-The Indian Express The under-five mortality of the girl child is 2.5 per cent higher (40 deaths per 1,000 live births) than the under-five mortality of the boy child (39 deaths per 1,000 live births). New Delhi: In what is a major milestone in reduction of child deaths in India, the country’s under five mortality rate, for the first time, has been estimated at 39 deaths per 1,000 live births, the same...

-Frontline.in The Assembly elections have put under intense scrutiny Narendra Modi’s Gujarat model of development which is touted as worthy of replication throughout the country. Audit reports of the CAG provide ample evidence of it being inefficient, corrupt and not beneficial to the common people. THE standard indicators of development, as is understood in theory and practice, comprise a range of indices, and not necessarily the level of private investment in...

-Livemint.com The Gorakhpur tragedy must be seen against the larger backdrop of public health failure in Uttar Pradesh The recent tragedy of more than 85 children and newborns who died in Gorakhpur has, not for the first time, put the spotlight starkly on the country’s ailing public health system. The lack of all things important to human settlements—sanitation, disease surveillance, primary healthcare, tertiary hospitals, resources, life-saving equipment, political will and public health...

-The Times of India MUMBAI: For every 100 hospitalised pediatric patients across India who may need a common antibiotic called ampicillin to fight infections, chances are it won't help 95 of them. In 75% of hospitalised children, especially those younger than one month old, another common antibiotic, gentamycin, may not work. The reason, according a recent study by pediatricians of Apollo Hospital in Navi Mumbai, is that antibiotic resistance has risen to...

-The Indian Express Indian healthcare providers need to get serious about infection control. A deadly strain of bacterium has doubled its resistance to last-resort antibiotics within a year, according to the report “State of the World’s Antibiotics, 2015”. By an estimate, antimicrobial resistance — the ability of bugs to outwit antibiotics — will claim two million lives in India by 2050, a fifth of the total. India is under pressure to curb...