A new vaccine against the polio virus has helped reduce the number of cases by more than 90%. Research published online in the journal The Lancet, shows that the new vaccine is significantly better at protecting children against polio than the current popular vaccine. It has already been used in Afghanistan, India and Nigeria. The scientists behind the work believe this new vaccine could help to finally eradicate the disease. Disease elimination Mass vaccination campaigns...

Back in May 2010, sixty Dalits, who had worked their entire lives as manual scavengers, burned the baskets they used for collecting human excreta outside the District Collector's office here. They had just been employed as sweepers by the local administration under a rehabilitation scheme. Five months later, all of them are without work, having been suspended, astonishingly, for not working hard enough. “It took us a lot of courage to...

The sixth meeting of the National Advisory Council, chaired by Congress president Sonia Gandhi, Saturday finalised its recommendations to address the problems of hunger and malnutrition in the country. Some of the important recommendations: - Legal entitlements to subsidised foodgrains should be extended to 90 percent rural population and 50 percent urban population. - The priority households should have a monthly entitlement of 35 kg at a subsidised price of Re.1 per kg...

Malaria kills around 205,000 people in India each year, more than 13 times the estimate made by the World Health Organization, researchers said on Thursday. WHO, the public health arm of the UN, estimates that approximately 15,000 people a year die from malaria in India, and 100,000 adults worldwide. The researchers called for both figures to be urgently revised so they do not hurt funding for prevention, rapid diagnosis and treatment. “If you...

The state government is all set to introduce a scheme to check the problem of iodine deficiency among pregnant women. This deficiency is known to cause grave consequences to newborns, ranging from mental retardation, brain damage to lower IQ. Under the new scheme, expected to roll out by January next, free iodised salt will be distributed to pregnant women. Iodine is a vital micronutrient, and is consumed mostly through salt....