-The Telegraph New Delhi: The prevalence of low body weight, stunting and wasting is "significantly higher" among children from the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes, according to a government survey that nutrition experts say underscores challenges that demand solutions beyond just the availability of more food. The survey, carried out this year, has documented 39 per cent stunting (impaired growth with possible long-term impacts) among boys below five years from Dalit households...

-PTI Ahmedabad: The state government today told the Gujarat High Court that there was a shortage of specialist doctors at community health centres as they were generally unwilling to work in rural areas and small towns. In an affidavit filed in response to a PIL seeking the courts direction to the state to provide better diagnosis and treatment facilities to control vector-borne diseases, the government said that it was fully equipped to...

-The Times of India NEW DELHI: It's dengue season, but the city is in the grip of swine flu and chikungunya as well. Where 2016 saw fewer than 200 cases of swine flu, the count is already nearing 2,000 this year. The viral disease has killed at least five people while a 12-year-old died of dengue in south Delhi's Humayunpur last week. Those are only the official figures - five top hospitals...

-The Indian Express   Niti Aayog proposal for privatising public hospitals is ill-designed, driven by ideology more than welfare The corporate hospitals have been resting their gaze on public hospitals for long: Land, doctors and patients. Finally, in the Niti Aayog, they have found a sympathetic collaborator. As per media reports, the Aayog is all set to push states to privatise well functioning district hospitals in the Tier 2 and 3...

-The Telegraph New Delhi: An industry body and medical experts have decried a government proposal to replace gelatin with cellulose to encapsulate drugs, calling it an impractical idea that needlessly injects the vegetarian-non-vegetarian debate into medicines. The Punjab Haryana Delhi (PHD) Chamber of Commerce and Industry today said gelatin had been used for over a century and made up 95 per cent of capsule formulations worldwide, and cautioned that the proposal to...