The state government has sought technical advice and assistance on its proposed plan to carry out mass vaccination ahead of monsoon next year in Gaya and adjoining districts to stop outbreak of Japanese encephalitis and acute encephalitis syndrome. Sanjay Kumar, the secretary of the state health department, said the state was keen on going for a mass immunisation and regular immunisation for Japanese encephalitis as a preventive measure next year. “We...

The pill that you pop when down with fever or the syrup you gulp for relief from cough are not cure for sure. They can be counterfeit drugs made in some substandard medicine-manufacturing centres as the one sealed in the city today. Operating from a two-storeyed building in the Rajiv Nagar area, the sealed unit was allegedly involved in making counterfeit drugs. The batch numbers of several medicines seized from the...

On August 26, Japanese Prime Minister Naoto Kan resigned, taking responsibility for the disastrous meltdown of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, which was caused by the March 2011 undersea earthquake and ensuing tsunami.  In India, on the other hand, the deliberate contamination of a drinking water tank with radioactive waste in the Kaiga nuclear power plant in Western Ghats in the state of Karnataka has gone unpunished for two whole...

CHANDRAWAL, India—Satbir Sharma's wife is dead. His family lives in fear. His father's left leg is shattered, leaving him on crutches for life.   Sharma's only hope lies in a new law that gives him the right to know what is happening in the investigation of his wife's death. Most of all, he wants to know what will happen to the village mayor, now in jail on murder charges. He talks quietly, under...

A high-level team of doctors and scientists today visited the paediatrics ward of Anugrah Narayan Medical College and Hospital (ANMCH) in Gaya and scanned the case records of children suspected to be suffering from Japanese and acute encephalitis. Its members also inspected the treatment methods on the concluding day of their three-day investigation. The team of members from Delhi, Pune and Patna was in Gaya to carry out on-the-spot study of...