India seems to have arrived at the threshold of polio eradication, but should it lower its guard? ON January 13, India achieved what had only two years ago seemed impossible in the immediate term. The country, which, given the epidemiological data in the new millennium, had come to be regarded by health experts around the world as one that would be the last to achieve freedom from polio (poliomyelitis), recorded no...

-CNN-IBN Five more infants died at Malda Sadar Hospital on Friday, taking the death toll in one week to 37. "37 infants have died since the last seven days. Three infants and two children have died in the last 24 hours," reports said. Most of the children have died after they were referred from rural hospitals in critical state, the hospital said. The Babies, who were born underweight and suffered from broncho pneumonia, were...

-The Economic Times The National Rural Health Mission (NRHM) was started in 2005 by the first UPA government. It has had some positive results: after 15 years of stagnation , over 1,00,000 new healthcare professionals have been inducted and more and more village women are admitted to institutions to deliver Babies.  But in India's largest state, Uttar Pradesh, the NRHM is at the centre of a massive corruption racket. Three senior medical...

A surprise visit to Malda district hospital turned out to be a shock for child and women welfare minister Sabitri Mitra on Sunday. "Only God can help us," she cried, after seeing two Babies die before her eyes. Mitra spent nearly an hour at the hospital shooing cats from the maternity ward and trying to make sense of the chaos. The beds - and floors - were overflowing with patients. There...

-The Telegraph The Canadian Medical Association Journal has sought a ban on the disclosure of foetal sex until after 30 weeks of pregnancy amid concerns that sections of Asian immigrants, including Indians, in Canada selectively abort female foetuses. The journal said the sex of a foetus need not be revealed to any woman before 30 weeks because such information was medically irrelevant and could, in some instances, facilitate female foeticide. Postponing the disclosure...