Nearly 60 per cent of tuberculosis medication dose strengths sold in India through prescriptions of private practitioners do not conform with standard TB treatment guidelines, a study has revealed. The findings corroborate suggestions made by some Indian doctors — several times over the past two decades — that a majority of private practitioners do not write correct prescriptions for treating TB. The government’s TB control programme provides free TB treatment to more...

As joint owners of the national response to HIV/AIDS, civil society groups have called upon the government to take proactive steps to meaningfully involve civil society in all aspects of conceptualisation, design, planning and implementation of National AIDS Control Programme-IV. They also want the National AIDS Control Organisation (NACO) to put in place transparent mechanisms to inform civil society of the process in the run-up to the planning and development...

The outcome of Stockholm Convention to ban endosulfan capping a long-drawn campaign against the pesticide on health grounds may have brought cheers to the opponents but the domestic industry is crying foul suspecting an European link aiming to capture the Indian market. India and a few other developing countries extracted several exemptions, including a phase out period of 11 years to ban production and use of the toxic pesticide at the...

As the stage is set for the crucial meeting of the Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants (POP), a global regime to protect human health and the environment from dangerous chemicals, to be held in Geneva from April 25, a showdown between the Centre and Kerala has been underway. In the meeting with an all-party delegation from Kerala, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has reiterated the position taken by Union ministers...

Tuberculosis continues to be a major health problem in India. But the unveiling of a new test to diagnose TB and drug resistance on World Tuberculosis Day (March 24) brings some hope into a bleak scenario. Last Thursday, on World Tuberculosis Day, for the first time since the 1880s there was probably some justifiable cause for jubilation. After centuries of grappling with sputum smear microscopy, developed way back in the 1880s,...