Describing female foeticide as a “disgrace” to society, President Pratibha Patil has called upon the medical fraternity to ensure that diagnostic tests are not misused for pre-natal gender determination. “We have laws and legal provisions that specially prohibit medical practitioners from disclosing the gender of the foetus. It is not only illegal, but it is socially immoral and detrimental to society. It is very important that all medical facilities, doctors and...

Twice every year, between 1981 and 2000, a helicopter would whirr around the hills of the Western Ghats in Kasargod, a district in north Kerala bordering Karnataka, spraying endosulfan over the cashew plantations on the upper reaches. Children would rush out to take a look at the helicopter and the white spray would settle like mist on their heads and on leaves and shimmer in the sunlight. But that’s also...

The country's most ambitious medical study to count the number of people with diabetes has found 44 lakh people with the condition in Maharashtra. The study's first phase also found another 69 lakh people with pre-diabetes living in the state. Roughly, Maharashtra has as many people with diabetes as Mumbai's population of 1.2 million during the 2001 census. India has been infamously called the world's diabetes capital on the basis of...

The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) today notified veterinary and border authorities in Asia of a major outbreak of foot-and-mouth DISEase in the Republic of Korea, urging them to be on the look-out for livestock showing signs of infection by the highly contagious animal DISEase. Foot-and-mouth DISEase (FMD) affects cloven-hoofed animals, including cattle, sheep, goats and pigs, causing high fever. It is characteristic by lesions in animals' mouths and...

More private practitioners being roped in for universal access Programme achieved success rate of over 87 per cent in 2010 India accounts for one-fifth of all global TB cases After achieving global benchmarks in case-detection and treatment success rate for the last three years, the Revised National Tuberculosis Control Programme (RNTCP) is being expanded by roping in more private practitioners for providing universal access to quality care. Disclosing this at a press conference here...