected two years ago, the world is now faced with the community-acquired methicillin-resistant staphylococcus aureus (ca-MRSA) bacterium that is resistant to almost all common antibiotics. In India, where poor hygiene and the availability of over-the-counter antibiotics lead to development of resistance, an estimated 100 to 200 million people are reportedly...

Health ministry deputes team to Mumbai; says neither WHO nor tuberculosis control programme recognise TDR-TB The Union ministry of health has denied the presence of totally drug resistant tuberculosis (TDR-TB) reported in Mumbai. Researchers at the Hinduja Hospital in Mumbai documented the presence of this strain of TB in India for the first time in the December 21, 2011 edition of the journal, Clinical Infectious Diseases. Patients suffering from it are...

Questionable drug trials on mentally challenged persons by doctors in Indore emphasise the need for strict enforcement of medical ethics. IN what appears to be a page out of Robin Cook's medical thriller, government and private doctors in Indore, Madhya Pradesh, reportedly carried out clinical trials of various medicines on some 233 Patients who had gone to them seeking psychiatric treatment. As in Cook's famous book Coma, in which a medical...