India will henceforth treat even a single case of polio anywhere in the country as a public health emergency requiring unprecedented rapid response, the health ministry announced today after the longest polio-free period in the country. Health authorities have so far detected a single patient with paralysis caused by the wild polio virus this year ---- from Howrah in Bengal on January 13 ----- according to the latest counts from the...

-BBC   There has been a fall of nearly 40% in the number of deaths from malaria worldwide in the past decade, the World Health Organization says. A new report said that one-third of the 108 countries where malaria was endemic were on course to eradicate the disease within 10 years. Experts said if targets continued to be met, a further three million lives could be saved by 2015. Malaria has been eradicated from three...

The government's new guidelines for cybercafes will deepen the digital divide while doing nothing to curb terrorism. Following last month's tragic bomb blast at the Delhi High Court, in which over 13 people were killed, police traced an email from the ‘Harkat-ul-Jihad' claiming responsibility for the attack to a cybercafe in Kishtwar, Jammu and Kashmir, and arrested three people, including the owner. In fact, many recent terrorist attacks have been linked to...

There are fears that curative health care will be left to the private sector, while the public system will handle preventive and low-quality care. AN issue of The Lancet earlier this year highlighted some of the problems with public health in India, acknowledging that “it is in crisis”. The robust economic growth over the past 20 years has not translated into better health indices; indeed the decline of infant and child...

The West Bengal government confirmed cases of avian flu in two villages under the Tehatta 1 block of the State's Nadia district on Tuesday and ordered the culling of all poultry birds within a radius of 3 km of the villages. The government has also ordered the immediate destruction of eggs and feed material within the affected radius to control the spread of the disease. According to a senior official of the...