-The Times of India   It was the sheer need for a livelihood that Ram Lal joined his elder brother Hakla in working at an asbestos mine at Netaji Ki Bara in Udaipur as a 12-year-old kid. Now at 34 years, Ram Lal suffers from acute respiratory problems and has been loosing weight constantly not to mention that his body is a skeleton, literally. His elder brother Hakla died in March this...

India records the highest number of child pneumonia deaths globally, but is among the only four of the 15 countries with the highest child pneumonia death toll that is yet to introduce the newest generation of pneumoccal vaccines. A Pneumonia progress report, 2011, released by the International Access Vaccine Centre ( IVAC) and John Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health last week shows that India recorded 3.71 lakh child pneumonia deaths...

Even as the world welcomed the seven billionth member of the global population this week, medical researchers warned that rapid-growth economies such as India still had a high proportion of morbidity, with more than 290 million Indians suffering from Neglected Tropical Diseases (NTDs). In an article ‘A disproportionate burden of NTDs found in India and South Asia,' tropical diseases scientists said though India and South Asia had made significant economic progress,...

-The Hindu   When the World Health Organisation published its revised guidelines for malaria treatment in March 2010, just four years after it came out with its maiden version, an editorial in the British Medical Journal (BMJ) was quick to highlight its significance. It was a “testament of how quickly malaria control” had developed and a “marked reduction in the global burden of malaria” had been achieved. A WHO report now confirms...

Even as the number of crib deaths reported from the state-run Dr. B.C. Roy Postgraduate Institute of Paediatric Science since Tuesday has risen to 13 (with one baby dying on Thursday), the Health authorities said there were no instances of medical negligence. Those who died were all very vulnerable and it would have been nearly impossible to save them. No negligence or any other reason was found that might have led...