-The Hindu Lax monitoring, poor public engagement and inadequate training to vaccinators have dealt a serious blow to the crucial pentavalent immunisation programme The Pentavalent vaccine, the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare's latest addition to the immunisation programme, has run into a storm. The Supreme Court has sent a notice to the Ministry asking why the vaccine should not be banned in the country. The vaccine is no stranger to controversy. A...

-The Business Standard Confusion over clinical trial compensation norms Even as the health ministry is evaluating a formula to compensate victims of clinical trials, an expert committee, headed by Ranjit Roy Chaudhury, has recommended some stringent measures that appear contrary to the formula under consideration. The committee, set up by the ministry to formulate policy and guidelines for clinical trials, has suggested that no compensation be given for therapeutic inefficiency during clinical trials...

-The Hindu The story today is a far cry from the 1960s, when we led the developing countries' fight against the disease Tuberculosis is very much in the news, but for all the wrong reasons - a shortage of drugs; increasing multi-drug and extensive drug resistance (MDR, XDR), making treatment both cumbersome and expensive; total drug resistance (TDR) as a veritable death warrant; popularly used serological tests for diagnosis being declared worse...

-PTI NEW DELHI: Admitting to increased stances of rejection of food consignments by EU in the last three years, government today said it is taking steps to ensure compliance with the European norms. To a question that whether reports about increase in notifications by the European Union against food exports from India due to presence of contaminants are correct, Minister of State for Commerce D Purandeswari said: "Yes". There have been an increase...

-Frontline The National Advisory Council recommendations seem to be making a strong case for a major role for the private sector in the delivery of health care. THE recommendations for universal health coverage drawn up by the National Advisory Council (NAC), headed by United Progressive Alliance (UPA) chairperson Sonia Gandhi, push for public-private partnerships (PPPs) in the health delivery system but not for any inbuilt mechanisms for accountability. The NAC also...