NDM-1, a result of large scale misuse of antibiotics, says dean A recent survey in the Sassoon Hospital here showed that 20 out of 3,172 patients were carrying the superbug, NDM-1 gene. Sixty-six per cent of the patients also showed multidrug resistance. While it is not a cause for immediate worry, experts say, the high level of resistance to drugs could mean that soon there will be no antibiotics which can...

All doctors, who have an undergraduate medical degree from abroad, will have to appear for a screening test before they can practise in India. This rule will also apply for Indian doctors with post-graduate (PG) medical degrees from the UK, the US, Canada, Australia, Ireland and New Zealand. doctors with an UG degree from India and a PG degree from these six countries have been allowed by the Union health ministry to...

Alarmed at the declining figures of female population in Maharashtra, as revealed by the provisional census of 2011, the state health department has launched a crackdown on clinics, which illegally perform sex determination tests. According to department officials, they will deploy 'Decoy Sting Operation Teams' at the district level. This team, which consists of khabris (informants), will track down clinics performing sex determination tests. Local health NGOs will also be...

It was quite a role reversal. Moments after my photojournalist colleague Sayantoni and I introduced ourselves to the chief medical officer of Jhajjar district in Haryana, he did what we as journalists normally do. Reel off a barrage of questions. The first question was new (not what one generally faces while covering renewable energy policy in Delhi), “Bhai-behen kitne hain? (How many sisters/brothers you have?)” and my quick answer was “koi...

Karnataka government will appoint a two-member expert committee to frame guidelines to regulate clinical drug trials and research projects in all government and private medical colleges and hospitals in the State. The trials and projects will remain suspended till the recommendations are made by the committee. "Until such time, all ongoing clinical drug trials and research projects have been temporarily suspended," Medical Education Minister S A Ramadass told reporters here today. He cited...