Medical facilities have collapsed as encephalitis epidemic continues to rage Even as the rest of India recovers from Deepavali celebrations, residents of Poorvanchal have been marking a grim time that descends on the eastern Uttar Pradesh region each year: a time local people call the season of death. Ever since July, 470 people, mostly children, have died of viral encephalitis and its biological cousin, Japanese encephalitis — the first caused by a...

The virus that causes Crimean-Congo haemorrhagic fever (CCHF) is slow moving and will not spread across the country as fast as the H1N1 swine flu virus, experts have said. However, the mortality rate among those affected by Congo virus will be far more than H1N1. In an exclusive interview to TOI, Dr A C Mishra, director of the National Institute of Virology, Pune, said different viruses have different characteristics. Influenza viruses...

Adjuvants with severe physiological side effect have been administered to hundreds of children during vaccine trials conducted at a government hospital in Indore over the last few years, and that too without the approved Standard Operating Procedure (SOP). The trials conducted on at least 836 children at the Chacha Nehru Bal Chikitsalaya, the paediatric division of the Maharaja Yashwantrao Hospital, were spiked with adjuvants that contain high levels of mercury, aluminium,...

As the country grapples with a “mixed burden” of diseases that beset the developing as well as developed countries, Union Health and Family Welfare Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad on Monday said adequate research was needed to deal with the challenge of non-communicable and re-emerging diseases. Addressing the centenary celebrations of the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) here, Mr. Azad said as the country moved from a developing nation to the...

Atleast 35 people, mostly adults, have died of various infections, including swine flu, at Warud in Amravati district in a month, with seven deaths occurring in the past 24 hours. The town, which is famous for its orange cultivation, is around 100 km from Nagpur. Health officials blamed the high casualty number on a recent policy change. The government centralised purchase of medicines for public hospitals earlier this year citing corruption...