-The Hindu Chennai: Out of 1,550 persons screened for diabetes in a few rural pockets in the city's western suburbs, 78 persons (5 per cent) were detected with diabetes, 191 (12.3 per cent) with high blood pressure and 202 (13 per cent) with high cholesterol levels. Among the 78 diabetics - 36 men and 42 women - eight were aged between 20 and 30. Persons in the age group of 20 to 82...

-The Indian Express Raipur: A nationwide health survey in jails has found 80 of Chhattisgarh’s prisoners HIV-positive, out of 13,000-odd tested. Prison authorities insist that the inmates had probably arrived already infected, but health authorities don’t rule out the possibility that it was after being jailed that they got infected, with unsafe sex or drug use the likely causes. This has turned into a contentious issue. The health authorities are contemplating distribution...

75% of the youth. Every third student. 65% of all families in Punjab are in the throes of a sweeping drug addiction. With little or no hope in sight. THE RAILWAY barrier in Angarh, a locality in the border city of Amritsar in Punjab signals the end of too many things. The rule of law. The reign of sense. The fear of crime. The signs of normality. Even the divisions of...

A large and costly AIDS prevention program that the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation pioneered in India eight years ago has had mixed results, according to a preliminary analysis published on Monday in The Lancet. The foundation spent $258 million on the program from 2003 to 2008. It has since put in $80 million more, but is shifting responsibility to the Indian government. The program, called Avahan, focuses on high-risk groups, like...

Medicine heals, but this fact doesn`t hold true for every 300th patient admitted to hospital. Call it the law of averages or blame human error for it, but the World Health Organization believes that one in 10 hospital admissions leads to an adverse event and one in 300 admissions in death. An adverse event could range from the patient having to spend an extra day in hospital or missing a dose...